Shop Made Cutter Gauges

Everything popular is wrong. Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest , 1895 I spent a couple of hours today and made a pair of gramils, or cutting gauges, for making the binding ledge on a classical guitar. I made these out of some black walnut that I had on hand and after completing them I realized I have some wonderful CSA rosewood in the attic that would make a great set of gauges. A pair of walnut gramils with the metal gramils in the foreground Those of you who follow my blog know that I dislike using power tools in making a guitar, I have nothing against power tools, I use them in my day job as a historic preservation carpenter. I gave up trying to use a router to cut the binding ledges and went back to hand tools: two gramils, chisels and files. I own two gramils that were purchased from Luthiers Mercantile , they are nice to use, but I have to be really careful with them because slot that for set screw that holds the blade in place can really mar the guitar&