Official Luthiers Forum!

I know this is an old thread, but I have a brief tip that is directly relevant to one of the essential tasks involved in putting together your own purfling. Rather than engage in thread inflation, I decided to recycle an old one.

As I mention above, you have to decide how best to cut the thin veneer into some strips that are 1” wide, and other strips that are 0.1” wide. You can do that a few different ways. Some people just use a sharp marking knife and a straightedge. I always ran into uncooperative grain lines when I tried that. Some folks use a hand veneer saw. That works fine for me, except that all the sawdust is a real nuisance, and you can likewise hit some weird grain lines every so often. Some folks use a bandsaw, but mine is not kind to the fragile veneers. My table saw was always the most reliable way to get a clean cut, but the kerf was wider than I liked, even with a 1/16” Diablo blade.

So, I experimented yesterday with my StewMac fret slotting blade and a zero clearance throat plate, covered with a jig on top to both force the veneer to address the blade properly and close the gap at the bottom of my fence.

This has turned out to be, by FAR, the easiest, cleanest, safest, and least wasteful, way for me to cut my veneers to the needed sizes.

If you go down the road of making your own purfling, and have a fret slotting blade for your table saw, I highly recommend you use it for this task of cutting the veneers down to the needed sizes.

Of course, once the “log” is glued up, other ways of cutting will be necessary, since the fret slotting blade has a very limited cutting depth. The bandsaw will probably be the best bet at that stage.

+1 on that. I use the fretslotting blade for all my purflings, and most of my bindings as well, which are usually ripped from the sides...