A trick I picked up over on the MyLesPaul.com forum is that you can cut another channel where the top of the binding is supposed to be. This channel will serve as a reference for carving the top. What the channel tells you when you are carving is, "don't carve below this point". Opinions vary on how tall the binding is supposed to be but I carved my channel at 6mm high which is how tall I think the binding should be.
For this cut I used a rabbeting bit. A rabbet is a type of cut used to join two pieces of wood. While the cut I'm making isn't a rabbet the bit works for my purpose.
Here are some pics after finishing the cut:
Notice I didn't cut all the way around. I did this because I wanted to be sure that I didn't interfere with my neck angle cut and I didn't want to screw up the carve inside of the horn. If necessary I can go back later and cut some more. The cut was a little larger than I would have liked but it will not matter when the body is carved. I'm actually really excited to have reached this point.
One other thing I have been working on is a jig for cutting the neck angle in the top of the guitar. I've seen a few ways to make this cut and this is the jig I built to do it:
As you can see the body fits inside of the box. The top of the box has rails that will serve as tracks for a router guide.
Here's a pic of the guide resting on the rails. Note the hole in the middle that will let the router bit pass through.
The back of the box will be propped up until the box is tilted at four degrees which is the angle I will cut in the front of the guitar body so the neck fits correctly.
Actually making the cut will probably happen on Monday.
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