Official Luthiers Forum!

I am getting ready to install the rosette on my #1. I am using tortoise, ivoroid and fiber purfling. My plan is to spray the rosette area with shellac and rout using a wells/karol jig. The pieces should fit well, but not too tight, correct? Then spray the channels with shellac to prevent the black fiber from bleeding onto the spruce. Then glue everything with Duco? How deep should the rosette be as a percentage of overall top thickness?

_________________
Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from poor judgement.

I use duco I don't shellac. I do test to see if the duco makes the dye bleed. I have seen it make bloodwood bleed.

_________________
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

Should I put all the rings in dry and then flood with glue?

_________________
Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from poor judgement.

Rings in dry after a good shellacing of the channel(s), then hit it with thin CA .. been doing that for years ...

_________________
Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Okay, thank you!

_________________
Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from poor judgement.

I use quite a bit of celluloid, both for rosettes and as binding material for various instruments, and I prefer to use a solvent based glue like Duco or Weld-on, rather than CA. For one thing it seems to make the plastic stick better to wood, but it also dissolves it a little bit, so it will weld any tight joints invisibly together. There is also some swelling happening, so the binding will fill in tiny inconsistencies in a binding rabbet. It does take some time before it shrinks back, so I try to wait a few days before I level everything. With just a simple rosette, all this might not matter much and CA will work OK, if the fit is perfect and you've done a good job of sealing, that is. I don't use it for stuff like this all any more though, I don't like the potential for discoloring, and the glue line is awfully brittle. Another option is to melt some binding material in acetone and use that as a glue, or to wipe it with acetone just prior to installing, and glue it Tite-bond or similar.

_________________
Rian Gitar og Mandolin