Another Acoustic Tool -- Part Five

I mentioned in the last post that I had completed gluing the body together and the next step would be cutting a channel in the top and back edges for adding binding (purfling).

I've learned that this process too can be done in a couple ways.  If I were a 'real' luthier, I might do this by hand with a homemade tool created from a broken saw blade, but that seems like it's not a simple procedure.  Remember, I said I like simple.  So, I chose to build a special router table, which would work a little easier for me.  This whole construction effort took about two hours and a few buck worth of scrap wood I had laying around collecting dust.  Geez, I love it when a plan comes together.

I surface mounted a small craft router under the top working surface near the edge so that the remaining open surface is where the guitar body will rest during the channel routing process.

The router blade can be moved up or down for precise adjustment in depth of the channel.

A special adjustable fence had to be fabricated to adjust the thickness of the channel into the side of the guitar.  We're not talking about a channel the size of the Grand Canyon, so the movement of the fence is minimal. The binding is slightly more than one-sixteenth-inch thick and about one-quarter-inch deep.

The body of the guitar will ride on the fence base up against the adjustable nose.  By carefully moving the body surface against the nose and perpendicular to the the router blade, the channel can be cut into the body with very little difficulty, so long as I pay attention to what I'm doing and don't get lost in some Muddy Water's blues trip evolving from the recesses of my mind.