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I guess if you get any smaller they'll be ukes

Nice progress, it's getting closer to being a guitar

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Lol. Yep.

Back from the holidays. It's kinda funny how you work so hard to get away and then when you are away - you wish you could be working on fun stuff...

The top rim is now leveled. I chose a 28' radius. I normally do a lot less on small guitars and save the 28' for dread and big boys - but this is going to be ladder braced and my top is pretty thin... Next - the back, then do the top and back... On the last 2 - I found it was much easier to install the linings after the top and back were braced. This way I could fit the linings to the brace pattern rather than trying to do all the linings then line up and carve away all the brace pockets.

And now the back of the rims is leveled. 15' on the back. Works well enough and no problems.

Time to make up some braces, brace up the back, and get going on a rosette.

The original guitar had a back brace almost in the middle of the sound hole..... It was kinda weird and ugly... But it looks like they were trying to line it up on the waist. This one won't have a brace in the middle of the sound hole.



And here's a shot of some brace wood I previously prepared... I split out all my brace wood and then saw from there. It's mostly spruce 2x4 stock from the local BORG... Although there may be some in there that was the firewood *cough* (I mean brace wood) of a Canadian tonewood cutter who is now deceased.



Thanks

Wood is where you find it. I have pulled pieces out of the firewood pile to use for guitars and a fair amount of kindling comes from the shop to the firewood pile.

I agree the brace right under the soundhole would look a bit strange. I would rather rearrange them or even use two narrower braces on either side then one right under the hole.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

You must have better firewood up there than I do.

Unfortunately - I got a lot more brace wood out of 2x4's than I have out of bona fide "split bracewood billets"...... I am at the point where I quit looking at 2x4's because I will invariably come home with another one to add to the "bracewood" stack. . The amount of waste is huge - but they only cost $3.00... Unlike having to scrap a $13.00 bracewood "billet".....

And now for the back braces.

Wow.... How did we ever get along before go bar decks.

Instead of 2x4's, check out 2x10 or 2x12. It is easier to find some vertical grain with the wider boards.

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

Hmmmm. Great idea! Now - I can go back to stashing more brace wood again if I go for 2x8's, 2x10's, and 2x12's... That would get around the self imposed "no more 2x4's" rule.....

Admittedly not much comes out of the firewood pile. Some persimmon and the occasional interesting piece of walnut, apple, or whatever that might make a nice rosette or other detail.

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

So.... Back is out of the deck and ready to carve.



On to the rosette. This is a first for me. I am trying out the basic method in our friend Eric Schaefer's video posted here viewtopic.php?f=10146&t=48745 on the forum. I made up a 20 degree template - which is good for an 18 piece rosette. Then - I scrounged all over and found all this stuff:
Hormigo from the back and sides
African Mahogany
Leopard wood
Jatoba/Brazilian Cherry
Dark fretboard wood (I think its IRW)
And brown fretboard wood (I think it's Granadillo)

So - I sawed out a bunch of triangles, cleaned them up and here we go.


I also managed not to permanently super glue my fingers to either the rosette or the bench... So that is a win.


Note to self next time.... Make all triangles the same height and width. For this time - I will try to put all the crazy under the fretboard.

You can get all of the wood you need out of a dumpster as cut offs at a new-home construction site. As has been said, go for the widest stuff you can find and the edges are usually vertical grain. If not, then the piece will be thick enough to turn on its end and get vertical the other way.

This will be an interesting instrument

Ed

I am not really sure I like how this rosette is coming out. It seems like too much of a mishmash.



So... On to round 2.... Leopard wood where all the slices are the same size. I used a thin little slice of maple veneer between each one to set them apart.



Here's my plan for the bracing scheme... The bracing under the bridge weighs about 50% of what a normal pre-war Oscar Schmidt weighs but has close to 85% the stiffness. I am adding some critical soundhole bracing to try and keep it from turning into a big potato chip in a couple years.


Thoughts?

Wow.... No thoughts on the rosette or the bracing....

I am waiting for a new rosette circle cutter router jig from the big brown truck of joy....

In the mean time - here is the top bracing.

Start with a good looking split chunk of 2x4 like this one...


Do some sawing and sanding and we and come out with this.


Rough cut bracing ready for shaping.

Hey John, I tend to favor simpler and less busy rosettes so I like rosette #2. I couldn't make out pencil marks on your bracing on Tapatalk. Now that you show it in the photo it is so different than anything I've used I have no idea how it might or might not work.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

It's a bit difficult to judge the rosettes until they've been cut into a ring. The multi wood rosette might look much better when it's a 1/2" wide ring.

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

The big brown truck of joy arrived today with a brand new toy! A sweet Stew Mac circle rosette jig hickey...

Of course, this is an off label application.... They market it for a dremel.... But still... Who doesn't want a highly adjustable router base for their laminate trimmer.... Especially when nobody makes one. And dremels are generally so flexible and wobbly..

As you can see - all it took was a little match drilling in a piece of 1/4" lexan and a few extra holes in the circle jig and I now have a sweet circle jig for my Rigid laminate trimmer.

As usual - click the thumbnails for large size....

Nice mod. Laminate trimmer is a huge improvement over the Dremmel.

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I have been using a home made circle jig for simple line rosettes. It's just a piece of lexan with a bunch of 1/8" holes drilled into it for the various rosette diameters, and I just use an appropriate router bit to create the groove of the width so want.... Unfortunately, it's not adjustable to sneak up on a rosette like this for a good fit.

This build was the excuse I needed .

Ok. It's official - I love this circle cutter deal. I was able to rout out the rings without incident. Up close - the multi-wood one didn't come out well. There is some angular error which compounds as you go around... It just doesn't look right. Lesson learned.



The second one came out significantly better in terms of the mechanical alignment and overall appearance of good workmanship. I need to make a few more of these to really get it down - but the leopard wood rosette is going in.

Here's what I ended up doing. I cleaned up a small inside diameter hole and glued in a circle of scrap wood. Then used that to keep everything running true on the router.





Then - following Eric's video, I routed out the top - starting from the middle of the channel going outwards.... And just used the jig to sneak up on the final dimensions.... And then I glued it all in place.





This went pretty smooth and I am pretty happy about that. Thanks Eric.

Yep, I like the leopard wood.

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

An hour of drying and the wood rosette looks like this.


And it's time to inlay the purfling strips around it.

1 strip of maple and 2 of walnut. I made these myself out of veneer... Turns out there is a use for a spagetti maker after all . One 3'x6" slice of veneer makes a LOT of purfling strips... And they cost me a lot less than buying them pre cut.

I ran it through the drum sander to clean it up a bit first.

Rout a 1/16" groove all the way around. About halfway on the rosette and halfway on the top.


Line up the purfling strips to go in. Maple against the rosette and walnut surrounding it.


Super glues makes the entire world work right.


Ta-Da!

Last update for the day. I cleaned up the rosette, cut the soundhole, did a quick sanding, and threw on a spit coat of varnish to help protect from dings.

Tomorrow the weather will be nice and cold..... Perfect low humidity weather for bracing up the top.....

Raw wood.


Spit coat of varnish.


Rosette.

Nicely done, it looks good!

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

On to the top bracing.

I went ahead and raidused the braces and glued them all down. It's cold outside which means dry inside - so good bracing weather.



I also had an issue with my back bracing. I braced it at about 40% humidity and it's probably 25% right now.... The braces wanted to split when I was trimming the brace ends... And while the back wasn't sucked in, the tops of the back braces were showing a lot of curve. Not good.

So off they go.


And on go new back braces. The dish was full so I usedy trusty guitar clamp collection.

For some reason, I haven't received any notices about your thread since before the first of the year. You've been busy. I like how your rosette came out. It looks really good. I think for rosettes like other one to work well, if there are no dividers between the tiles, there needs to be distinct contrast in color, light/dark, and/or figuring between the tiles especially after the finish is on so they don't blend together when viewed from more than a few feet away.

Here's an idea to have in the back of your mind if you get to this point again with a rosette in the future


If the tiles extend far enough in toward the center and the rosette tiles are thick enough, you can rout out a thin ring the size of the sound hole opening and inlay it to make sound hole binding that matches the rosette.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter