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There was a question in another discussion about if you install or build the rosette directly into the top or on a work board and transfer it to the top cutting the channel all at once. And why you perfer your method or any other tips you might want to let out there.

I copied this responce from the other discussion so Waddy wouldn't have to repost.


I build them up on a bread board, but then route the whole channel and move them piece by piece to the top. I suppose I could glue them and move them, but never even thought of it. I just like to make sure I know what I'm doing before starting on the top. Since I re-topped #5, I might have to think on that, as I moved the rosette, and that part was pretty easy.

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Waddy

I'm not quite sure how I got here from there!

Waddy's Guitar Build Albums #'s 1 - 4 Finished - #5 - in process.

Sound Clip from #1: Barrios' "Una Limosna por el Amor de Dios" (An Alm for the Love of God) -Not me playing! I could never.....!

i've done it both ways and they are both a pain.
not my favorite phase of da build.
i guess advantage of on a workboard would be if you didn't like the ros, you could try again.
i don't know what i'll do next time.
oh wait! yes i do, the next one has soundholes in the upper bout!
no ros, yay!

To make this a worthwhile discussion, here is my process with pictures.

I start with the central motif, and build it in a workboard slot. This is to make sure the radii are all set reasonably well. There are probably better ways to do this, but it works for me.

Then I bend up my purflings for the perimeter and inside rings.


Install the outside ring.

Install the inside ring and begin the transfer of the central motif.

Finish assembling in the work board, then prepare the top, once I'm satisfied that everything fits.


Transfer to the top.

Flood with thinned Fish Glue.

I wear gloves because after I flood, I massage the glue all over the rosette, to make sure it wicks in well. Mike Collins turned me on to this process, and I llike it pretty well. I have horrible reactions to CA, and it makes me have to leave the shop for several hours if I use it for flooding. I suppose I could do it outside, but I don't like exposing unfinished parts to the humidity. Also, trying to assemble with wet glue is a pain, and makes the process take twice as long, at least for me.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Here is a different method. I create the shapes to go in a circle and using tape as clamps I glue up the main part of the rosette. I use a work board and with a sequence of operations using tape as a clamp I rout the rosette blank into a circle. I drop this circle into the top and then after it is glued it I rout the channels and place the purflings in dry. I use the same fish glue method as Waddy from Mike Collins and glue in the purfs.

The photos are in reverse order. I will add that Waddy's tile approach is much more elegant but I just cannot deal with all those little strips of wood.

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http://www.booneguitars.com
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Stephen-Boone-guitar-builder/488208541257210

I like your method, it might even work with the tiles. I wonder? My only problem with it is that i can only remove a tiny bit to radius the tiles. I'm afraid I'd cut too much off, but it would make putting the radii on the wood tiles very easy. I may have to try that.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Do you sand it off, before installing, or some of it off, or is it less than 1mm thick?

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I've done it both ways. The man difficulty with building the rosette outside the guitar is keeping it at an even width and perfectly round.
I use my Stew-Mac dremel jig to true it mid-construction. Even at that is is difficult to fit the completed rosette as a unit and get it right everywhere.



At this point I'm leaning toward the "In Top" assembly method. I do pretty much the same thing as the above posters but work from the innermost cut outward and define the outermost cut after the inner rings and center tiles are installed. The separate components tend to move around and fill up any tiny spaces so you get an overall better fit, especially where the rosette meets the spruce which is what really counts.

Although I haven't made a true spanish style or block and plane or tile method or what ever it's called I've so far built built mine in the top using a work board to check my routing setup and to size my parts. I show it in my youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNb37nxMW4I
When I graduate to a true Spanish style I'll follow the traditional method of building it in the top at least at first till I get a better feel for it.
But it seems to me that the rosette itself may determine what approach one might use as some may not be able to be built outside of the guitar due to the complexity of the rosette in that it would be more difficult to build outside and transfer over or just be an unnecessary amount of trouble without any time savings.
But so far this discussion is enlightening and very helpful. Thanks for showing your technics. I hope there will me more.

I've only made them off the top, then inlaid them. No other reason than that is all I've had a chance to do so far.

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Expectation is the source of all misery; comparison the thief of joy.
http://redrivercanoe.ca/

When you install a rosette all at once with lines and tiles all at once (with a water-based glue) everything swells and then shrinks again to some degree. This means that if the fit is perfect you might have problems getting it in before it swells too much and damage the top at the ends but if you cut the channel too wide then the shrinking might leave gaps or deform the top. When I started out a maker here suggested I rout the channel and install on a piece of scrap and once dry cut and install on the top.(this was a particularly wide rosette more prone to swelling) I now rout a channel in plexiglass (hide glue doesn't stick to it), install, scrape clean and have a full rosette to put in my top. I don't have to work so quickly, no chance of damaging the top and I can cut the channel a bit wide and the gap is always on the outside and quite uniform. I can fit my rosettes in the top very tightly after that. You need to experiment with a couple of router bits to get the right relationship between the size of the channel in the plexiglass and the channel in the top. One thing I found early on is that if you do cut the plexiglass channel wide then the dry rosette will have a smaller diameter than the channel. My plexiglass channels are about 2mm more in diameter than the channel I make later for the top.

John Ray
Granada

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John Ray
Granada, Spain
blog: http://www.granadaexpert.com/johnray/

I've seen the instructions for making an inlay log, but is there somewhere you can buy the finished log itself?

You can buy whole Rosettes. I'm sure someone will make you up some logs for tiles if you want to pay the price.

I like to build them in place, as outlined in Eugene Clark's article in the GAL. for one thing, if you dry fit, you can always get it to work out just right. If the chanel is alittl etoo big, you add another veneer line, and if it's to small, enlarge it, or take a line out. You do have to get a feel for how much the wod is going to swell when you put in the glue, but that comes fairly quickly.

We recently tried Clark's little cardboard holder technique for keeping a bundle of filler strips orderly, and it works really well. One of my students built up a rosette in the traditional way, and we used waxed veneer strips, as Clark does, and also strips of polyethylene milled to the correct width, as fillers. It was a lot eaiser than trying to hold some lines down when you fit the next one.

For my 'braid' rosettes I needed a place holder that was 12.5mm wide for the original one, and a bit over 6mm for the smaller Classical version. I used a circle cutter in the drill press to make polyethylene rings from an old cutting board for that. Plexi worked too, but not as well: the ring broke after a couple of uses: it seems stickier than polyethylene.

I like to glue in the inner and outer veneer rings, and put in the rest of the rings and place holders dry on the first shot. Then, when the glue from that has dried, I start with the outer and inner trim lines, which might be diagonal or herringbone on a classical rosette. I dip the pieces in HHG, and put them in one at a time. This allows me to correct the spacing on herringbone, for example, so that the inner diagonals don't get ahead of the outer ones due the the smaller diameter. The central braid or interlace has a crossband background strip on either side, which is put in the same way. That's usually replacing a standard 'no-stick' strip placeholder, or maybe a strip plus a line or two of waxed veneer. Thus I work my way in toward the central braid/interlace, which goes in last.

The HHG has a few advantages. One is that by dipping the parts in thin glue you can stop at any time, so long as you clean up any squeeze-out. Another is that, if for some reason you don't push the veneer lines down all the way, you can put on a little warm water and push them in afterward. It's easy to miss that sort of thing in the heat of battle, so to speak, and then notice later on that some of the lines stick up more than others. If they're all the same width to begin with that means there's an air space underneath, and it's a drag ro find that later when you carve away one of the white lines. If you assembled end-grain tiles in the traditional manner, and used HHG, they will hold together long enough after you dip them to get them in place, but then, as you push in the next one, they will slide around a little, and minimize gaps. Finally, I find that the HHG wicks in under a couple of layers of veneer rings very nicely, so you don't have to actually think about working glue in between them: they get stuck down as you do the fields in between.

Alan turned me onto the Eugene Clark Articals as a must read and I agree as they are full of technic and tools and even info on dyeing your own veneer lines. For anyone not aware of the articals they are in American Lutherie #71 and #73.