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Well all the recent threads about people's progress on there current building (what ever your building) has really got me going. I just had to get something done in the shop.

I have two guitars in the initial stages of building.

First is a commision, Imbuia b/s, cedar top with lots of celtic inlays.

Second is for myself (Yaaaaaa!) I took Dave Whites advise and well, I've thought about it for a while now too so I'm building a maple/cedar 000. Curly Maple b/s and a nice cedar top all from CV Tonewood, right here in my neck of the woods.

So, here are the pictures.

Oh, before that, I have to thank Tony Karol again for posting his circle cutter, Which I copied thankyou very much. This thing works sooooo good. If you are in need of a circle cutter, this is the one for your. Build it and they will come....er whatever. As Tony said "your rosettes and sound holes will be happier". So far, so good.

The channel for the celtic rosette. I cut two channels, one for the rosette, so it would be centered and a second one slightly shallower for a black edge so the rosette would look like it was all surrounded in black


Black epoxy in the channel.



And the rosette set in and pressed down in the go-bar deck (24 hours is going to be a long time to wait )


And for the second, Here is the back joined and braces glued down (Ala, Lance K style, trying it out to see if I like it too)





And this is what I'm planning for the rosette, with some b/w/b purfling lines on either side in the cedar top.



Thanks for looking.

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"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

Oooooooow look'in good there Rod, love the cedar, nice and tight and the maple looks excellent. So tell me, did the maple come from CV as well??????

Your choice of rosette will marry the B&S with the top just nicely, well done.

Keep the images coming mate.

Cheers

Kim

Rod,

That's looking really nice. Can't wait to see some more photos of the rosette.

I think cedar/maple is a really good combination and my guitar just gets better and better every day - who says that cedar doesn't open up with time and playing. The maple gives fantastic note clarity and separation (as well as looking fab) and the cedar balances with that slightly "dark" quality and lovely bass. It also forces your playing to improve as you can't hide the mistakes as easily I have a cedar/maple baritone on my "to do list" as I think this would be a fabulous combination as well.

The only advice I would give is brace the cedar top for optimum tone as you would with any spruce top, and use hhg as although I was sceptical for the claims at first, I now think it aids the best tone and also structural integrity.

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Rod, Looks like a beautiful guitar in the making!
I can't wait to see that rosette.Nice circle cutter jig you made btw.

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Anderson Guitars
Clearwater,Fl. 33755

Looking good Rod. I like that chunk of spalted wood, gonna be nice.

Ron

_________________
OLD MAN formerly (and formally) known as:

Ron Wisdom

Somewhere in the middle of Arkansas......

Looks like your doing it just right! Keep up the good work Rod!!

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Billy Dean Thomas
Covina, CA

"Multi famam, conscientiam, pauci verentur."
(Many fear their reputation, few their conscience)

Good to see you back in the shop Rod, looks like you're gonna build a very fine one with that great combo, i look forward to see that rosette too bro, keep them pics a comin'!

Looking great Rod,
PS long time no speak! I will give you a ring soon,
Cheers
Charlie

Love the spalted maple rosette! I hope you'll continue the thread as it
progresses.

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Christopher C. Cordle
North Muskegon, MI

http://www.yardsaleunderwear.com
http://www.facebook.com/christopher.cordle

Nice looking all around. Thanks for sharing!

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"Building guitars looks hard, but it's actually much harder than it looks." Tom Buck

What Ron and Chris said.
Love that spalted rosette.
And, I love maple.

Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

Ok, I think time is up. Go ahead and pull that clamp off and lets see that first rosette!!! That sure is a nice piece-o-cedar.John How39016.656099537

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

Looks great. I cannot wait to see picts of the celtic rosette.

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Andy Z.
http://www.lazydogguitars.com

Well as any rookie would do, I pulled the clamp off and took the backing paper off. Well of course, because this is gold MOP (which isn't gold all the way through) I had a white MOP rosette . So I had to pull all the pieces out (I think there are about 200+ pieces in the rosette) and clean them all, and the slot and now I'm doing a jig saw puzzle . Learning the hard way, again.

Here's the puzzle progress so far.



If it doesn't turn out so well I'll just route it out and get a new one. It won't be as good as Andy's initial layout, but I'm hoping it will still be good. There are some larger gaps that will get filled with black of course, but if they get to big, I may just redo the whole thing.

I will post a pic of the completed rosette when it's finished hopfully later this weekend.

Hey Charlie, glad to see you back, I was wondering if you were coming back. Any progress pics of your own?Rod True39016.7694097222

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"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

Rod, did you cut all that rosette or did you buy it somewhere? Lookin fwd to monitoring this post

HERE ya go Rich

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Hesh,

The backing paper is more of a thick, solid cardboard about 1/8" thick. What I was doing before I knew that the pearl was gold on one side and "white/natural" on the other was to cut the channel as shown above, trial fit the rosette, (this is the backing paper)



Till it works, it's hard because all those little pieces are glued to the backing paper which is very ridgid of course. The best thing would be if Andy were to mount it with the backside showing, not the show face, than you could just inlay it into the epoxy like I was trying to do.

I would think that the way to do this is the glue on another piece of backing paper to the show face, remove the original backing paper and inlay in the epoxy which should fill all the voids. That was the idea, but it didn't work out so well for me.

So, now i do this jigsaw puzzle of sorts and than flood it with epoxy, let it cure (I'm going to give it 48 hours) than sand it down to 120, blow it out and see if I have any voids to fill.

This could be interesting. Someone else has done this I would think. I did initially ask Andy how I should do this, he said cut the channel and "float" it in epoxy. Well, looking back I should have asked some more questions. But I certainly don't mind the trial-and-error method. Rod True39016.8947569444

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"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

I sure want to see how this ends up. I have plans to do one just like it. I didn't know all the pieces would have to be inlaid separately.    My owl (that Andy makes)is made of about twelve pieces, but they are all glued together so I can inlay it as one piece. I was hoping this was the same. Everything I have gotten from Andy has been stuck on that black cardboard, but it only needs to soak in warm water for about 3 or 4 minutes to come off pretty clean. Did you try to remove the rosette from the backing in one piece by soaking?

Ron

_________________
OLD MAN formerly (and formally) known as:

Ron Wisdom

Somewhere in the middle of Arkansas......

Sorry Ron, I'm much thicker than that

Nope, should have tried that. So, would all these pieces have stayed intact if I soaked the backing paper off?

Boy do I feel stupid.

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"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

Ron, the more I think about this, the more I don't like you (just kidding).

I suspect that your correct. I would assume that the rosette would stay intact once pulled off the backing.

_________________
My Facebook Guitar Page

"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

Well, Rod, I certainly don't know for sure about your rosette. It is so much more delicate looking, but I bet, judging from the pieces I've gotten from Andy, that the whole enchilada would have floated free on its own.
Don't beat yourself up over it, though, I could be wrong.

Ron

_________________
OLD MAN formerly (and formally) known as:

Ron Wisdom

Somewhere in the middle of Arkansas......

I suspect your right though

It's ok, if it turns out, I will have put together a nice little jigsaw puzzle, and learned some more patience. Everyone can always use somemore patience.

_________________
My Facebook Guitar Page

"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

You're certainly right about that, Rod.



Hey, Billy, can you make us a head-banging Sergicon???

Ron

_________________
OLD MAN formerly (and formally) known as:

Ron Wisdom

Somewhere in the middle of Arkansas......