Official Luthiers Forum!

sorry for using the 'f' word but..

I have just done my first rosette, to cut a very long story short I have ended up with a small gap between an inner soundhole lining of EIR and black plastic purfling line which then procedes outwards to a white line then a wooden herringbone strip etc. The guitar is for me so I think filling is acceptable - I am talking about a very tiny gap in one part of the circle only that would look ok if it were just filled black.

I could do the CA sanding trick but I think the dust would get rubbed into the herringbone. So what do folk think about black gel CA carefully applied and scraped back? Or is there something else that would work? I have some ready mixed hide glue that seems to dry dark brown but generally find the stuff a pain to work with

Also for protecting the rosette generally when finished, Im wary of shellac sealer as previously I ended up with a lot of white in every crevice. What about painting or dropping on thin clear CA? I intend to finish the instrument in TruOil.

Yvonne,

Can you post a photo of the gap? If it's in the the wooden ring then I'd either use some sawdust and CA if i's small or cut a sliver of the same wood and glue it in if its larger. Make some sawdust from a rosewood scrap and pack it into the hole clearing away the excess and then carefully wick some thin ca onto it maybe using a small pipette and you shuld be able to keep it away from the other parts of the rosette. Then scrape back. Practice on some scrap first until you are confident in your technique.

_________________
Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Dave

I m just worried about getting dark dust on the herringbone as this has happened before, and the gap is too small for a sliver. I think i will try varnishing some scrap herringbone with ca then testing to see if it protects it from getting smudged. Thanks for the reply. Hope you are keeping snug and warm up there.

I think you'd be fine using the black CYA gel. Let it cure, then us a scraper
to cut it off back down to where the rosette shows completely. You have to
be careful with CYA on topwoods, because it will often wick along the grain
and cause a stain that can't be sanded off. It sounds OK where you're
describing it this time. When you use it to attach binding, you have to
seal the topwood endgrain with shellac to avoid this problem.

I've always used epoxy as a sealer, so I can't help you on the white spots.
I like the way epoxy pops the grain of the tonewoods.

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Gene

Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason- Mark Twain

Have you considered packing the void with a fine powder of ground Coffee or ground instant Coffee matching your surrounding EIR tone and then flooded with thin CA/Epoxy? This is used in the turning world. Should work fine here too.