Official Luthiers Forum!

Hello my good friends. been a while ! hope you all had a great christmas.
Making a rosette for my "Brazilian guitar" Need some inputs as i am trying to make this one a little blingy . so lets hear if you feel this rosette will do or not ? Personally I am a little worried it is to "large looking" I tent to like the delicate look. so I am not sure, in the same time I like it so I am a bit confused. lets hear some opinions.
as you can see its not finished sanded , still some inperfections left.
The guitar will also have matching koa bindings ! and its a 12 fret guitar neck.


All your friend, Lars.

Hi Lars, I also tend to prefer the more delicate look but I like this one. Hard to tell but I'm thinking it won't look as 'big' after bridge and strings are on. Look forward to seeing what it looks like when you get it done.

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Over all, I think it will be fine in the end.

If you were to do it again, I'd change one or two things - I don't care for the bound soundhole in this one. I think if you would have the width of the spruce be as thick as the spruce+binding but without the binding it would look a little better or, make the rosette inner diameter a little larger to increase the spruce thickness by about 2 but leave the binding in. Clear as mud?

I think you'll get used to is after you look at it for a while.

_________________
http://www.birkonium.com CNC Products for Luthiers
http://banduramaker.blogspot.com

what are some of the dimensions of the top? how big is the soundhole? i dont think it looks out of control or anything, but the one thing i would change, personally, is i would increase the size of the soundhole to meet the inside purfling ring on the inside abalone ring. in other words, get rid of the soundhole binding and the spruce portion that is showing between the abalone and soundhole binding. obviously that does more than just change the aesthetics, now youre getting into changing the sound because of the increase in soundhole size. just my opinion though. i wouldnt scrap the entire top. overall, i think it looks pretty good.

_________________
sweat the small stuff.

It looks good, but a tad "empty" to me... My designs are usually much like this, but the wood ring is only the background for an elaborate inlay.

A lot of people put an abalone ring half way between the border rings to fancy it up without much difficulty, but I like that even less than a plain wide wood ring like this. IMO, for plain wood rings, narrow is better than wide, but my wide wood ring with artistic inlay is of course the best

Only one completed, but here are a couple other designs for inspiration too
It would be hard to retrofit any of these after installing the border purflings already, but as long as you come up with a design that doesn't touch the borders at all, it would be fine.

Looks grat to me Lars.
I'd go with it!
I like the inner soundhole ring.

The soundhole with the soundhole-ring is 3.75" this is a smaller body sized guitar ! top is 1.07 thick, lightweight stiff german spruce with superb great tap.. 14.7 lower bout, 4.7" deep lenght of box is 19.5" therefor I made the soundhole a tad smaller (perhaps to small ?) not sure yet .. inputs welcomed on that to ! ...
Thanks alot for all your ideas and good suggestions. If I take the soundhole all the way to the shell then it will be just a tad over 4" large and I think it would be a little to large for this size guitar. again not sure.... all info is good at this point.

Lars

It looks beautiful to me. If you think the central (wooden) part of the rosette looks too "heavy" (matter of taste) this might be because there's not left much light colored wood between rosette and hole (because you added a dark soundhole binding).

If I were you I would try out how the whole thing looks like adding a further, spruce-colored (maple?) soundhole-binding, experimenting first with a provisional, not glued on balsa-"binding", looking at it from some distance.

I don't understand: those 3.75" (= 95.25 mm) is it the hole diameter? If so this would be plenty, I think. Anyway, looking at the pictures a 4 mm reduction (of the diameter, not the radius) wouldn't bring you beyond the "absolute minimum required" from the acoustical standpoint. Keep in mind that decreasing the soundhole diameter will decrease the air resonance of the box, although there are other methods to control this parameter (it's not only the air volume enclosed by the box, soundhole diameter and position).

I think it looks great lars , hope my first "when i get the nerve" comes out half as good !

_________________
The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

Marcus:

Yes its the size of the soundhole diameter. Do you meen to say 3.75" (95.25mm) is a good size for this size instrument ? or did you say it would be better making the soundhole diameter 4 mm wider. ? I will have a look at using a maple or light colored wood ring to see how that would look .

same question goes for you Todd

Lars

I like it Lars.
It sounds like some are suggesting changing the sound hole size.
I may be wrong on this but I thought changing the sound hole size would change the voice of the guitar. You might want to wait untill it's strung up to start changing it.

I hope one of the experts will chime in and let me know if I'm wrong on this!

_________________
Say what you do, Do what you say.

Hi Lars,

No, I think 3.75" is quite big for that body size, even if it is 4.7" deep. I think I easily might be 4 mm less. But this is only my opinion as a non-expert on steel string guitars (I guess it will be a steel string guitar, or am I wrong with this assumption?)

Edit:

I think you're right. Soundhole size has to do with the voice of the guitar! But there are several other factors involved with the air resonance (which, within the dimensions we use to make soundholes is the most important acoustical "property" or influence of soundhole size), such as air volume of the box, top and back flexibility, soundhole position and amount of tapering of the sides from the lower bout to the heel.


Good point but maybe a little bit more tricky than to do it on the loose soundboard.
To estimate the effect of a smaller soundhole you also might reduce soundhole size on an existing guitar by simply covering it with a piece of cardboard with a smaller hole. Talking of a difference of a few millimeters in soundhole diameter, normally we are talking of nuances of the voice. Predicting the voice of a guitar is a little bit like reading cofee grounds, especially when a maker does a model/shape which is new to him.

Hi, Lars. I think it's a beautiful rosette. If it were mine, I wouldn't change a thing. I think you should finish it just as it is. Then, if you're still concerned about the way it looks, slightly scale down the width of the next rosette that you build in this style. I am pretty confident that you'll have many customers who will love the looks of this guitar and its rosette. Remember to post pictures of the finished instrument so we can all see it. I really enjoy seeing your work!
Patrick