OK then. To answer your questions.
1. Do I cut a strip of leather for the binding long enough and just wide enough to bind my edge? Or should it be a little too wide an then trimmed back to the stitching once it's been stitched?
You have the general idea how it works here. Simply cut your binding wide enough to fit the stitches and bind the layers of material you wish bound. Unless you have the tooling to properly trim the binding, it's best to just sew it as close to the edge as you can right from the get go.
2. Should I mark the stitch locations with an overstitch wheel or do they get laid out with calipers after it's been held in place with the keeper stitches?
Overstitch wheesl can make the stitches more uniform, but are not absolutely required. It's actually easier than you might imagine to use the awl blade width as a gauge to space your stitches. Calipers could be used but it seems they would be more hassle than practical. Also keep in mind that a lot of leather work was sewn with some pretty tight spacing, many times 10 or more stitches per inch, but not universally so.
And yes, experiment. Nothing is better than doing and making yourself do better. So in the end you aren't wasting anything and you can always use scrap pieces to practice on.
