Official Luthiers Forum!

Any thoughts on leaving out any rosette on a 12 string top ?
Would it leave the top more rigid, or ant stronger ?

If I understand it properly, the rosette is not simply decorative. It is there to stop splits from propagating from the soundhole to the rest of the top.

--Paul

It's not strictly necessary. Its main functional purpose is to seal the exposed endgrain from losing moisture too quickly, and stop any cracks that may start there from spreading. But my experimenting guitar doesn't have a rosette, or any finish, and hasn't cracked there. I think I braced it in 50% or so humidity, and it's below 20% in here right now, so as far as I can tell the soundhole is not a major concern. The center seam separated from the bridge to the tail last winter, but the bracing holds it together ok, and it still sounds great, so I just left it so it can tolerate the extreme seasonal variation here.

As far as strength goes, any effect of the rosette is insignificant compared to what you can do with bracing inside. I like tall soundhole braces.

As well, it is usually a harder wood than the top and prevents pick wear from eating through the sound hole edge. I would not skip it.

I thought they called that a pick guard!

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Some builders just bind the soundhole, often with ebony.

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

The soundhole is the only exposed end grain on a guitar top. If I was building the guitar it would have at least one solid ring for a rosette. Just too much work over all not to use one.
Tom

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A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

I can't imagine it would make any appreciable difference in the strength or rigidity of the top. If you're worried about it, use a spruce patch under the soundboard around the sound hole. Plenty of guitars out there with no rosette (think Paul Woolson). If you like the look, go for it. I think it can look nice, especially with a bound sound hole.

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sweat the small stuff.

I like some kind of rosette. One of the spaces one gets to express some artistic expression other then just wood choice. Rosettes use to be used as a signature of the builder along with the head stock, much nicer then a label IMHO.

I don't buy the "preventing cracks" theory. You have an X brace, popsicle sticks, and upper transverse brace directly under the rosette area. Don't forget about the big slab of fingerboard that is glued on the top above the hole. Suddenly a veneer of herringbone or rosette tiles looks kinda wimpy.
I don't think you NEED a rosette. I've seen a few without anything around the soundhole...mostly non-traditional designs and the old army/navy style mandolins. I can't say its my favorite look though.

I think one could even argue that a rosette would actually weaken the area around the sound hole. Having said that the question is why do you not want to have one?

Me neither. In fact, inlaying a rosette cuts through the fibers and leaves about an eight of an inch thick ring of wood around the perimeter of the rosette with no support other than what's under it.
Go a little too deep and you have potential time bomb on your hands.

I've seen more than one vintage guitar with chunks missing around the soundhole where the wood let go.

So I don't like to inlay the rosette more than a third of the way through the top for that reason, or else I feel compelled to glue in some soundhole support.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

If you look at a Torres plan you will see there is support cleats under the rosette area that are semi circles. Thus he for one added for the rosette. Like I stated earlier this was an area for the maker to artistically express themself and use it as a label with a personalized rosette. It really doesn't matter if it adds strenght but I can see where it could help to keep the top plates from splitting especially figuring the early guitars might not of had the cleats. I think builders like to take pride in their work and like to leave some traits or signatures on their builds as time goes on. They develope their styles and also express their influences in builds. Could be Rosette, head design, head joint, volute style/shape, bridge and purfs to name a few.
So if you want to "Skip the rosette" then skip. Just have some cleats of some kind under the top.

I totally dig the expression thing, in fact I wish I were more creative in that area.

I can see how it could function as a decorative "top cleat", as it may be.

I also think that's all incidental and it started off as decoration, replacing the soundhole covering rosette of the lute and oud tradition, which had no rosettes AROUND the soundhole, and moving it to the outside, and so if we find function, it is incidental to the decoration, and we're just looking back and speculating.

And it's entirely possible that whatever book I got that from (or "authoritative" blog or forum post or whatever) could ALSO have been pure retro speculation.

So it may SEEM to function to prevent soundboard splits, but in actuality, it really WEAKENS the wood around the perimeter and actually CAUSES splits and cracks if done incorrectly.

So I believe it is more decorative than functional for those reasons.

And I always put them on my guitars, and wouldn't think to make one without it.

I recommend routing no further than 1/3 of the way of the total soundboard thickness to avoid weakening the wood around the soundhole too much, to prevent chips from breaking off down the road.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

Sounds like the chicken and egg question. Either way I too dig rosettes.