Official Luthiers Forum!

I have a Guild guitar that has an oval sound hole and abalone rosette..how does an amateur builder route the channel and cut the soundhole? I don't recall seeing anything out there that would allow someone to do that....

Laurie

You can't, can you?

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

You could use a laser. I plan to use my 45W Epilog EXT to do this kind of thing

DF

_________________
Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

Use a router pattern that sets one half of the rosette, route it, then flip it over and route the other half. Obviously, it has a locating hole in the center. A little clean up might be required along the center seam.

_________________
Expectation is the source of all misery; comparison the thief of joy.
http://redrivercanoe.ca/

If you are doing only one you can cut the soundhole out with a fretsaw, touch up with sanding sticks. Should be able to make it look real clean. Then, to rout the rosette ring, use one of those gizmo's that stew mac sells for routing violin purfling.

Laurie, I'd think you'd use a jig like this with a router, dremel or an exacto blade. I'm sure it could be built using t-track or miter slots. It would also require 2 or 3 alignment pins through the top to hold it in place, rather than the 1 used to cut a circle, to prevent any rotation of the jig itself. You might be able to use a scrapbookers oval mat cutter.

Oval jig

Craftsman also used to sell a router jig which worked just like the old spirograph toy. I've got one but haven't been brave enough to ruin a top yet.

_________________
Don Atwood
Arlington, VA

All of my instruments have oval soundholes. I do them with a 3/8" thick mdf pattern and a router with a rub collar. I make the pattern by drawing it on my CAD program, printing it, spray adhesive to the mdf and carefully cut it out. You can use a oval template available from art or drafting supply houses too. Once you've made the router patterns the soundhole and rosette takes minutes to cut.

-C

_________________
Freeborn Guitars
and home of BeauGuard©

Here's a link to the Luthierforum for a beautiful guitar made by Otis Tomas of Nova Scotia.

http://www.luthierforum.com/index.php?showtopic=2146&hl=Otis%20Tomas&st=15

_________________
Horton, MI

There's a set of orange plastic oval templates that is carried in a lot of woodworking catalogs.



It gets trickier on an archtop:

_________________
Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

Beautiful work Howard. I'd love to know how you did that archtop!

_________________
Dave
Milton, ON

cut the soundhole with router and template (after carving the top--put wedges under the template to hold it level. I guess it could be cut with the top flat, but I was afraid that the edges of the hole would get messed up in the carving). Then gramil (Schneider style) and chisel for the rosette.

_________________
Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

Where does one go to find a sleve for a dremel tool? I actually have wanted to try this method for other things, but havent seen any sleeves for small dremel size bits.

better yet would be some kind of bearing for a 1/16" bit... even a 1/8" bit bearing would be nice to have. A thin sleeve would be the better thing I am thinking though..It would make duplicating inlays a snap

_________________
Reguards,

Ken H

Thanks for the link Kirt, I'm liking that method. Bookmarked.

Ken,

Is this the kind of thing you're after? [/url]http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000VJKA6Y/ref=ord_cart_shr?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=ARXEF4B1AHJ8U&v=glance[url]

Darren

Thanks for the link Darren!

That is close to shat I am looking for and may work with a little adjusting. I notice that it comes with a 1/4" shank bit.. I was hoping to find one for a 1/8" shank bit.

I may buy one just to try it out.

_________________
Reguards,

Ken H

Here's how Mark Franzke of Flinhills Mandolins make the oval rosettes on his arch top mandolins.

http://www.banjodog.com/flinthillsmandolins/tutorial_rosette.html

Lovely instruments, don't you think?

_________________
Rian Gitar og Mandolin

Howard & Arnt, thanks much!

_________________
Dave
Milton, ON