Official Luthiers Forum!

Stewmac's catalog has a little caption above the bearing that says....

"actual depth of cut"

Is this true? I thought I read somewhere on this forum the bearings weren't the actual size. People were routing purfling channels only to discover the channel wasn't the width they thought it should be?

Can someone help on this?

Chris

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There is no difference between the man that thinks he can....and the man that thinks he cannot.

I have a number of sets . The bearing sets I have are from Stew mac , and Grizzly. The bearings are not marked but do what I need them to. The Stew mac set is designed for the plastic bindings used in the trade and work fine. I still check my set ups on scrap Check out this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lan2pKWE1Do . I like the binding to be flush or a bit under the sides . Trying to bring the binding down to the sides often can result in thinning the binding and making it appear too thin.
The Grizzly set is more for fractional binding as in when I do wood and more involved purfling. I will often use copper foil tape to shim bearings to accommodate the tweaner sizes. One must be creative when situations call for it. These bearing are still the best way for binding. This is one of the fit and finish areas of the build that can separate the men from the boys .

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

The SM set had a few thou over the given size, presumably to accomodate for the wood swelling with the glue. I think it is no longer true. In any case when I got mine a few years ago I carefully measured all the bearings and sized my binding/purfling thicknesses accordingly. I also have the Grizzly rabbeting set John mentions (#1 I think), which is handy for 1/16", 1/8", 3/16" etc. thicknesses, and IMHO has a better cutter. The SM bearings are compatible with it, which give more possibilities.

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Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

Thanks for weighing in Laurent.

Chris

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There is no difference between the man that thinks he can....and the man that thinks he cannot.

Yeah Chris, I mentioned this in a recent thread. Stewmac's recent catalogue now offers bearings "actual depth of cut". I found the previous "corrected" bearings an absolute pain. After confirming with them that they were indeed now offering entirely new bearings (so now, their .060" bearing cuts an .060" rabbet instead of .072"), I ordered a set.

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Dave
Milton, ON

What a timely post. I need to order the Stew Mac set and the Grizzly set, too.

Thanks for the advice!

Danny R. Little

Pay the extra for LMI set you won't be dissapointed the angled carbides make a real clean cut.

Fred

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Fred Tellier
http://www.fetellierguitars.com
Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/FE-Tellier-Guitars/163451547003866

Fred, FWIW the stewmac cutter has about a 5 degree downcut angle. What are LMI's?

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Dave
Milton, ON