Hand Held Router Jig for Binding Channels

[tippie53]

In 24 years of this as I stated above each unit has its strength and it weakness,
Tom Ribbeke I think designed the first practical tower jig , Today you will see many style of this
some simple some very complicated.
My favorite is the Fleishman / Williams jig , this is a modified unit where the router is mounted with a parallel mount and extends on an arm. The strength in this is that you can control more variables and when the carriage came along that made it more useful in that you can now work the body without the radius and tilt affecting the cutters angle so your routs are more even with the sides.
you still have to make some adjustment cuts because of the radius on the back. That is the big variable on every binding jig I used. You still need to do a 2nd cut on the upper bouts to make the binding even along the side.

If you can get to withing a .010 to .015 tolerance on any bindng machine your golden. Martin uses cutters for each of the binding schemes and even they need to do a 2nd cut for that area as it fades because of the tape and radius,

So find the technique and tools that work the best for you. If we could train termites just think how good we could be
stay well all

[Stray Feathers]

John, I am not clear on what are you doing with a second cut. I use a Fleishmann-type jig, and sometimes I have to re-rout part of a channel to make a smooth transition to a previous cut - but I do not make any adjustments to the router. This re-routing may be because I also sometimes have to change the position of the guitar in the cradle to keep the sides plumb. If this is covered in one of your videos can you provide a link? Bruce W.

[tippie53]

you may not need to adjust the router but the cradle
the top is easy on the back some guitars need more attention than others depending on radius and taper used.
the donut is set to compensate for this but some designs may take a bit more attention than others. You can see it on the binding if it looks pinched off near the neck

[JLT]

Don't have much to add to this discussion, except that I built a Jig like the one described at the beginning of this thread. It's worked well for bindings, but I wanted to put purfling it on a ready-built body violin. I tested a dummy body and was so dissatisfied with my results that I decided to leave the body unpurfled (if that's a real word). I decided that the very weight of it was making it hard to control.

[Slowpicker]

I recently made one of these as well, using some ideas from Bagdonovich and Bill Cory. It worked, but not perfectly, and it was terrifying. Tipping it in towards the top or back is a real risk. One improvement would be to cut the center section of the long guide out so that only two points contact the side. And make sure the lower point always touches. This will help avoid tip-in.

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[Diane Kauffmds]

Wow. Going sideways with the router would absolutely terrify me in so many ways. Now, that's an idea that would never have crossed my mind.

[BEJ]

Double Wow, just goes to show there is more than one way to skin a cat. I think I'll stick with my rig for now.

After reading all the posts on this thread seems like everyone has to find out what works for them. It's too bad in discovering this sometimes leads to some real screw ups/damaged goods, just goes with the quest.

Bruce,

[tippie53]

remember the words of Henry Ford
A failure is an opportunity to start over with better information

[Diane Kauffmds]

remember the words of Henry Ford
A failure is an opportunity to start over with better information

Absolutely. But, I'd rather start over with my hand and fingers intact! Haha

[tippie53]

not good having to put a thumb in an ice bag