Binding for Guitar

[Greg Peterson]

I'm working on a laptop slide guitar. The body style is similar to a Gibson Les Paul. The body and neck are one piece of alder with the 'wings' glued on. I'm going to put on a rosewood fret board, with fret for guides. In the neck I'm installing a couple carbon fiber truss rods that will fit into rectangular channels to prevent any bowing of the neck. The action will be high enough that any bowing won't really matter, I just want the neck to stay relatively flat.

I'd like to put a curly maple veneer on the top of the body and apply binding around the top edge. Has anyone here installed binding and if so what did you use to cut the rabbet?

[george wilson]

There are kits of router bits with differing size bearings specially made to fit binding sizes. Stewart MacDonald sells them. I think you have to buy the whole kit,though. Planning to make more guitars?

In most wood working catalogs there are similar bits with 1 size bearings for cutting 1 size rabbet. If you have 1/16" binding,you might find them a cheaper route to go.

[Greg Peterson]

I'm trying to avoid the stew mac route (pun not intended). I don't have any plans on building another one of these laptops.

The smallest rabbeting bearing I can find is 3/16th which is too deep.

[Cary Falk]

Jig made for the router table.
http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q297/caryincamas/DSC_0297.jpg

[Kyle Iwamoto]

Go to your local BORG, and pick up a bearing pack. Bearings only come in a few sizes. With luck, you can find a bearing for a flush trim or rabbeting bit that matches the binding thickness. That's what I did. If the kit doesn't have the right size, return it. I got a smaller bearing on my 1/2" flush trim that works perfectly for the plastic binding.

[John Coloccia]

Router table jig is the way to do it if you don't want to buy anything fancy.

Here's what I use:

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/bindingmachine.html

For a one time thing, you can make it much simpler and end up with fantastic results.