Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi,
I'm building my second acoustic. The top is cedar, so I was thinking of using spruce as the rosette.
Is there any structural reason why this would not be good?
Thanks in advance.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

No reason not to, Leo Buendia recently built a classical with a chip carved spruce rosette that looks quite lovely framed by the cedar soundboard

Uhhhh, humininahumina!
Thanks, Brian.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

Consider that a classical won’t be played with a pick much, so the toughness of the rosette material is of less importance. For a steel string played with a pick it might not work so well…if you want a light colored hardwood grab a chunk of flamed maple…:)

What Ed said if a pick is in the pic the guitar may "Williefy" aka "Triggerfy" prematurely from pick wear.

Thanks, gentlemen.
Regarding pick wear, I've seen pick wear in all sorts of places. Edge of soundhole where the rosette is never touched, edge of the body where the pickguard never got a scratch; I've even seen a hole near through the guitar above the soundhole.
There's no way to account for all of those possibilities, and I really don't find that a compelling reason not to give this a shot.
If it was for someone else, perhaps. But it will be a personal guitar, and I've played for 37 years. That area is safe from me, LOL.
But I do appreciate the advice/knowledge freely given once again in this place. That's another piece of information I can tuck back and use.
Much appreciated.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

I would have no hesitation about using spruce for a rosette if I wanted the look. I never consider durability when I make rosettes, I use a cross-grain patch under the sound hole to strengthen the area so the rosette just doesn't matter - in my opinion, of course.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

The colored veneers I use to make rosettes are not the most robust pieces of wood, so using spruce would not concern me. If it looks good, it is good, in my book (regarding rosettes).

Lots of folks are using spalted maple for rosettes, even on steel strings, and that can be even softer than cedar.

That's a beautiful rosette!

I use spalted maple allot.
NO problems-seal with CA .

Mike

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Mike Collins

Same here. On one of our models, I use spalted maple rings to accent an EIR center band. In any case, I wouldn't consider the wood in the rosette to be anything other than what it is... which is decorative. To me, it's more about not going too deep with your channel(s). Once you flood the thing with CA (or push a bunch of your favorite glue in there) I don't think you will see much long-term difference no matter what you used.

That said, I have had some challenges with sanding rosette that have significantly different hardnesses in the woods. The softer portions tend to give in, where the harder woods will resist the sanding more and create peaks. I blame my sanding approach for this, and if you are careful to use a block or other very stiff backer on your sanding medium, it shouldn't be an issue.

From my great wealth of experience (7), I've found that a visit from an RO sander with 220 abrasive works a treat for me to level a rosette. After scraping off the high spots.

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Peter Havriluk

With all wood rosettes, I just send the top on multiple passes through my drum sander with 120 grit paper on the drum until the rosette is level with the top. Fast and easy. The finer grit sanding happens later, after the box is closed.

Drum sanders work nice if you have a drum sander...

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Peter Havriluk

To make a "hard pad" for your hook and loop ROS you can cut a circle from a scrap of formica or thin plywood and glue it to a piece of hook and loop sandpaper. Then either attach a piece of PSA sandpaper or lightly spray glue a piece of regular sandpaper to it. It saves time swapping pads.

I had a really bad experience using too fine a grit on the drum sander to level a rosette. The sander dragged out material (heated glue??) from the rosette and kept staining the top. I did not even realize this was happening and kept taking more off. Now I have a top thin enough for a future Smallman style lattice. Advice from the forum was to not use fine sandpaper for the rosette leveling function. Next time I just used a bit coarser paper to level the rosette, leaving the fine sanding to later, as advised above by others.