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Just thought I’d share with you my process for making purflings. It may be handy so someone.

I start with a 34” length of purflings hacked off a roll of 96”x12” maple from Windsor Plywood.



Every now and then during the process the edge gets tried on the edge sander


I use my old fret slotting blade and a zero clearance insert, as well as a square edge rail clipped to the fence so the sheet doesn’t slide under the fence.

Set your blade height to just above the sheet thickness (which is .024) and set width of cut. Take a chunk of scrap with a square edge and run it over the blade. You now have basically a movable feather board that can slide along the fence.

Now, feed the sheet through the blade til the end of the block, slide the block back, repeat until you’ve gone all the way. Just be consistent in keeping the infeed square the the fence, and voila, perfect purflings with very little variance in with. I cut at .090, same as the thickness I cut my bindings at. Then I glue the purflings on andcsand bindings to .070. This leaves enough wiggle room to clean up both sides nicely.

I usually bite the bullet and do the whole sheets worth of tedium once the saw is set up. And a dull while later, enough for ten guitars in about an hour or so.



Also, I do a table saw no no and use gloves with rubberized grips to help push the sheet through. The blade is always under the block, and only sticks up about .030 anyway if somehow you do pull a derp...

When I do figured purflings from planks, I’ll do something similar, except I’ll cut a sheet like a side and thickness sand it to .090, then I’ll cut .050 rips and take it down to .040 on the drum sander. .040 is about as small as you can go and still see flame.

Anyway, hope that is useful to someone someday...


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That’s great, Ed! I do it in a very similar fashion; I’ll try to post some pics this weekend.

I use my StewMac fretboard slotting blade, a zero clearance insert, a board screwed to the fence that sits flush with the table, and another board that bolts to the flush board, with an oversized hole to allow some adjustment. The flush board prevents the veneer from creeping under the fence. The bolted board is a vertical boundary for the floppy veneer. It is set to allow the veneer to freely slide beneath it, but with only a little vertical wiggle room. The blade is raised to slightly bite into the bolted board. I push and pull the veneer through from wherever I can hold it, keeping it against the fence with just finger pressure. Low risk of injury, since the blade is trapped and the veneer is too floppy to be a kickback risk. Purfling lines come out perfect!

Thanks for sharing this. It will be a nice upgrade to the jig I made to cut fiber board sheets into purf.


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This is a design similar to a commercial one I used to use for cutting HPL on a table saw. The sheet metal "L" makes it so the veneer can't slip under the fence - especially on those fences that only lock on the front rail.
One of these days I will make one of these jigs, but now I just throw on a high count tooth diablo blade or plywood blade, set the width a little wider than I need it, cut a few strips, cuss when the veneer slips under the fence, recut the edge of the veneer sheet straight on the jointer, and go again. I really should make this jig....
I didn't do a side view but the jig extends past the saw blade both ways 8 to 10 inches to guide the sheet of veneer.

I will forego my promised photos, because Clay's sketch lays it out pretty well. I don't use the sheet metal; I find that a board that sits flush to the table keeps the veneer from slipping under just fine. My covering board (Clay's diagram's terminology) bolts to the aux fence jig, with larger than needed holes. My saw blade doesn't cut as deep into the covering board; it just barely bites it. I set the height of the covering board by loosening the bolts, putting two layers of veneer underneath, then tightening the bolts. the front edge of the covering board, at the bottom, is rounded a little to aid in smoothly guiding the veneer under it. I set the width of the cut before bolting the covering board to the aux fence jig. I set the blade height by figuring out a good blade height (maybe three veneers' thickness) before bolting the covering board, then lowering the blade while remembering how many turns it took, then raising it that same amount after the covering board is in place, while the saw is running.

I also use this setup when cutting 1 inch wide veneer strips for making custom herringbone. The covering board consists of two boards glued together in an L profile. It works the same way, but it gives me more distance between the blade and the fence.

I like Don's idea of bolting the cover board and using larger holes (maybe even slots) for height adjustments. The commercial jig was made from sheet metal and made it so even on fences that can lift off of the table slightly (Biesemeyer, Unifence) the laminate stayed "trapped" in the bend. Generally the higher the saw blade the more the cutting action applies a downward force helping to hold the work against the table, but it may not be practical to raise the blade into the covering board so deep that this is really effective. Still I like to have it deep enough so the gullets are buried, but whatever works, works.

I have a little hand strip cutter that works well. I fail to see the need to use a power saw for this. I like to laminate up to three layer of different colors, using my go-bar deck and slightly thinned out Titebond 3.

Alan—

I don’t speak for everyone, but when I use hand methods to cut veneer, I sometimes hit a grain line the wrong way and the veneer splits in a way I don’t like. I don’t get that when I use the table saw.

Thanks for sharing, Ed. I'm always looking for better ways. I see your method as very useful if I want individual strips of purfling. Thanks for giving it.

If I understand it correctly, you are cutting a strip of veneer to a size of 0.024" high x 0.90" wide x 34" long. Then you are gluing it on your binding strip of ~0.25" high x 0.90" wide x 34" long. Then you are thickness sanding a little on each side of this thin piece of binding to achieve a strip 0.070" wide to use a binding. Correct?

How do you glue the 0.024" high x 0.90" wide x 34" long to the binding strip of 0.25" high x 0.90" wide x 34" long?

What is the advantage of gluing each of these small strips of veneer to one piece of binding Vs gluing a wide piece of veneer (one gluing operation) to a wide piece of binding plank and then just ripping the binding off the plank since the bindings have to be ripped one at a time anyway. Would not this latter approach reduce the gluing and ripping work in half and eliminate the special handling/ripping of the thin 0.024" veneers?

Please don't take this as a challenge to your method, I'm just trying to make sure I understand your method and what it's advantages are (i.e. when is it best to use your method Vs the gluing of a veneer or multiple veneers to the binding plank and then doing ripping for binding?)

That's the way we do it.

Lots of ways to do everything, this is just how I do. I made a buxcutter contraption but splitting along the grain got boring...

Agreed making a layup and cutting strips is more time efficient.

However 95% of the time I use offcuts from the sides to make bindings, hence the need for individual purflings.

So, I sand the sides to .090. Rip the bindings and a single full length purfling for the top decor, and one for the rosette if there’s enough material. If not, rosette purflings can come off the back.

Then I glue the purfling to the bindings with TB3, using binder clips, sand the bindings to .070, and the sides to whatever I determine is right, usually .080 for most things...


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I just got back on Monday from the annual woodworking conference in Williamsburg. Every second year or so they have a session by Steve Latta who reproduces Federal furniture with all its banding, stringing and inlay. He is a great teacher and has come up with several tools for doing this work. Watching him cut strips off a sheet of veneer with one of his hand tools is pretty cool - can't imagine that a power tool would be any faster.

Lie-Nielson offers a set of inlay tool made to Steve's specs. They were at the conference with all of the tools on the table. The couple that might be of interest appear quite easy to make, and L-N even sells the blades for you to install in your own tool. Many of you probably came up with these solutions on your own, but here they are:

https://www.lie-nielsen.com/products/tools-for-inlay-latta-slicing-gauge-?path=tools-for-inlay&node=4180

https://www.lie-nielsen.com/products/tools-for-inlay-latta-thicknessing-gauge-?path=tools-for-inlay&node=4180

And here they all are

https://www.lie-nielsen.com/nodes/4180/tools-for-inlay

Ed

Veneers do often seem to be sliced off pieces that have the grain at an angle, and they can be splitty. That's a problem all through the process, not just when you're cutting strips. I often start by ripping a leaf of veneer in half to find the split line, and then dressing that off straight for subsequent cuts. Yes, it wastes some veneer, but it saves enough time and aggravation later that I think it's worth it.