Official Luthiers Forum!

I made this little gizmo awhile back, and figured it was about time I post a pic or two to explain it. It's pretty straight-forward. I made this specifically for routing the binding ledge on headstocks.

Two 1/4" pins insert into the router table baseplate, and one pin centers over the spiral bit.


There are actually 3 of these that I've made - identical except for the pin sizes - 1/8", 3/16", 1/4".


I have four different spiral cutters - 1/4", 5/16", 3/8", and 1/2".
This one was done with the 1/8" pin and the 3/8" bit.


It's easy to make, and can make this task very easy.

Don

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Nice looking setup, Don. Looks like it works great. That will certianly be a unique banjo head
One question: What holds the pin in place?
BruceH

Bruce,
I thought if I need to use this neck on a guitar, I could always buy some small clamps and clamp on a couple extra tuners.

The pins are held in place by pure friction. I drill a hole in baltic birch via my drill press, and there's no slop. Then I have to hammer a pin of the same size in there. It stays put with no problems. Very tight.

Don Williams38424.3373726852

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

That's a very nice setup Don. I really like things that are done simply. I noticed that a lot of Charles Fox' jigs were designed the same way. Very simple, but also very accurate.

I tend to overthink things, can you tell.

I'm trying to learn to do things the simplest way.

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

That's just the way my simple brain works I guess

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Congrats Don, nice work. How does it work? Is this simply giving a guide to rub against, set at a certain depth? Nice setup.

One more pic when you get the binding on the headstock, please.

Don,

Very nice. Beautiful looking neck and headstock. I agree with Bruce, some more pictures would be great!

Jeff

Don...This is great! It may be simple to you but it just served as a significant lesson to my continuing education in the use of my router table. Thanks so much for sharing!

Just a few clarifying questions:
1) The pin center always centers on the bit center?
2) The different pin/bit combinations define the width of the ledge?
3) The depth of the ledge is controlled by the bit height.
4) I think I got it! Now all I need to do is lay it all out accurately...no casual task for me.

Lance...this is worthy of inclusion in the Jigs section. That way I can refer to it if I ever get back to the shop.

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

JJ....you got it exactly. The first thing I did was drill the locator pin holes using the baseplate holes as a drill guitd. With the wood blocks containing the 1/4" pins to mate with the 1/4" holes in the baseplate, I mounted the blocks onto the baselplate. I used a 1/4" bit in the router to locate the hole for the 1/4" pin, a 3/16" bit to locate the hole for the 3/16" pin, and an 1/8" bit to locate the 1/8" pin hole. This way, the router creates the concentricity of the pins with the bits. The pins are always centered on the bits.Don Williams38424.8063657407

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Thanks Don. Your followup instructions just made it a much more casual task for me! This forum is sooooo cool!

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

That's pretty cool Don, I wonder if that could somehow be used to route a slot head

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.