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Hi everyone,

I am working on my rosette. Yesterday I cut out parts and I glued them to paper, which I then wanted to glue to a board so I can cut the size and shape out on the fly cutter in my drill press.

The thin rosette parts warped and the paper did too from the moisture in the glue. I tossed the mess out.

I have more rosette parts to glue - but how do I do it ?

Should I just go the route of cutting each shape out as if I were doing an inlay, and thenn just inlay the rosette in a channel in my soundboard ?

By the way - I have no router and do not intend to get one unless I really really need it.

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It's this new idea from recent decades that everyone gets a participation award. - MUX

A few ideas: use a spruce board instead of paper. You can attach the paper on the spruce. I cover the spruce in scotch tape and use pins to fasten the various bits and parts. You can easily bend them over the wood to clamp it too, or even put the stuff in a gobar deck....
Also wait for a couple of days for the moisture to go out before deciding to throw it away. I remember a while ago I glued 3 veneer sheets to an African Blackwood headplate using fish glue (I normally glue them up on the neck all at once, can't recall why I split the process) and next morning when I unclamped it had a huge stiff arch - quite disappointing since ABW is far from being disposable, but 2 days later when it dried out it become almost 100% flat, good enough to glue it on the neck no problems.

I used to make various rosette parts (such as veneer rings) on that spruce board before inlaying in channels but now switched to inlaying the raw parts directly. Other people even make the entire rosette on a board. Both methods work as long as you establish a good procedure.

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Build log

Put waxpaper over your paper pattern. Tape it all down. Place 2 rosette pieces and 1 peice of purfling by hand (not a bad idea to wear a nitrile glove). Glue with CA, shoot with CA accelerator. Glue next piece until done. If it doesn't fit together exactly under the fretboard area trim a wedge to fit and close the gap. Should be flat and should come off of the waxpaper no problem.

I take a piece of scrap plywood, run it through the thickness sander to true it up then put the rosette on the plywood with double-stick tape. Next I run the rosette through the thickness sander with very light passes to get it even.

Next step is to figure out where your center hole needs to be on the plywood, drill the hole, and use a circle cutting jig such as the Wells-Karol to cut inside and outside radii.

Flood the rosette with Naptha to release the double-stick tape and use a spatula to carefully remove the rosette. Should be ready to inlay.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I've never done a radial rosette (or any rosette, actually), but for the glue-to-paper strategy, you'll definitely want to have it clamped flat while it dries. If it takes too long to arrange all the pieces, you could edge glue them together first, and then glue the whole thing to the paper. That way you could get it clamped right away before anything has time to get all warpy. Of course, it takes longer to dry when clamped. But you can give it a quick bit of air and then reclamp every few minutes/hours to hurry it up.

You should be able to flatten the old warped pieces and try again, instead of cutting all new ones. Just get them wet and clamp flat to dry.

Shaping the circle segments individually would work fine too, but would take longer and might have more gaps to fill.

No router and no thickness sander.
BUt I will adapt with what you wrote - thanks

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It's this new idea from recent decades that everyone gets a participation award. - MUX

Can I jut use regular Super Glue ?

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It's this new idea from recent decades that everyone gets a participation award. - MUX

Sorry to be a little dense - but can you explain further the bench hook jig you made and show in the picture ?

Here is where I am so far... next up is leveling and cutting out - I do not have a thickness sander - I will probably glue this to ply as you stated Todd - it will help keep it together during the cutting.

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It's this new idea from recent decades that everyone gets a participation award. - MUX

I glued everything down with CA - now do I have to sand the CA off before gluing it to my soundboard with Titebond ? In other words will the Titebond still be able to stick over CA ?
Is there an easy way to remove CA from wood without sanding ? Acetone ?

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It's this new idea from recent decades that everyone gets a participation award. - MUX

But if you mill the ring - then the grain is different that if you use grain that gives you a radial pattern.

But I think I am convinced to use the plywood base -

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It's this new idea from recent decades that everyone gets a participation award. - MUX

Another idea is to cut the channel in the soundboard as you mentioned and glue in each piece. Then you can cut the inside and outside arcs for your purfling and you have saved some steps. I even use the drill press to clamp in the pieces.

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Ken Franklin
clumsy yet persistent
https://www.kenfranklinukulele.com

Or make a jig for your bandsaw and cut the pieces to the proper inside and outside radius. There are tutorials on the jig and tips on inlaying the ring rosette in the tutorial section here. Here's the youtube on the tips.



All the radius pieces were cut with the jig. The outer and inner rings are purf lines. You can see how I routed the channels for the rings into the ebony as I went along and figured out what I wanted to do. I guess you could cut the channels with a hand rosette cutter or fly cutter if the blade is thin enough. Much easier to make the Wells/Karol router jig and get a router. You can never have enough routers.

Chris - a quick pointer to the tutorial would help - I tried looking for it and saw different types of rosettes, but did not find a jig to cut segments, only to cut complete rings.

I found the Youtube video - I don;t have a 1/16 blade - but I think I can adapt this to my scroll saw.
Is there a written tutorial also ?
thx !

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It's this new idea from recent decades that everyone gets a participation award. - MUX

Here you go. The first one was done late at night but you can also see how I developed the jig as I went along from this first one.
Also note that Olson no longer makes the blades. I now get them made to whatever length I need from :
DGI SupplyMidwest RDC
A DoAll Co.
1480 S. Wolf Rd.
Wheeling, IL 66090
800-932-6255 Metal Master Blade 1/16" X .025" X 24tpi.
That will save you hours of searching and help make up for the 1/2 hour of watching the videos.

Thanks Chris ! I like this solution and I have plenty of that shelf mdf to make this with. I will adapt to my scroll saw - to avoid having to buy a blade for the band saw.

Thx !

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It's this new idea from recent decades that everyone gets a participation award. - MUX

You can try the scroll and see how it works out. If you're cutting shell I would almost be certain you will be breaking blades a lot. The abalam cuts nice but solid shell will even break the 1/16" bandsaw if it binds or heats up the blade. I removed the table insert under the jig so the vacuum would gather the shell dust as it will collect in the cut slot above the insert and sometimes bind or heat the blade and then break it. It took me a while to figure that out. I broke 3-4 blades making that Rosette. The solid shell will dull the blades too and that leads to heat and etc. A 1/8" blade would more then likely also work fine. Just get the most TPI you can find.
No written instructions or drawings. I pretty much built it on the Fly. You can put one together for your needs as to whether you want to cut wider pieces or not. You might try doing a general search here. Mike O'Melia made one and it would be worth getting a look at some things he did.

Edit
Here you go.
viewtopic.php?f=10101&t=24228

Thanks Chris, just cutting some walnut - and it is pretty thin too. I may also try it with my 1/4 inch band saw blade - I have 12 segments - so the curve is not too extreme either.

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It's this new idea from recent decades that everyone gets a participation award. - MUX

OK, I just wanted to point that out for the future and for others information on the jig too. The jig comes in handy for things but it has to be kept tweeked in as you go. I suspect that if I had a Carver bearing guide it would be a great help. I just used it the other day for cutting abalam strips fro my top purf. I'll cut a few strips at a time and set them and if the channel starts to get a bit tight or loose I can adjust the width. Comes in handy for around an armrest where I had to cut the channel by hand with a dremel.
But there are plenty of ways to skin the cat. This is just one. I'm very interested in learning the block and plane method for Spanish Rosettes.

What are you referring to ? now you got me interested....

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It's this new idea from recent decades that everyone gets a participation award. - MUX

I believe that's the name or a name for the process of making Spanish rosettes. It involves gluing up mozaic tiles or tile's like in the post of Ken's that make up the field and then surrounded usually by rings or bands and sometimes a rope pattern or herringbone or wheat pattern etc. Alan Curruth has some really nice basket weave patterns in ones that he makes. Some of the nices Rosettes I've seen.

http://www.alcarruthluthier.com/guitars ... Repair.htm
Check out the close up and the one in the links below the picture.

He has something like 20 jigs that he uses to make all the little pieces that he uses planes with to shape them. Perhaps that's where the name came from if that is indeed the name for it. I can't remember where I first read that name.

I call mine a Spanish Ring because I think it is somewhere in between a Spanish style and a Ring rosette.

Like I said, there's more then one way to get things done and it also depends on the degree of complexity of your rosette.
I'd take Todd up on his gracious offer to learn that technic too. And you'll get to see his shop.
I'd still make the jig too. It comes in handy for making straight strips as well as curved pieces.
I'm still surprised at how useful it is and put it to the test in that rosette. I don't know how else I can easily make .019" strips of shell with a 3 " radius for the price of $20 in malamine and some rod and nuts and deck screws. And a bandsaw blade. I'm no Larry Robinson.

THANKS CHRIS !! - I have it working with a 1/4" blade - works great - I bet it is easier for me since I am cutting walnut and testing with maple, not abalone.

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It's this new idea from recent decades that everyone gets a participation award. - MUX

There you go. You might want to put a block support under the cut and around the blade like a zero clearance thing to prevent tear.