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I know that there are "student" tops where you don't have to make a big financial investment to learn how to do all those steps. I also know that there are "practice" wood to learn how to bend wood. Is there something like this for doing binding/purfling? If not, there should be!

This is my least enjoyable and most stressful part of the build. Purfling is especially maddening. I'm about to route off binding because the purfling came out awful. I would LOVE to be able to practice somehow without the risk of having to toss a guitar body into the fire pit. I have a couple of ideas ...

1: I have to admit that I've been tempted to buy a uke kit. My nightmare is that I'd have a house full of ukuleles though! I imagine that there are tons of stores like that on Etsy too LOL!

2: Steemac offers "finished body" kits that are slightly more expensive but the concept is the same: somebody else has already done all the "fun" work of building the body and passed it along so that the heartache of botching binding is minimized. Again, where else but on Etsy of church sales can you "unload" them?

3: practicing on plywood. I went this route when doing a radial rosette but learned very little about tear out.

4: practicing on a "student top." Again, this was part of my learning process for rosettes and would probably only apply to doing purfling channels using a tool meant for violins. At least it would allow me to think about "cliimbing cuts" and risk of tearout but that lack of a side to use as a reference would be limited to the thickness of the top plate.

Do any of you have any other resources or ideas?

Good question. The only way I know of is to do it and screw it until I figure out how to do it and not screw it up.

I can identify two of my typical issues:
1. I don't get the joint tight for the full length of the binding, even though I look carefully as I''m gluing it and it sure looks as though THIS time I have no gaps....
2. I didn't get the channels fully cleaned out, even though I checked and it sure looked as though I had a nice square corner all the way along.

One can build a uke (or two, or three) to work on getting it right. But, as you note, who wants 7 ukeleles?
Binding and purfling, while generally not terribly expensive, is not free, and some of the nicer stuff (eg Purflex, Zipflex) are not things want to waste.

I think one just does it , in real situations, until one figures it out.

I used pieces of scrap wood to practice cutting the channels and fitting the binding. Nothing fancy, just stuff I had sitting around, like pieces of 1x2 and 2x4. Once you get comfortable using whatever system you've chosen, you're ready for the box.

Realize that even if you own a binder, and you cut your channels, they won't be exact. Expect to spend time cleaning the channels and fitting. Every inch or two, fit a piece of your binding and purfling, to see how it fits. I use a 2" piece of each to do this.

What kind of tape do you use? 3M 233+ green tape is stretchy with spring back. Tape extremely tight, stretching the tape as much as possible. I do both the purfling and binding at the same time now. In the beginning, I did the purfling first, then binding. Both ways work. But, I've found that while installing the binding and purfling at the same time is a little more complicated, the binding helps hold the purfling in place.

But, like I said, I used scrap wood to practice using the router with jig. Remember that your binding and purfling should be a tiny bit deeper than your box, just a tiny bit.

I’m only in the middle of my first guitar, but, for what it’s worth, here’s what I did.

I took warped piece of scrap and cut a rough guitar profile on the band saw. I wanted it warped so I could see if my router jig would handle the curvature and move up and down while going around. I wanted the guitar profile to learn how to avoid tear out issues.

I was very nervous about using the router jig on the guitar box for the first time, but this gave me some confidence to proceed.

the best advice is
A set up cuts
B check alignment so your bit is parallel to the sides
C set everything up so you sand the sides to the binding.

Learning how to tape it in as you glues is also a technique

wood binding needs the inside corner sanded off a bit . I do not use super glue for binding
pay close attention to the bearings and how they ride. The back is the most difficult part
the carriage is important to allow body adjustment for bit position.

Then on top of this is know when to climb cut and when to rout. I like to rout cut as much as possible
I only climb cut the upper and lower bout areas so I have about 1 in wide wood supporting the end grain then rout i off. The problem with climb cutting is when you get to the point the cutter is cutting perpendicular to the grain , this can cause compressing fracture. Every I learned I learned from my mistake or someone else's so feel proud to share what you learn. Stay well