Official Luthiers Forum!

Routed out a wooden rosette last night in a top and the centering pin on my work board came loose. I was able to fill most all of the gap around the outside of the rosette using a dbl layer of BWB purfling, except for a few small areas that are noticeable between the top and the outside. The top is Sinker Redwood with the dbl purf, then the maple rosette and then a single bwb purf strip. Recommendations of what to use as a filler? CA and sawdust? Epoxy?

Frustrating evening for me as the first top I was working on (cedar with a wood rosette) blew a hole thru the rosette and the top when scraping the rosette down. Lesson learned on that one is to install the rosettes BEFORE thicknessing the top.

_________________
Bobby Masten

I would not fill it. Rout it out and start over. Get a new top etc.
The rosette is a very important visual part of the guitar. You need to know how to make one before moving on.

YMMV

_________________
"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." G. K. Chesterton.

If you can't re-route and inlay another purfling strip to make it go away then I also would advise you to redo it. Anytime you try to fill in gaps on the soundboard it will be very noticeable...specially on the rosette, first place people look at.

_________________
Peter M.
Cornerstone Guitars
http://www.cornerstoneukes.com

Well since I haven't thicknessed the sinker top yet, another option I had thought about was removing/routing the bwb outside purfling and widening the channel to accept a thicker purfling strip. I had considered that as my first thought, but was having trouble getting the thicker wood binding material to bend and so that's when I tried the dbl bwb approach. Would heating the thicker material using a hair dryer & dampening the wood make that possible?

_________________
Bobby Masten

I do not agree that you should have to thickness the top after installing the rosette. You just have to get the dimensions right. But if you do this, make sure you are using finer grit paper. It sounds to me like your top was too thin in the first place. If your rosette is not yet glued in place, just do one more pass to round out the slot.

Oh, and get a longer center pin.

Mike

The sinker top with the gap problem is still at around .180 so I've got plenty of room to reroute out the dbl bwb and even redo the rosette if needed. The cedar top that blew out was about .125. I had it thinner than I wanted it though. Since I don't have a thickness sander, I was using planes and scrapers to shave down the rosette. The plane caught on a hard spot on the maple rosette which caused the tear out. Probably the result of Stanley's cheaper steel on the blade as it's a newer block plane.

I'm going to spend this weekend attempting to build a homemade thickness sander, my fretboard radius jig and my fox style bender. Taking Thursday, Friday and Monday off work and the garage beer fridge is full.

_________________
Bobby Masten

Now that is a plan that I can endorse. Have fun.

BTW, in my experience an unmodified Stanley block plane will not do the kind of fine work that you were asking it to do. That is a tall order for an off the shelf carpenter's tool.

_________________
"Building guitars looks hard, but it's actually much harder than it looks." Tom Buck

I thought there was a reasonably priced, shop built thickness sander in the classifieds. Steve is correct, you are asking a lot of that block plane (assuming it is new). You can pick up old Stanleys on ebay all the time. They are much better, but you still have to set them up for the task. (think 40' & 50's era).

Mike

I made a rosette that I wasn't too happy with. I routed out the inner and outer section, added radial purfling and son BW. Here are some pictures for you. As it turns out, this one went to my worst to one of my favorites.
Here are the before and after shots so that you can get an idea or two.

_________________
"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." G. K. Chesterton.

I'll second that! Need to re-build mine soon as I didn't use very strong materials the first time and it is slowly shaking itself apart. I also went 20" wide so I could do tops from any direction, that is a story for another time! LOL

I've had one or two go sour on me and tried the gap filling tricks...unless you can make it look like it is on purpose avoid it! They are all spot on about how it will effect the look of the whole thing...and that effect will be bad.

I wonder if it would be possible to patch in (from beneath) to fix a blown out rosette? um....how to describe this? imagine you were routing for a rosette and blew through (went too deep) the sound board. Since some folks do a patch under the sound hole for strength anyway, would it work to glue in said patch, so it covers the hole, then only re-route the hole itself. This would create a ledge for a rosette at the same time. Totally ghetto approach, I'm sure but...if you are in a bad way for time or just have to use that top, it would be better than doing without maybe?

Just rambling....oh, how long ago should I have had lunch? That would explain a lot.


-Matthew

Bobby, I always inlay at .125"--that's the starting point around here.
I second, or third (or whatever we're up to) the advice to simply re-rout and try something else.
And--if all simply keeps going south-- you could always turn the top over and use the inside for the outside...assuming the top's pattern is close enough on the reverse side. That'll give you some fresh wood to work with and get it right!

Steve

_________________
From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

Steve,

So, do you thickness afterwards? That is probably a silly question given the depth, so I am just trying to get clear. When dealing with shell, that seems to pose problems (I think).

Mike

Bump. I kind of want to know more about the depth of the rosette cut mentioned above... thanks

I just get the outside down tot 80 grit with at least .030" to spare, rout the inlay depth slightly deeper than the shell. After it's dry I run it through the sander a couple of times to just get it level with 150 grit, then flip it over and get the backside down to the target thickness.

I normally sand my tops to .150 with 120 on both sides, and then inlay rosette, then come back and finish it off to final thickness with 220.

As for the OP I concur with everyone. Re-route, and inlay a new rosette. You'll always know it is there and it will bug the snot out of you. If you cannot make it right I'd start over. You've just begun so why not fix it before you go to far in. If the gap is VERY small you can try using some water and swelling the wood around the rose, but the gap would have to be verty small indeed.

_________________
John Mayes
http://www.mayesluthier.com