Edging Saddle Strings

[Gary Winckler]

If any of you find edging your saddle strings as tedious as I do, here is a technique I have found useful to quickly and easily edge your strings using nothing more than a hand edger.

Screw down a 1" x 1/2" piece of wood at least 12" long (mine was more like 24"). Place your string down flat right beside the wood guide. Place a heavy flat piece of iron on top of the string (I used an old piece of railroad rail). Place your edger on the string and pull the string through. Note, my piece of rail had some felt glued to the bottom of it and this kept the string from pulling the anvil as I pulled the string through. The following three photos will help explain how I set this up.

[TrooperChuck]

Gary:

I just tried your technique and it worked wonderfully! Wow, that made the job so easy. This will really save a lot of time next time I need to edge saddle strings.

With a little experimentation, I found that you can do the same thing with a french edger in order to create more of a bevel. Be warned though, using a french edger requires a lot more concentration to end up with a straight cut. Using a basic edger is a lot easier.

Thanks for sharing your idea.