Making a couple rosettes

Hey, I have some time, so I’m catching up.

Here is how I made the rosettes for these two guitars.  I went with a geometric style.  Very similar to my first rosettes.

Started with humble beginnings of walnut, cherry and flamed maple.  These were glued up as you see here.

 

Then I used an incredibly high tech fixture to cut 45 and 42.5 degree angles on each piece.  The goal being 7.5 degree segments.

 

These segments were glued into logs.  Notice the “sorting matrix”.  This helped keep the pieces separate.  There were three different variations of wood placement and each of those had opposite angles on each side.

 

Then the logs were sliced and sorted.

 

Then I played with some variations of patterns.  There were a ton of permutations.

 

I picked two of my favorites.  Then I cut a test channel into a piece of scrap and bent up the purflings.  Fitting these was very low tech.  Cut to approximate size.

 

Inside and outside sanding block to fit.

 

Then I cut the channels into the real tops.  Used a home made circle scribe.  Now that I’ve done at least 12 channels with this scribe (7 for guitars and at least 5 tests), I should really take my time and make a nicer one on a mill.  This one was made with a hack saw, files, a drill press, and some taps and dies.  The only thing I would add is a dial height adjustment for the blade.  I made the blade, a spear point with  W1 tool steel that I sharpened, hardened and annealed.

Then a chisel, followed by a mini router plane.  

 

These are my 6th and 7th rosettes.  I’ve never used a power tool for this.  Cutting a .050″ deep, accurate channel, in a .095″ thick piece of soft wood was really intimidating at first.  After the first one, I loved it.  Its really one of my favorite parts.  I like the peace and quiet, as well as the clean cuts, when using hand tools.  

The first rosette ready to install.

 

This is my favorite part.  Planing and scraping down after the glue has cured.

 

First rosette done and scraped close to flush.

 

Second rosette installed.  This one in a cedar top.

 

This is where the guitars stood just prior to bracing the tops.

 

Ok.  Last two posts almost caught up to where I am now.

Should be closing these up soon.

Starting a couple more guitars

After a brief hiatus and doing a bunch of small projects for the shop and in the house, I decided to start a couple more guitars.  On the subject of shop projects, I should post those soon.  I just haven’t felt much like writing these days.

So… the guitars.  Going for a couple OO size again.  This time with a cutaway, 14 fret neck, one with a spruce top, one with cedar.  Other options might be a sound port and a slotted peghead.

Start with design.  I wanted to make my own shape.  Started with a list of standard dimensions from OO and OM size guitars and drew my own.  Used the bent stick method of drawing curves.

Made about 4 versions and picked one I liked.  I did a full scale drawing and I’m still kicking around what I want to do for bracing.

I made the form.

As far as wood goes, I bought a board of ambrosia maple that had some nice flame in it.  I marked off the pieces that I wanted and resawed it to size.  Finally got to use my new bandsaw for something heavy duty, and it worked like a champ.  I cut a total of 4 sets from this board.

There are also some orphan (non book matched) pieces, as I was able to get 5 slices from the thickness.  I will make a test guitar box with those so i can play with some new things Ive been thinking about, as well as some brace options. Here are the two sets I’ll use for these guitars.

 

As far as the rest of the wood goes, I laid it all out.  Cherry for necks.  Basswood for neck and heel blocks as well as linings.  Walnut, cherry and maple for binding, purfling and rosette.  Of course the ambrosia back and sides.

Looking at all of this, I realized that minus the cedar and spruce, which is from British Columbia, the rest of the wood is local.  That being the case, I may go for a local wood for the fretboards and bridges.  It would be cool for the majority of these guitars to be made from materials that came from within a 50 mile radius.

Ok.  More for next time.

 

Wood shopping therapy

Still french polishing. Getting close to letting the first guitar cure for a week.
In the mean time I went to a local sawmill this morning. Oh boy. Mostly looking for neck and binding material. I picked up some cherry, hard maple, and flamed maple from local trees. And a board of ginkgo just for kicks.
They also had quite an array of exotics. Got some Spanish cedar and a big board of bloodwood.
Really nice local mill prices. The exotics were just over half the total cost. Now I need to figure out what to use it for.
I could do serious damage here on the cheap if I felt like digging through stacks. Maybe later.

First shot- binding

This gallery contains 2 photos.

Modified my rosette cutter so I could use it to scribe my binding channels on the back. Used my wheeled marking gauge to scribe the sides. Started chiseling them out on guitar number one. It’s a bit intimidating but similar … Continue reading →

Last look inside guitar one- closing the box

This gallery contains 2 photos.

Last glimpse inside guitar number one. Lots of little steps to get here. Added mahogany side braces.  Cut and added reverse kerfed mahogany for the back.  Shaped to a slight angle from below the waist to the heel.  Sanded to … Continue reading →

Sides bent and ready

Working on fitting the first set of bent sides onto guitar number one.

Attaching the neck to the sound board

This gallery contains 4 photos.

Starting to look more like something. Chiseled down the heel block to accept the top.  Clamped up to align the center lines.  Drilled and pinned the parts for glue up (toothpick pins).  Then glued the neck to the soundboard. One … Continue reading →

Brace shaving with a homemade plane

Mini plane got a work out today.  Carved all those mahogany braces.  These shavings are half of them.  I still think its cute as a button!

Two rosettes…at last!

This gallery contains 2 photos.

Two rosettes are installed! Didn’t get a lot of time to work on things this week.  But the second rosette went in easier than the first.  Both planed and scraped flush with the tops.  For my first guitars and first … Continue reading →

First rosette in first soundboard

This gallery contains 2 photos.

Phew!  One rosette in.  Just a bit more to clean up, mostly with the scraper.  A couple little chips in the mosaic I need to fill.  Pretty pleased so far.  I was a bit worried as my purfling is cut … Continue reading →