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These are on some tops I am making for carving and tuning practice. Guess the rosette woods. The first two should be easy, the last two may not be.

Given the size of the pics, the only one I have a decent guess at is the 3rd. Looks like flat sawn wenge. First looks like it might be walnut but it's pretty hard to say.

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http://www.chassonguitars.com

Here's my guess:

1. Walnut
2. Cherry
3. Wenge
4. Madrone burl

Actually, it's number 2 that's giving me the hard time....

Cheers,
Dave F.

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Cambrian Guitars

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

Walnut is correct for the first. The second I bought, that should give it away. The third is not Wenge, but it does look like it. Nope on #4, I've never seem this one used as a rosette, only B+S in its non-burl form.

Anyone care to play...if not I'll give out the answers.

Tub O Lard at stake!

verhoevenc got the first and third right. Good call on the Black Palm. I also made on with this using end grain, but messed it up in installation. It was a cool polkadot look, but really fine. It was really fragile. I think I would need to make it a bit smaller. It was on an OM and looked too big. The same size on the Larrivee L shape looked good though.

#2 is from one of our sponsors, and not koa. #4 has huge voids. Think down under.

Zach, how do you make these rosettes? I'm sure I'm not the only one interested....

Is number 4 jarrah?

Cheers,
Dave F.

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Cambrian Guitars

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

My guesses for the ones not yet nailed:

#2: Lacewood

#4: Malee

Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding.

Jarrah Burl. I picked it and the Black Palm up one day when I visited the Rockler right by my house. They are turning blanks. The Jarrah I actually ended up cutting at a 45 to get the 5.5"+ I need to bookmatch. It also allowed me to cut 90 deg to the voids lines. I stupidly tried filling them in with Zpoxy, but it quickly dawned on me that I should use sawdust from the dark sections. Oh well, its just a practice top. I then drilled a hole and cut it out. Simple enough. I really like the way this one looks with the black/maple/black/maple.

The Walnut is from a headstock blank and the Black Palm is from a 2x2 turning blank. I created a drawing in Autocad for a 12 segment (a somthingogon) ring and printed out several copies. I tape the paper template on some MDF with the Stew Mac Dremel router base pin installed in the center. Re-sawed the Black Palm, then used a 12” disc sander to shape each piece one at a time. Glue on each piece to the paper as I shape it. I made sure to alternate each piece front to back to have each piece sort of bookmatched to the adjacent pieces. This didn’t really matter with the Palm.

Once done let sit over night with something clamping it flat. It tends to swell and pop up. Once dry I sand flat then cut out the ring leaving the paper on the back for support. Route the top and place the ring in with the binding strips. Leave the paper side up. Then run it through the drum sander to final thickness. As long as you route the correct depth it will clean up after running through the sander. I did not route the correct depth on the Black Palm, so it didn’t clean up and I can see the binding strips shining through the back because it is so thin. Again not the end of the world, just a practice top.

I may have some photos of the processat home.

#2 is Lacewood from LMI.

Here you go Dave. Pics

I guess the Walnut one I sanded off the paper before installation

Ah-ha, I get it, thanks Zach! Pictures are truly worth 1K words, aren't they?!

I've been experimenting making custom marquetry rosettes one layer of veneer thick, glued onto a substrate of super-thin aircraft modeller's plywood (1/32" thick). Then inlaying the marquetry/ply sandwich into the soundboard in one piece. I am still perfecting the technique. The problem I'm having with it is the fact that the soundboard needs to be almost at final thickness before I do the inlaying of the rosette (I wouldn't want to sand through the veneer).

I make the marquetry rosette just like I would make any of my marquetry pictures. I use my 45W Epilog EXT laser to cut them out. Once the marquetry is glued to the plywood substrate, I cut it out to final shape using the laser also. Then, guess what I use to route the channel in the soundboard? Yep, you guessed it......the laser (on raster rather than vector cut). This way, I can make the rosette any shape I want. I can also cut out the soundboard hole (any shape/size) and even the outline of the guitar top using the laser. The problem is that every soundboard is different (I've heard that before somewhere....). The laser's raster power/speed settings need to be customized for every soundboard. I have to test on a piece of scrap from each to get the depth of the rastering (routing) just right.

That's why I was particularly interested to find out how you were doing your rosettes - it looked to me, for a moment, like you were using a laser also....and had overcome some of the issues. Sometimes I think it might just be easier to use the more traditional techniques!!

Cheers,
Dave F.

_________________
Cambrian Guitars

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