Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

Bought this for my last one, and the binding was OK, but could be better. The thing I found was the tiny brass bearingis impossible to keep flat on the side, given that the weight of the Dremel keeps wanting to pull it into the plate(I did mine while they were on their sides).

I had a piece of 25mm dowel, so I drilled a 1/4" hole just even with one edge(fits nice and tight), then just used my belt sander's nose to shape a bit of a grip into the dowel, along with a finger grip on each side. I haven't used it yet but, in reading StuMac's comments, it's a common complaint, and this ought to make it easier to register off the sides...

Anyone else use this little binding tool?

I don't own this tool and actually had to look up on the stewmac website how it works!

I think your modification will solve your problem, but create a minor drawback too: when while operating the tool you rotate the assembly a bit around the long axis of the original guide bearing, the new (thicker) wooden guide will lift off the router bit to some degree out of the planned channel to cut. But I imagine that with several additional passes you will catch the "high spots".

Your mod looks much better to me than the original "how-to-use picture" :

Cheers Markus

Yeh, I thought of the rotation issue as well, but a few passes, which I do anyway, should have it consistent. The added benefit is that the larger radius, compared to the 5/16" bit they recommend will prevent any overly deep spots caused by the bearing being smaller than the bit. If the whole thing "spins" it'll just come out of the rabbet and not gouge a notch......

Good point, you are on the save side even when the axis of the original guide bearing is closer to the cutting line then the axis of the routing bit. The original design does not look good when cutting channels less wide than the router bit radius!