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I'm wanting to try my hand at making a tile rosette. My first question is about the stock. I think I'd like to use veneer, standard veneer thickness is .6mm (.024"), is this too thin or does it look ok?
Thanks,
Jim

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

I have premade rosettes that have pretty tiny tiles.

I think you mean 0.24", for those of us who are non-metric.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

No, most veneer is .024 thick or .6 mm

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Ok, I had a brain f#$t and read 6 mm.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

There is a lot of variation in veneer thickness. It may say it's .6, but it will vary, and that will throw you off. I sand mine to 0.5 mm when I do it, and try to keep the strips within 0.02mm.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Thanks Waddy, that helps.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

One point. My scheme is quite simple, so the 0.5 mm little squares are fine. If you have a really complicated design, smaller might be better. My tiles, used back to back to get 1 full tile, are 11w x 16h as I recall, without looking.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I pretty much follow the scheme that was laid out in Eugene Clark's articles in 'American Lutherie' a few years back. Make sure your veneer is uniform in thickness. Cut strips about 2mm wide and lay up the separate layers. Scrape, sand, or plane one surface level, and then thickness the layup. Glue the layups together. I like to use hide glue for this, as it seems to pull things into alignment as it gels and dries. I make short logs, about 45 mm long, and thickness the the layers on a plane jig. The length is limited by the length of the nose of the plane: the thin stock has to be under the plane for the whole length or it will buckle and break.

Think of the colors you're using as a gray scale: all woods pretty much fade to brown over time, no matter what color they are to begin with. I prefer to go with natural colors, since dyes often fade fast, and in ways that can look pretty sickly. One exception to that is black: the traditional vinegar and iron black is pretty permanent. Keep in mind that the color on the end grain will be darker, and often much darker, than the side grain color. With all that, you find that you won't have too many usable gradations of color. If your lightest wood (usually maple) is your 'white' and you've got some dark wood (maybe ebony or black dyed), you'll be lucky to get three or four distinguishable shades in between. Mahogany and walnut, for example, look pretty much the same on the end grain by the time you're done. Pink Ivory makes a nice red, while Padauk or Bloodwood just look black. Blue Mahu is a decent green/teal color, and you might find some green poplar/tulipwood. Boxwood is a light yellow that seems to retain color. For some of these you will probably have to make your own veneers.

I went to just about the same thickness for a rosette with 21x21 squares. 1.5/64ths was as thin as I could go on the drum sander before destroying the veneers. The pieces needed to be long enough to hold before they encountered the drum and after they exited.

A venneer thicknesser may be better than a drum sander to get consistent thicknesses.
Here's one idea, and post has a link to others. http://www.luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10101&t=45280&p=598896&hilit=+veneer#p598896
And there's more ways to skin that cat too, e.g. veritas make one http://www.leevalley.com/us/wood/page.aspx?p=69877&cat=1,43314,69873
Also, here's a link to a post on a classical forum on a build with a rosette featuring 0.33mm veneers which may be of some interest - http://www.classicalguitardelcamp.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=94937&hilit=leaf+rosette
Later posts in the thread show further details on the fabrication of the tiles.

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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.

Alan, Thanks for the tips on the length of the log in relation to the nose of the plane and its seems that thinking in gray scale terms makes sense. I'll go back and read Eugene's article.

Mayor, good info about the drum sander, I think I'll use a plane or a veneer thicknesser like Colin shows.

Colin, I remember seeing that rosette now that you've posted over at delcamp. Quite impressive.

Thanks guys!
-JW

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com