Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi everyone!

So I'm working on my Stew Mac OOO guitar kit and have decided that I want to redo the soundhole rosette to resemble the Martin OOO42 (http://static.musiciansfriend.com/deriv ... 4514_R.jpg)

The top has not been glued to the sides yet, but I have glued all of the soundboard bracing on so that leaves me with 3 questions:

1.) Is it too late to redo the soundhole rosette? Or is it a bad idea to mess with this since I have already glued all the bracing on?
2.) What is the best way to remove the glued rosette pieces.
3.) What is the best way to remove the epoxied abalone purfling (a modification I made.)

Any tips would be greatly appreciated!!

Thanks!
-- Josh

the rosette dimensions for a 42 are very different from what you have here and to cut them you need a rosette jig. with the sound hole cut out you will have a hard time to do it well. If you do insist on doing it 1st get the rosette jig, Then cut a sound hole filler and drop that into the top so you have a center point to locate from. l

_________________
John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

I had pretty good luck cutting the rosette out on a guitar I was working on. I would use a rosette cutter (router with circle cutting jig) to cut a round disk that is the size of your sound hole. I put one layer of binding tape on the outside diameter of the cutout ("plug") and then carefully pressed the plug into the sound hole so it was flush with the top and snug. You could probably use a few layers of tape depending on how snug the plug is when mounted in the top. Once this was complete I used my rosette cutter to route out the existing rosette. Once everything is done you can remove the plug.

Good luck!

_________________
Brad
Avon, OH