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We see many very cool rosettes here on the OLF and I thought it might be useful to some newer builders to see how you might make your own wood rosettes.

As always observe best practices for safety, wear safety glasses, understand the tools that you are using, ear protection, dust masks, and all appropriate measures should be taken to be safe and ensure the safety of you and your families and pets.

And.... as always there are many ways to accomplish the same results in guitar building so what you will see here is simply what works very well for me using the particular tools that I have in my shop.

Because of the limitation of how many pictures we may post per post I will need to use a number of posts in this thread. Please feel free to weigh-in at any time and also feel very free to add your tips and tricks as well. The goal here is to have a thread that helps some of our members become better builders.

In addition, with our new software I find writing these tutorials to be even more fun so get ready to see many, many pictures of the process.

Many thanks!

Today we are making a simple, one-piece Brazilian Rosewood rosette. This rosette will be bordered with a .034 B/rosewood/B laminate. Although this toot will only cover making the rosette I will do another toot when I install the rosette in a German spruce top.

Lets get started!

Here we see the two halves of the BRW rosette blank being trued up with a plane. I could have used a smaller plane for this one but this #5 Record works fine.



Prior to planing the rosette blank halves I ran them through the thickness sander to even them out.



When I was done with the plane I could still see some light between the plates when candled them so I hit them with a level with 120 grit self-stick attached.



Now the plates are ready to be joined into a book matched rosette blank.



I use the tape method, more available on this in the OLF tutorial page, and it always works great for me. Prior to using the tape method I put down some waxed paper and have a second piece available to cover the top of the joined plates once glued.



The two halves are butted together and one is placed at approximately a 30 degree upward angle. The tape is stuck down across the plates but stretched, in the air and not on the plates, over the middle inch or so on each side of each plate. When the plates are forced flat the tape will draw them together and offer the clamping force needed.



Next the taped plates are "tented" upward and glue is applied to one edge, I used Titebond today but HHG or fish glue could be used too.



To be continued........

The next step is to join the glued plates together over the waxed paper.



The piece of tape that you see is not necessary and in fact I will remove it - it was only placed there because the plates, which are taped firmly together on the down side have a tendency to push up in the middle and I needed to photograph this for you. When I flattened the plates over the waxed paper I used my thumbs to be sure that both halves were flush at the joint and then cleaned up the excess glue squeeze-out with a paper towel.

The second piece of waxed paper is placed on top of the joined plates.



I place a scrap board over the joint prior to weighting it down.



Next I employ my high-tech clamping device to weight down the plates while the glue dries.



And a coupe of hours later the weight is removed and the tape is discarded and we now have a book matched BRW rosette blank.



This is the purfling that I am going to surround the installed rosette with.



My next goal is to have the rosette blank and the purfling be the same thickness. Here we see that the purfling is .080.



The bridge blank is currently .140 so it will need to be returned to the thickness sander and thinned to .080.



To be continued......

Whenever I am joining plates be it tops, backs, rosette blanks or whatever I try to remember to mark the exact center where the plates are joined on both ends. This helps me greatly, especially for tops, when the joining point disappears after thickness sanding.



Now I place the rosette blank in the thickness sander and gradually reduce it to .080 or something close.



OK, Ok so I missed it by .001.........



Although it is difficult to see this but now the purfling and the rosette blank are the same thickness. Why do you want them to be the same thickness? So that when you glue the rosette and purfling into the top a board and waxed paper can be used with weights to evenly apply pressure to the entire assembly. More on this later.



Now I use my end marks that we previously made and make a center line on the rosette blank. Notice too that this particular blank has two knots that we would not want to use in the actual rosette. With this in mind the rosette will be measured out in a position that bypasses the knots. The ID of the rosette will be 4.25" and the OD will be 4.75".





An awl is used to start the pilot hole that needs to be drilled for the circle cutting jig.



And I will always start with a smaller bit first and work my way up to the 3/16" hole that my Stew-Mac circle cutting jig requires. In addition I use a backing board to help reduce any tear-out.



To be continued.......

Thanks for the info Hesh. Looks to be like an excellent educational piece. I'm looking for a thickness sander, and was wondering if you could give insight as where to go to get a good piece of equipment and CHEAP if there is such. Thanks.

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Thanks To All:
Lee
Sikeston,Mo.

After progressively moving through several slightly larger drill bits we now have our required, for the Stew-Mac circle cutting jig, 3/16" hole.



The guide pin is trial fitted and all is well.



I use double sided tape to hold the entire rosette blank down to the table when cutting the rosette. So far the double stick tape from Stew-Mac is my favorite. It sticks where you want it to and releases when you want it to and it is fairly thin as well. Once the entire bottom of the rosette blank is covered evenly with double stick tape and the excess is trimmed away, including where the guide pin will be, we are ready to get started.





This is my inlay station in my shop. The light is very good and I have a magnifier light as well if I need one. In addition I have a hole drilled that matches the pin size of the Stew-Mac circle cutting jig.





The rosette blank, tape side down......... is pinned into place and pressed down to make firm contact with the bench.



To be continued.........

There are a number of very good circle cutting jigs available including some designed by our fellow OLF members such as the Wells or Karol jig. These are great and use a laminate trimmer instead of a Dremel tool. The advantage is more power from the laminate trimmer and tighter bearings. If you do not have a Dremel and are looking for a circle cutting jig I would check these out.

For me I had a nice Dremel that seems to have very tight bearings and I reserve it's use for only cutting rosette channels and rosettes. I work slowly, take many small passes, and it works very well for me and I consistently get gapless rosettes and no tear-out. I use a Stew-Mac spiral down-cut bit and since the resinous woods like BRW and the double stick tape can gum up a bit I am sure to clean my bit after every use soaking it for a few minutes in 1/4" of "Simple Green" in a cup.

Initially I used a fly cutter and I personally think that these things are one of the most dangerous tools that I have used to date. On my table top drill press the vibration was so very great that while using a fly cutter the drill press nearly vibrated off the bench..... In addition they rely on tiny set screws to keep pieces of sharp, hardened steel from becoming projectiles....... I would not recommend the use of a fly cutter unless it is a special purpose, and expensive one like what LMI sells for a couple hundred dollars.

Here we see my Dremel attached to the Stew-Mac circle cutting jig.



I like to cut the outer edge of the rosette first just in case anything moves that is taped down with the double stick tape. I also like to set the Dremel to be too far out and gradually move it in until I am just kissing the mark for my outer diameter of my rosette.

I will take at least three passes to cut through the .080 thick rosette blank and the last pass I will do twice in both directions. After each pass I remove the circle cutter and vacuum up all the dust so that the base is not riding on the dust making it less accurate.





I have marked my circle cutting jig as to what way to turn it to decrease the size of the circle, this helps greatly.











To be continued...........

Now by the change in color of the dust, some white, we see that we have succeeded in cutting through the rosette blank and into the bench top.......... Since I have dedicated this bench to this operation I don't care but it was a problem when I had a bathroom shop and used the Formica counter top..............





Next the process is repeated only from the inside and sneaking up on the inner edge of the rosette.









To be continued............

We are almost done folks.....

I use a pallet knife from Stew-Mac to carefully remove the rosette from the bench and release the double stick tape. Working around the edges first and leveraging the knife back and forth, carefully, it comes up quite easily.







I like to save my cut-outs but I have no clue as to why.......



After I remove the thin layer of double stick tape from the rosette I wipe that side of the rosette down with Naphtha to remove any residual adhesive that might inhibit a good glue bond later.



And here we have our completed BRW, book matched rosette sitting on the German spruce top that it will be installed in.



Thanks for looking!

Excellent toot Hesh... Thanks! I like the looks of a wood rosette, & always wondered how you go about making one. Now I see. I have that same Stew-Mac circle-cutter & finally got to put into action yesterday. Only I used a Fordham instead of the Dremel.

Marking the fixture to remind you which direction to turn the adjusting wheel is a nice little reminder too! It looks like the tape joining method is the way to go?

I was sweatin' big time, since this was the first Rosie I have actually cut, and it was on a nice Alpine top. Others had previously been cut by John Hall & I installed them. When done, it worked like a charm & I had no tear-out.

Nice set of coasters you got there bud Just take them to Joe to have them sprayed with poly and they'll last a long time.

Great detail as usual on your technique Hesh. That's pretty much the way I do it too.

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Great tutorial! At first I thought you went a bit overboard with the double-sided tape but it made perfect sense when I saw how clean and accurate the end result was.

Up until now I've been using more or less the same process as you with the Dremel and Stewmac base. The Dremel just doesn't have the combined accuracy and speed I wanted (a little too slow going and finicky for my liking) so it was a choice between building a base for one of my laminate trimmers for a more sturdy/powerful version of the same or going all out with the repeatable accuracy of drill cutters... I decided to go with the latter. I'm not yet sure if I'm scared of it.

As for the leftover circle cutouts. I always take these and snap them down the centre, to satisfy my own quality control / curiosity - if they snap anywhere but the glued joint then I know everything is good. I do like the coaster idea though... a bit more exciting than snapping, smiling then tossing it in the bin.

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Richard
http://www.guitarmaker.com

Hesh,

I'm not quite sure why you go to the trouble with book matching because the effect sort of disappears in a thin strip like that.

Lee the most inexpensive route that you can go to get your thickness sanding done is to find a cabinet shop in your area or a local Luthier who will help you out with their machine.

Also, some of our very fine sponsors will thickness sand for you. Uncle Bob (RC Tonewoods), LMI, and I think Tim at Aussie Tonewoods all offer this service too.

As for purchasing or building a thickness sander there are many, many threads in the archives about this and if you want to start a thread asking this question I will try to find some good links for you and post them.

Barry you are right book matching is not very important with darker woods like ebony but with woods with figure or color variation I think the rosette just looks nicer if it is symmetrical.

Richo I do the test snap too but with the cut-outs from a top or back since the rosette's joint is not important once it is inlaid.

As mentioned the Laminate trimmer is probably the way to go but I wanted to reiterate that a Dremel will work fine too if you have one with decent bearing. I would never attempt to use one for routing a binding channel but to me cutting out a rosette is pretty light duty and what I am really concerned with is accuracy. I have several PC-310s here and another circle cutting jig for a laminate trimmer but personally prefer the good old Dremel. Using a Dremel also offers someone just starting who has a Dremel one more thing that they do NOT have to purchase.....

Rod bro - coasters! That is a great idea and having a bunch of BRW coasters would be pretty cool!!! Thanks!!

Rich glad that this toot is useful to you - that is why I do these.

Todd - I think they start out here and Lance either pins them up at the top or moves them to the tutorial section. Probably would be easier on everyone if they were just posted in the toot section to start with. That way we train ourselves to check that section out on a more regular basis....

Hesh - excellent tutorial as usual. I pretty much do the same thing, but I find that the cord on the dremel wraps up around the tool as I cut, and I am in the process of rigging up some type of holder to prevent this from happening in the future. I also find that I can get cleaner cuts by climb cutting (moving the tool in the same direction as the rotation of the bit). The Stew Mac dremel bits are the way to go!

If you have a laminate trimmer and good circle cutting (trammel) base, you can pretty much do the same operation with the same techniques, and get faster results, but as Hesh said, not everyone has these tools.

Good job my friend!

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Mitch

Another great and helpful toot Hesh ! You are getting very good at this man!
Thanks much

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Anderson Guitars
Clearwater,Fl. 33755

Thanks, Hesh.

Your tutorials are always informative and visually inspiring. I can see the bookmatch works well; I love the symmetrical grain either side of the rosette.

Keep up the great work, mon.

Mitch my friend the cord is my nemesis too but it helps to reverse directions of the cut for each pass - that way the cord irritates me equally every time...... If you come up with a way to take the cord out of play, perhaps suspending it above the router/Dremel be sure to post it.

I was thinking about climb cuts last night when I was cutting this rosette. But so far with these spiral down-cut bits I have always had very clean cuts and I think the trick is to never try to remove very much material at once.

Dave bro thanks!!

Nice tutorial Hesh, clear pictures, clean step by step text. I have to tell ou though, every time I see a picture of your shop I feel like a slob . At least you allowed a few bits of sawdust to remain in a couple pics, although it looks like they are well controlled. I am off to clean up my shop now

Rich

Thanks for the tutorial Hesh. This is the rosette I'm working on: Cocobolo on Englemann

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A higher purpose for wood.
Rich Smith
Issaquah, WA

Hesh, thank you for taking the time to put together another informative tutorial. I'm sure others think you go overboard with the details, but I for one appreciate the details. Not all of us have been building guitars or even done that much general woodworking. Your pictures are invaluable to the explanation. If were so easy to grasp the understanding of the message from just words, then all we would have to do is read about it. No one would ever have to be shown what to do. Me, words do not work so well in my head. I need to see what you are talking about. So again, thank you for taking the time and putting so much thought into the details.

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Aoibeann

I do mine pretty much like Hesh, except I use a circle cutter on my drill press to cut out the rosette material. I then use a Rigid 2400 with the Wells jig to cut the channel in the top.

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A higher purpose for wood.
Rich Smith
Issaquah, WA

wow!
Another fantastic toot Hesh. Thanks a buch. I wonder how many people actually store your great tutorials on their harddrive. I know I do.

btw: Where did you get that lovely piece of BRW for the rosette?

Hesh,

I just wanted to say that I really appreciate your style......very clear and concise. Thank you!

Regards
-Joe

That's slick Hesh. Very concise. Regarding the drill press fly cutter, I use one all the time to cut out sound holes. Just set your RPM to 250 or so and it's very safe and works well. My understanding is that they are not designed (and obviously not safe) to be use at higher RPM.
TJK

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Thanks Hesh - for such a precise tutorial..
I know alot of people here are expert woodworkers and master instrument builders, and these folks need no explanation of things they deem to be novice operations,,,
or perhaps a person can be very intelligent and can make correct assumptions about the ins and outs of the building process of something instantly...just by examining, or observing it,,,
and perhaps they might look at something like "cutting a rosette" as elementary -
But however,
honestly for a beginner it can be somewhat vexing determining certain methods... learning the fine points of something, or just learning to do something correctly initially without all the trial and error,,, and waste that goes along with error...
When someone learns from a mentor they can examine the mentors processes, in depth, but some of us dont have that benefit,,sadly.
Its a real skill to detail something to such a degree as not to let the most minor point of an excercise escape unexplained... some might call it tedium.. yet some might say that its very illustrative of the point,,,
Thanks Hesh for all the time and effort that you, and others, commit to create these tutorials..
Cheers
Charlie