Official Luthiers Forum!

New to the forum, so thanks in advance and appreciate your patience.
I’m in the middle of my second acoustic build (Martin D41 kit). I’ve done a dozen electrics and felt it was time to risk “real” guitar building - just didn’t want to spend months on something and then want to burn it in the fireplace. My first was a StewMac 000-28 SP (12 fret) that came out great sounding and a bit lacking in the finish. Mostly the binding was a problem - uneven and a few small errors. It was simple white ABS binding with b/w/b purfling on top, no purfling on back.
Anyway, as most will know the D41 has much more purfling - the materials I received require a purfling channel on top of 0.3” for the 2 b/w/b/w/b sets plus the abalone (plus 0.07 binding). The back need a total of 0.25” for purfling plus binding.
So…. The StewMac binding bit kit doesn’t support. I can scrounge around my shop and grab other bearings (have a few 0.375” as well as a larger diameter 1” bit) and make it close, but it seems I’m missing something.
Is it simpler than I’m finding or does the “normal” binding but sets not accommodate the larger width purfling needs?

PS. Still looking all over this forum. Is there a quick link to “basic” questions and procedures?
Again, thanks and I hope this first post does t get me thrown off the forum;).

Pat, welcome to the forum. A partial answer to your PS question first, I think you will find that the kit subforum is pretty slow moving and most general building questions are best asked in the Guitar Building Forum. Your binding router question would be appropriate there.

To comment on your build - I have done several guitars with abalone purfling but always a few less bland and white lines than you are using. Most of the time I use two BWB stacks, the abalone and wood binding (which is normally 0.080 thick). That is a total stack thickness of 0.223 and there is a StewMac bearing that was close enough.

I frankly don't know of an option to get the deep channel that you need. If it is a true Martin kit you might contact John Hall at Blues Creek, John is a regular contributor and sells Martin factory stuff.

Perfect, thanks. The StewMac kit came with (as many have previously noted) LOTS of procedure details. The Martin kit - not so much. I did buy the Jonathan Kinkead book, which also has tons of deep info. Im just trying to get over my fear of binding. Appreciate the quick reply.

Binding is stressful early on but once you’ve done a few… it will still be kinda stressful ha
But
You’ll make fewer mistakes! Best of luck


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