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I'm looking for an upscale idea for cutting strips of laminated wood for purfling. I'm laminating layers of dyed maple (Stew-Mac or LMI). I want a razor based tool. Mat cutters? I'm guessing I'll need about 40" or more of capacity. (Think harp guitars). Well, 36". Has anyone got a good mat cutter recommendation?

Freud 7 1/4" blade in your table saw with a 0 clearance insert of course.

Have you seen this Mike? I thought it was pretty neat and might be of some use to you.
http://www.luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10117&t=19132

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Been there, Done that...

I found it nearly impossible to cut perfling with a razor blade type knife. I have a very good Mat cutter... didn't work, X-acto blades... didn't work. The problem is it will start to cut just fine and when it gets to a point the wood will split and you will be left with nothing more than 2 big long splinters.

I though about just buying a Proxon Table saw but while in Home Depot picking up some bits for my dremel I spotted this Mini saw attachment for the Dremel which is only $33.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Dremel-Mini-Circular-Saw-Attachment-670-01/100074420

I bought it and cut the shroud off of it and built this little mini table for it. It actually cuts very accurately down to .002" and I can now make all of my own perfling without having to rely on what any specific vendor has.

Works great and the only real downfall is it doesn't have a hight adjustment because thre unit is epoxied in place. The hardest part was cutting the shape for it to fit snugly in so it would not move. I ended up just epoxying it in place but for $33 bucks it works great.

Maybe someone else has a better idea for using a razor type blade but I couldn't seem to stop it from splitting.

Cheers
Bob

Nice, Bob. Thanks for sharing!

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Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from poor judgement.

I would like to make a distinction between purfling and binding. I am refering to the thin strips of laminated (or not) that go between binding and body, and around rosettes. I want a zero kerf solution. I realize razors are tricky and can follow the grain making a mess of things. I was hoping for a "razor wheel" based mat cutter. (the wheel is similar to what you see on a can opener). I just wondered if anyone had experience with those. Gonna look at the other suggestion above...

Look at the link Colin provided. I know from experience that the jig demonstrated therein works for both purfling and binding. The same may also be true of the other options offered above. I've never used them, so I don't know.

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George :-)

Not what you're looking for, but...

I use my fret slotting blade with a zero clearance insert on the table saw. Not zero kerf, but much less than a normal blade.

My assistant lately has been using a straightedge and a box cutter to good effect, for single line purfs anyway...

Thanks George, I would have been highly surprised if the method I posted the link to did not work for purflings as well as bindings, and I believe I also saw someone using something similar for fiber purflings.
The problem would be if you were starting with wide sheets of veneer, say 4"+ and wanting to slice it into narrow strips, but I'm certain that a similar method could be used with a little ingenuity.

_________________
The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Mike,
The little table saw that I made is for making perfling not bindings. It doesn't have enough hight to do bindings.

Here is the link to my method of making perfling to exact tolerances of .001" using a scraper and a little jig I made to thin them down to exact tolerances from 3/4" board stock.

http://luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10117&t=42804

I found out later that If I cut the 3/4" strips on my table saw to the width I needed for my perfling I could just use this little saw to cut them down to within .002" thickness of what I needed and then use my scraper with the nylon jig to get exact thickness I needed with only one or 2 passes.

I had to come up with this because the guitar I was working on needed 18 layers of perfling alternating between Maple and Walnut. Since no one makes walnut perfling I had to make them myself. And I had to have pretty exact tolerance with so many layers since .002 would throw the width off by quiet a bit.
The blade on the dremel cutter has a pretty thin kerf and is about the same as a fret saw.

Here is a pic of my guitar and why I needed it.

Although the jig Colin posted looks like it may work pretty well. I was trying to do it with my mat cutter in multiple passes but couldn't get consistent results without having them split on me.

Hope you find what you are looking for.

Cheers,
Bob

You can cut softer woods into strips for binding or purfling with a balsa stripper. A product made for hobbies and crafts. Hobby shops have them, the Master airscrew MA 4000. They use a type 11 exacto blade. They are for balsa wood so some patience and sharp blades are required.

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http://www.cushmanguitars.com/.

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
Mark Twain

. I was hoping for a "razor wheel" based mat cutter.

Some electric scissors operate on that principle:

http://www.grainger.com/product/2TYF6?g ... 24221522:s

I've also thought about adapting one of those old Rival meat slicers to try to cut veneer strips. But I'm wondering if a toothed blade might be less likely to follow the grain and actually work better.

I have studied Dave's link... I will give that a shot. It does not look like a huge jig project. Looks like I could be up and running pretty quick. AND, the zero kerf means my expensive blackwood binding will be maximized.

Thanks!

Bob,

Thanks for posting that picture, love the binding on that parlor.

-jd

are you refering to the binding or the purfling?

It would be a shame to cut it in half to find out.

-jd

We'll Dave Stewart's idea works pretty good.

Mike

[IMG]http://img.tapatalk.com/d/
14/09/27/2a3upy2y.jpg[/IMG]

I love an idea when it works. Here is what I found. For cutting laminated purfling (no chore), it was best to bury the tip in the bottom board. Made blade wander impossible. No resetting. I didn't even need the guide board. Thanks!

Somehow messed the last pic up

http://www.leevalley.com/en/Wood/page.aspx?p=69874&cat=1,43314,69873

And if you take item #B and remove the point, and insert a 1/8" or 1/4" dowel pin, it becomes a great circle cutter. I use this feature with an 1/8" dowel to precut rosettes before routing.

Bob

Bob, that's a cool looking tool. Gonna study it.



Tomorrow, gonna do the coco inlay in the center.

Btw, this is the circle cutter I use now. Bought it in the classifieds. With the router. Has those special collets. Love that dang thing. It is so accurate.

Looks like a pretty effective way of cutting perfling. I wish I had seen that before I made my Dremel saw because I tried a few different ways using an X-acto blade but it just kept splitting the wood. I didn't care about having Zero kerf since I was cutting my own stock so the saw works really well but I may give this idea a try next time I need to cut some perfling.

Good to see you accomplished what you wanted and yes it is nice when an idea actually works.

Cheers,
Bob

Yeah, pretty cool idea. Inexpensive too. I hope I properly emphasized the part about burying the blade tip. Once it's set up, you can keep feeding through your wide perfling stock without resetting or "tapping" the blade

Mike, Yes I think you made that pretty clear and it sounds like it would work well to keep the blade from skewing to one side.

Next time I need to cut up some more perfling I am going to give this a try. It sure is simple. But my little Dremel mini saw does a very nice job but does make dust so anything that cuts the dust down I am all for.

Cheers
Bob