Hi. First time builder here, following Crystal Forest plans for an A-style. I jumped right in with highly figured maple which is adding somewhat to the challenge, but I'm now ready to bind the body. I've watched various videos and read a number of articles, but I'm left with some basic questions.
I bought a Stewmac rabbet cutter to fit my Dremel. I've been practicing on figured maple, and I'm having trouble getting a smooth cut. The cutter wants to follow the waves in the maple in terms of depth of cut. Am I cutting too much at a time? Maybe running the cutter too slowly? Just need practice? Or is the Stewmac tool not the best approach? I really didn't want to have to set up a special router table for this relatively small job.
In order to get a reasonable (i.e. forgiving) thickness of plastic binding (.090") I end up with .250" width, when I'd prefer something closer to .150" like my Mid-Mo mandolin. I can't find this in stock widths, so do I need to make a trimmer of some sort? Is there a better binding source than Stewmac?
Is there a better approach for a first time builder? I'm afraid of ending up with a shoddy binding job when everything else has gone really well to this point.
Thanks.
Bookmarks