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Hi,

What cutting tools and jigs do you prefer to use for cutting your own rosettes? Or for inlaying your rosette?

Do you use down cutting spiral bits? Up cutting spiral bits? Any other router bits?

Thanks,

Steve

Sylvan Wells style attachement for the lam trim, spiral downcut bits (1/4" and 1/8", mostly the former since I do solid rosettes, not thin lines). That's pretty much it, really, for both cutting and inlaying. Bit of doublesided tape, scrap wood, brass pivot pin (cut off a rod), shellac to seal the channel before supergluing, and there you have it.

I am currently working on my first guitar, and happen to be at the rosette stage. I used my Performax 10-20 to thickness the rosette material (figured sycamore) to ~ .070". I cut out the channels in my test top with my Circle cutter jig I got from sylvan (with PC 310 mounted). Today I will be cutting out the actual rosette, and the channels to the "real" top after i test fit with the practice top.

So, for my first:
- 10-20 drum sander
- Circle cutter jig
- PC 310 Lam Trimmer
- 1/4" Downcut bit

Glenn

Circle cutter and chisel!

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I've used a few methods over the years.
I started out with mounting my router to a piece of 1/2" plywood, and carefully drilled a series of 1/16" dia. holes which I used to center the top on via a drill bit. I would then move the top around the bit holding it down to the router bit. This worked for a few guitars, then I made a custom flywheel cutter to take its place.
The next several guitars all used that cutter effectively. It was cheap to make...a simple piece of 1/2"x1/2" aluminum bar stock with holes through it at a slight angle, and I purchased some round tool steel stock and had them machined into cutters. They were held in place by set screws. I think it cost less than $20 to make, but the problem is that every different sized guitar with a different sized soundhole requires its own custom cutter.

Now I use a cnc...which gives me an infinite number of possibilities...

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."