Official Luthiers Forum!

So I'm in the process of building a binding jig for my router based on Chris Paulick's youtube video. (if you haven't seen it, it's awesome. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ve_PmQMSnQQ)

I've found some rebate cutters and bearings from a company called Wealden. They seem to have good reviews.

The sizes of their bearing rebates go up in increments of 0.5mm (1,1.5,2,2.5 etc) whereas the StuMac bearings seem to add about 0.2mm for swelling/glue line from what I understand.

My question is this: Can you glue a 2mm thick binding in to a 2mm wide channel for example? Or would one need to sand the binding down to allow for swelling? I'm assuming once bindings are scraped/sanded flush and rounded over it would be fine. But I also assume the guys at StuMac have thought this through more than I have..

I hope this makes sense to someone, what are your thoughts?

Will

Seems like to me that would work fine. If 2mm binding swelled in a 2mm channel, it would be slightly proud, which in my opinion is what you would want, anyway. That way you can scrape them flush.
But I read somewhere (I forget where) the binding glues like weld-on initially swell, but then shrink back. Since I make sure all of my bindings are slightly proud anyway, I've never measured that to see. I just wait a couple of days, pull the tape and scrape.

_________________
Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

William, I have the cutter and bearings from Wealden and they are very good indeed. I just run masking tape around the body and use the next size up from my binding, not ideal but it works

Thanks Derek, which sizes did you go for? Luthier suppliers seem to sell them in sets from 0.5mm up to about 6mm rebate width, but can't really imagine needing that many sizes for standard binding and purflings. Even if I make my own, they'll probably be standard sizes. Am I missing something?

If you have a lathe or access to one you can easily make any size bearing you need. Sleeve a small bearing with corian or any easily machinable material.

William, I got the 0.5mm for trimming the top and back before flattening the sides and a selection of others up to 4mm. I have mostly used binding of around 2.2mm and purfling of 1.6mm. Therefore I use a 4mm and a 2.5mm bearing and tape the sides - has worked so far and I would tape the sides anyway to prevent marking them. I bought this cutter - http://www.wealdentool.com/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Small_Series_212.html