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I'm well into guitar #3, just thought I would share a few pics of the rosette, my first attempt with abalone.....what do you think?




Thanks,
Greg

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Gwaltney Guitars

I Love it!! Simple and elegent but with bold lines. Very nice.

Wow, that close-up shot shows no flaws!
Very nice, tight work.

Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

Looks Awesome Greg, Great Job!

Shane

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Canada

I like that very much. VERY clean work.

Ron

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OLD MAN formerly (and formally) known as:

Ron Wisdom

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

Beautiful!

Mike

Greg,
That looks great! Can you post a quick pictorial of you technique and tooling?

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"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." G. K. Chesterton.

Looks great! Very clean work. Beautiful shell.

Peace,Rich

Hi Steve, here is the process I used.

First I took some ebony, resawed it, jointed it, edge glued and sanded to appropriate thickness.



http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/GregGwaltney/ebonybef orerosettechannelcut.jpg">

Here I am cutting the channel in the ebony for the abalone with the Micro-Fence jig. Also shown is the little jig used for mitering the abalone(thanks Peter) and the abalone dry-fit in the ebony, then CA flooded.





Then using the Micro-Fence and an 1/8" bit I cut the ebony and abalone rosette out of the ebony square, then measure carefully, test cut on a piece of plywood, transfer measurements to channel in the spruce top. Make sure everything looks good because the fit is VERY tight, once the rosette is in it's not coming out without damage to the top. So I apply glue and press the rosette into the spruce top channel. I make the channel in the spruce top within a few thousands of an inch of the actual rosette diameter, so it is very snug indeed, the Micro-fence is helpful in this regard as it allows slight adjustments. Another thing I do with the Micro-Fence that helps me is that I use two center pins, one in the test piece of plywood and one in the spruce top. I find the exact inside diameter on the test piece using calipers, move the already set micro-fence over to the spruce top on it's center pin, cut, then go back and do the same routine for the outside diameter. Took me most of a day to complete, next time will be quicker though as I had to build the little plywood jig for the abalone this time.





Hope that was helpful,
Greg

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Gwaltney Guitars

Looks like this photo didn't show up, here is the resulting rosette freshly pressed into the top, still wet from glue clean-up. And I'll add another of the rosette flush sanded.




Greg

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Gwaltney Guitars

Thanks for sharing, Greg. That makes a really nice rosette.

Ron

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OLD MAN formerly (and formally) known as:

Ron Wisdom

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

Very nicely done. The abalone is gorgeous.



--
Simon

Looks good, Greg! Thanks for the tutorial.

Very nice Greg... Nice clean work and the result is superb!

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I'd like to be able to prove, just for once, that money wouldn't make me happy...

Thanks everyone....glad the tutorial was helpful, after all of the help I've received here it's nice to be able to give a little back.

Greg

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Gwaltney Guitars

Greg -- great looking rosette and thanks for the tutorial.

Was the paua pre-radiused exactly or did you bend it in?

Very nice rosette Greg, clean workmanship!

It was pre-radiused....thank goodness for that!!

Greg

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Gwaltney Guitars

Very Nice, like the technique, thanks for sharing

Mike

Thank you Greg!

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"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." G. K. Chesterton.