Official Luthiers Forum!

Thanks to Paul for the inspiration to create my new circle cutter with a
Porter Cable 310 for plenty of power!

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Sylvan
http://www.wellsguitars.com

Ok now I am green with invy.......I got to get a Mico-fence

All right Sylvan, circle power! And the router has it's own depth adjustment too! My, my, what will the guys and gals at the OLF come up with next.....?

Well, here's a very cheap way to make a rosette cutter. It's non-adjustable, unless you drill extra holes for the cutter. But this one cost me only around $13 to make, with leftover aluminum square stock to make a couple more.

Here's the cutter after cutting in a redwood top.



Here's a shot of it spinnin'...

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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."

That's pretty spiffy Don. Are the cutters made from round bar stock? What kind of stock would that be, HSS?

That's cool cutting everything all at once. Nice idea.

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

5/8" aluminum square stock, sold in a 3' length from MSC, the cutters are round HSS, yes. I had a friend who is a machinist grind the ends for me, and I sharpened them for use. Cuts clean as a whistle. (Although I didn't know that whistles cut anything, but who am I to argue with an old expression?) Not my idea. I saw several of these at the Borges Guitars shop. Julius has a dedicated machine for cutting rosettes, and a cutter like this for each style rosette. I believe he got the idea from someone else, perhaps John Greven or Bob Taylor. Not sure. Julius has round carbide cutters though. HSS works fine for me.

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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."

Hello, This is my first posting on this forum,I'm really enjoying it!
I have been using the "Greven" rosette cutter for some time,which I got from LMI.It is basically a fly type with adjustable blades. Once I got it set up it cut nice triple channels as fast as you could load tops into the drill press. Of course the downside is that to change rosette configurations you have to re-set all the knives and spacers.

Welcome Brad

Judy Threet described a simple cutter made from an MDF disk and some pieces of saw blades. It was described in either Gal or ASIA journal withing the last two years.

I have a question about the round cutters. Don't they get smaller or as you sharpen them? If they start out as the diameter of the shaft, subsequent sharpening cold move the edge from the center. This would only happen if you alter the bevel. Also, if you turn the bit slightly when you mount it into the square bar, it will cut a smaller channel. These issues make me worry that this would be sensitive to set up. How is it in practice?