Official Luthiers Forum!

I have seen many complex ways to cut purfling strips and binding strips from veneer. But somewhere over the years, I saw this trick with a veneer saw. It is so simple and uses so little of your veneer that I have been working on it and perfected it over the years.

Here’s a picture. Hope it post,

Bob Howell

Help me out. It looks like you’ve trapped the veneer stock under a metal clamp or fence on a saw table and cuffing the strips with a veneer saw, with a piece of spalted (maple?) as a backing board? My eyes aren’t the best so ….?

I use an adjustable strip cutter, originally made for cutting balsa strips for airplane models, put out by 'Master Airscrew' and bought from MicroMark. It has a plastic base, which wears fast when cutting hardwood strips, so I stuck on a brass 'shoe'. It also help to use a heavier blade than the intended X-Acto.

One thing I found really helpful is to start by tearing the veneer leaf along it's length. The grain seldom runs right along the leaf, and this produces more or less run out across the strips. Since the wood tends to be brittle anyway even a bit of run out can cause a lot of breakage when you're bending or installing the strips. Run out also makes it hard to get a nice surface when you dress them down. The tear follows the grain direction in the leaf, and I then plane off the edge to straighten it before cutting strips. It wastes a bit of veneer, of course, since the tear usually runs somewhat diagonally along the leaf, but you can use short pieces from the corners for fretboard binding, head veneers, and rosettes, so it's not as bad as it might seem. It saves a lot of work and aggravation, and considering how little actual veneer you use, it's not that expensive.

The straight edge is half of a drywall cutting device from:35 years ago. Clamp 4’ section to plywood working board. The key is the veer saw. I can get successful cuts of 1/8”strips 75 percent of time. Always surprised how well it works. I have used other straight edges.
Bob