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I usually glue my rosettes in with CA glue. I seal the channel with a coat of shellac first, then put in rosette dry and then flood with CA.
The last top I did was red cedar and the CA bled well into the top and no amount of sanding will remove it.

Very frustrating as it ruined the top and all my hard work.

Any suggestions appreciated!

thanks

fred

If it stayed clear, there's a chance it'll disappear under finish.
You might try applying a little finish to the area to see what it'll actually look like.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Been there. You can preview your work under finish after wiping with naphtha, but the likelihood is the bleed will still be visible.

After a similar experience, I did a series of experiments using a ruined WRC top. Conclusion was that CA and epoxy should not be on the same bench as WRC. Water soluble glues only. Fish works well for both rosettes and binding.


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I glue my wood rosettes in with Duco. It is invisible under finish. Water base glues tend to swell the rosette, which may make it too tight to install.

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John

I used Titebond original and it was great in that if my stuff had a bit of a sloppy press fit Titebond would also swell things a bit making a nice, snug fit. And of course I had lots of time to deal with getting things in place and clean-up.

I never used CA to build beyond for fret work and one little drop for the nut.

Whoops I lied. I also used one drop of ca in the middle of the heel cap to hold it in place as the circle of Titebond around it set the heel cap in place.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

Some observation on classical rosettes with water soluble glue. You can test this on a cutoff of the rosette end before installing.

I have had some high-quality prefab rosettes that expand irreversibly when wetted and the color does not fade. This is great. Install in a very slightly oversized channel with Elmers school glue and swab the rosetted with a wet cloth. Then cover with saran, then a board, then a weight. Do not clamp, so the expansion is not restricted.

Cheaper rosettes expanded reversibly, and the colors faded. Reversible expansion resulted in the rosettes filing the channel, but then gaps formed at various locations in the pattern as the glue dried.

The test in advance is to cut off a bit of the rosettes that will be under the fingerboard. It does not matter if some of the cutoff crumbles off. Put the cutoff on a scrap board with Elmers school glue, mark the width with a pencil line on the board, wet the rosette scrap, cover with saran, another board and a weight. After a while, but before it is dry, peek at the scrap and you will see that it expanded past the pencil marks. Replace the weights and let it dry. Then if the scrap shrinks back to the original pencil marks, the installed rosette will have a tendency to shrink back and leave gaps. You may also be able to observe if the colors fade or run.

flooding it could be the culprit.
use no more glue then you need.
glue on the top may have seeped in to it.


Mike

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Mike Collins

I have had this happen too and there is no way to recover from it. The trick is - two coats, three even better, of shellac and also shellac around the area too not just in the channel. It's a hard lesson learned.

I was given a great tip in avoiding CA bleed and yellowing when using it for rosettes and bindings. Seal with vinyl sealer and never shellac. Shellac + CA = yellowing and bleed. I literally flood my rosette channels and binding channels with Cardinal vinyl sealer with emphasis on the end grain portions. I allow a minute or so for it to wick into the wood and then blow the excess out with an air nozzle. Allow a good few hours for drying (I place the guitar or uke in an air stream from a fan) and it is very effective. I learned this trick from a PRS employee and have done many rosettes on cedar, redwood & spruce with no bleeding or yellowing. From my past experience, shellac is a horrible sealer for CA and even worse under nitro.

That’s a great tip, Mike. In my experiments sealing western redcedar I did try full strength nitro, but that’s still mostly solvent. The vinyl sealer would have a much higher solids content, so it makes sense it would seal better. I still have my test WRC top, so I’ll be sure to test vinyl sealer along side the other samples. Thanks again!


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super glue and tops don't work adding another step by applying shellac isn't needed Like John Arnold Duco had been my rosette glue of choice for 20 yrs.
CA will stain spruce. The I do this the less I use CA

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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

After that one time I had bleed I thought about abandoning CA but then I did a bit of testing and with 3 coats of shellac I do not see any discoloration at all. CA is just so easy to use it's hard to give it up. Once you have all your pearl and wood lines in you just zap it with thin CA and set it in place. For those that use Duco what do you do? Do you place pearl in one by one as you go around?