I really like the look of wood bindings laminated with thin contrasting strips like those pictured below (LMI).
A friend of mine uses the excess trimmings from sides to make laminated bindings by gluing tiny perfling strips, one at a time. Tedious...
I documented this method several years ago. It's not new or revolutionary, but I thought someone might find it useful.
I wanted to make laminated bindings in bulk, so I decided to glue a full side that was too thin (for a guitar) to a resawn billet of curly maple. I then ripped it into thin strips and thickness sanded them.
I used Titebond II so that it will resist heat/moisture while bending. Titebond III is not recommended for luthiery, but it may be better in this case. Definitely DO NOT USE TITEBOND OR WHITE GLUE. It will come apart when you bend it.
You will need:
- thin kerf saw, preferably a bandsaw (tablesaw not recommended)
- thickness sander (or a handplane and/or scraper if you're hard core)
- jointer (or handplane) for squaring stock.
You could use a tablesaw to rip the board, but the wide kerf wastes a lot of material (roughly half) and you can't resaw wide material. I don't recommend it.
The stages below show the general concept.
1) Laminate two pieces of contrasting materials. The thicker piece should be at least 1/4" thick x 3"+ x 32"+ with quarter-sawn grain. The thinner piece can be any thickness, but you should try to make it slightly thicker than the desired final thickness (if sanding is required). Grain orientation on the thinner piece is less critical, but you can make it quarter-sawn also (or not). If you understand wood movement due to moisture content, feel free to adjust for grain patterns. Glue them together using a water/heat resistant glue like Titebond II or III and clamp with pressure distributed evenly over the glued surface area.
2) Sand the thin side to desired thickness. If you are using a pre-thicknessed wood or fiber veneer, there is no need to sand further.
3) If desired, add another layer and repeat steps 1 and 2.
4) Using a thin-kerf saw, rip lengthwise strips slightly wider than desired thickness (about 1/8"). Always rip with thin laminations facing up, so the blade won't tear them from the main substrate.
5) Sand both sides of strips to ~2mm or 0.10". Most thickness sanders will not work well under 1/8". I use a backer board, such as a piece of plywood or MDF.
Hope you find this useful.
Glenn