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Great Tutorial Hesh.You are so productive it is unbelievable.Looks like you`ve got another great guitar in the works.
                   James

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James W Bolan
Nashville Tennessee

Yeah Hesh, this stuff is just invaluable to newbies like me, that goes for you other guys that post building tips and advice, THANKS!

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Kurt Thomas

"There's a first time for everything even if you do it by mistake."

Todd:

Do you do plates to the rims with this setup?

Bill

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Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

Excellent Todd!!!!

What is FCA glue?

I have trouble with gaps at the waist and the ends. Tim McKnight gave me this little tip.....

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"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." G. K. Chesterton.

What is 'seam tape' and where do you get it? I was looking at some white 'bungee' stuff at the hardware store in the rope section. It was stretchy, nylon covered stuff like rope, (might be a glue issue though.) It was like .35 cents a foot, so I thought I might try it out.

What I would like to see is a channel cutting tutorial with hand tools, not router bits. Im thinking of getting an ibex perfling cutter, and am worried about the secondary small channel on the top.

Steve very cool clamping system.

Terry thanks for the tip - where do I buy syringes and needles and might they be controlled substances where I live in Michigan?

A word on LMI White glue.  I would probably use it too, over Titebond, but I just don't order things frequently enough from LMI and when I do I always forget to order the glue......  It's great stuff though and I have used it before - highly recommended just keep an eye on the 6 month shelf life and the smell of the stuff.  Keep it in the fridge between uses.

Blackheart so you want a tutorial on cutting binding and purfing channels with a gramil?  I don't own one but I know some of the other members do and use them.  Perhaps they will put something together for you.  Some folks use a hybrid method of using both the gramil and then a laminate trimmer and router bit.  It would be interesting to see I agree.

Hesh,

I'm not Todd, but the FCA glue is LMI's contact adhesive for bindings.

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Horton, MI

Another excellent Tute. Hesh ! Thanks

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Anderson Guitars
Clearwater,Fl. 33755

BlackHeart, The seam tape I'm using is the elastic stuff that one would sew into a waistband. The fabric store is the place to look. I bought an entire roll of it decades ago and am still using it. It may stick a bit to glue squeeze out but it's not a problem. Martin uses a cloth tape as well that appears to be non stretchy. I tension this stuff way beyond it's stretchyness so I don't think it's a big factor, rather it was the closest stuff I found to what I saw being used at Martin and I went with it.

As for cutting binding and purfling channels by hand, I did it once this past summer at the Romanillos course. I used the Ibex Stew-Mac tool which worked quite well. Jose' instructed us to essentially mark/scribe the limits of the cut using this. The major portion of the work was done with a narrow chisel to remove the material. I found the cutter to be most controllable by setting it (it comes with two blades ground opposite to one another) to cut as I drew it towards me with my dominant (left) hand. This and the chisel produced good results though quite time consuming.