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I'm doing a sinker/coco OMC. Customer wants a matching coco rosette. I obliged. Here's where I'm at right now:





We're going to do Ebony or African Blackwood bindings with flame maple purfling (I think....), so I'm thinking a b/w/b purfling around the inside and outside edges of the coco rosette ring (make the 'w' bit from flame maple) might look nice....but it kind of feels a bit boring to me....doesn't float my boat.....not my cup of tea.....etc.

I'm looking for ideas as to how to trim out this rosette and make it special. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Dave F.

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Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

Select one of the colours from your rosette ring and incorporate it into the purfling around both the perimeter of the rhe rosette and the body purfling, It will 'tie' it all together. You don't have to get carried away with such details, classic simplicity usually stands the test of time.

Purfling?? you'd have to ask my wife, I'm not much for the color coordination...

Don't really want to hijack this thread, but maybe one of you guys can post how to make those great radial rosettes. I've been thinking it over and it's got me pretty well stumped....

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Rob

Dave-
You've got a bit of a 'jarring' color combination going on there- orange coco and then the brown/red/purple top- both with a lot of variegation (stripes).
I'd cut down on the coco in the rosette - either make the ring a lot narrower, or split it into two 'bands' to tone it down a bit. Then add in your black/white to put some space between the two woods. You can always stack black fiber to make some thicker lines.

You don't want the rosette fighting with the pattern in the top or it will get over-busy looking, I think.

Just my 2 cents worth - I'm no artist, fer sure.....

Cheers
John

I would go with black/paua/black. Very thin black, pretty thin shell too. Probably .010" black, and .047" zipflex. The cocobolo grain contrast already draws a lot of attention, so it seems like plain b/w/b purfling would feel out of place in its blandness.

Rob,

I cut rosettes like this out using my laser. I draw the rosette using Corel Draw, then cut the segments out from the donor wood one at a time, positioning the wood so as to get good grain match for successive pieces. This usually means cutting them out in a line, from two bookmatched pieces of wood (see photo below). I assemble/glue the segments directly into the routed out channel in the soundboard using LMI luthier's glue. Every other piece is inverted so that a) the very slight angle kerf cut that the laser leaves matches perfectly from piece to piece, and b) the grain and color match is as good as it possibly can get at each joint.



Cheers,
Dave F.

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Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

Thanks for the other ideas folks.

Michael - tying colors is kind of what I want to do....but probably will match the purf to the purf around the edges of the guitar.

John - I think you're right. There's a clash between the colors and grain direction as is. It needs something between the two to separate them. I think it'll look better when the back/sides are on and they match the rosette.

Dennis - Paua would be my choice, however the customer doesn't want any shell on the guitar at all.

Todd - ditto - love your rosette - I may copy it later for another one, but for this one it has to be wood only. Under finish, the cocol is going to be much darker, agreed.

So, all in all, I think I'm going to try a flame mape separator between the two woods......and may add fine black lines to define it. I'll post piccies when it's done!

Cheers,
Dave F.

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Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

Hi Dave,

John Abercrombie said what I was thinking, and Todd Stock confirmed the improvement you'll see when breaking the Coco into an inner and outer ring.

I realize that both the Coco and the Redwood will darken considerably with oxidation, UV, and (especially the Redwood) just applying a finish. So the colors will be more like red/black on chocolate - a far cry from the orange on medium brown stripes we see now. Still, with just how busy that top is and the ring will still be, I'd opt for quite plain elements for anything added to the rosette - such as plain white pearl (I realize this option is out), or plain Maple (or plain Cherry or Swiss Pear) rather than introduce yet another figure element (curl in the Maple.) That would be stripes on stripes on stripes. If you are still at all undecided, how about cutting a ring of figured and one of unfigured wood, dry fit them and then decide?

Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

I offered up all kinds of materials and combos to see what would look best. I ended up going with two fairly wide plain maple inner and outer rings (you guys were right - plain was what it needed!). I'll do purf to match this on the guitar edges (but maybe a bit thinner). I like the look of it now - the white maple makes a nice separator between the coco and the sinker:




What do you think? Passable? Changes/additions?

Thanks for all your artistic help and direction folks!!

Cheers,
Dave F.

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Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

Hi Dave,

Yeah, I like it mo betta. Purfs will refine it another step.

Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

That looks much better, and that Coco is not going to look like that under finish. Wet it with Naphtha to see what it's going to look like.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Definite improvement...
As Todd/Waddy/Dennis have said, when the coco darkens down under finish it will look much more subtle.

Cheers
John

"What do you think?"

I think holy cow, what precise--inhumanly precise--work!
Very nice Dave.

Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com