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My problem was I wanted to make perfling strips from different kinds of wood and the supply stores only sell black and white. The other issue is I don't like the quality of what they offer.

I started searching how to make my own and found a few different ideas but they all seemed over complex. So I came up with this very simple solution using only some scrap nylon and a scraper blade.

The idea is to create a consistent thickness of .020 on 3/4 inch strips I sliced on my bandsaw. The 3/4 inch strips are then sliced into 1/4 inch strips with a straight edge and an X-acto blade to be used for perfling (I don't show that part because that is pretty self explanatory)

The trick to making it work correctly is to get an even radius on the scraper side of the nylon. I took into account the angle of the scraper when it is cutting so I carefully sanded the edges with the scraper installed making sure I had a consistent radius.

I left the back of them thicker so I could use them as the pressure point for holding the scraper. By placing them just a little wider than the strips it keeps the scraper blade from flexing making sure I get an even thickness. A little blue tape holds them in place.

The following pictures show how simple it is and you can make multiple ones for different thickness of perflings.

The only thing I do differently is scrape towards me as shown in the picture (but I do use 2 hands). That way I can see exactly what I am cutting as the blade is drawn toward me.

Enjoy,

Bob

Nice!

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Ken

This would be good for splints also, thanks for sharing.

That's a great idea! I made something once for the same purpose, with a plane blade held vertically, like a guillotine, but instead of a head you passed the veneers under it, setting the thickness with feeler gauges. As a bonus, you could set it at an angle which was useful for doing mosaic rosettes, thicknessing each column of the mosaic at a slight angle so each square fit next to each other in an angle. (I hope I'm being clear here, as I don't have pictures and I've since cannibalized the guillotine for other things, although I can't remember what the other things were...)

What I want to know however is, what's going on in the last picture, why is that plane all taped up? Were you doing a binding job on it?

Thanks for sharing, I'm sure I'll find a use for something like that.

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Kewl, do you have a jig for cutting the finished strip into thin 3/32 tall purfling strips? I need to ake some more purpleheart purflings for my soundhole rosette repair, I don't like the way I originally did it which was to us my fret slot tablesaw blade.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

Actually I do...

I made this mini table saw out of the Dremel Mini Saw Attachment.

I cut the shield off and mounted it in this little table I made. It will actually cut accurately to about .003" so I can actually cut the strips out using this and then just a pass or 2 using my scraper.

Great idea with the Dremel, I'm going to try that, someday.

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