Creating a marquetry rossete from scrape wood

The back ans sides for the current build are so beautiful that I decides to make a Rosette out of scrape wood left from the back. this is what I did:

I started with gathering all scrapes which left over cutting the back. I created a triangle template on a carton board and just copied it's trace on scrape wood. I watched that the triangle direction goes with the grain direction and not across

 

  

then I grouped all triangles together and clamped them in order to shape them together.

I used block plane to do so. the purpose was to make all triangles have the exact shape.

another important thing was to have all lines straight otherwise the triangles won't glue side to side.

 

  

After fitting all triangles , I used a 10 minutes epoxy glue to glue the triangle in the desired shape.
using this glue let me have enough time to glue the pieces together.

 

After gluing, I let it about an hour till I got back to the rossete and started cleaning it up from the glue waste , using a cabinet scraper

this picture was taken after cleaning it up.

Next phase is putting a double sided tape. 

This side is glued to an MDF board.

Next step is to drill a hole at the center of the Rosette circle. the center doesn't have to be accurate, since if you spared enough material on the Rosette width, the drilled hole its a pivot that will define the Rosette circle.

Next phase is going with a dremel tool + stew mac jig to cut the outer ring.

Next step is the inner ring

 

Now carefully detach the Rosette from the MDF.
If the rossete break - don't panic - it happened to me twice.
Cyanoacrylate  will fix the problem.

 

Next - is finding the pivot center-line for the Rosette on the soundboard. I painted some thin coat of lacquer on the Rosette area , in order to prevent tear off when passing on soundboard with dremel

  

Next thing is to use a knife or a chisel to spare space for the dremel router bit to start. it this hole need to be measured in order not to go too much deeper.

  

  

Working with the dremel  +stew mac jig.

  

Next phase is gluing the rosette + purfling. I used PVA glue (Titebond yellow glue)

  

  

this is how the rosette looks after scrapping and cleaning

  

and here's the final result

 

creating a V-Joint headstock

I wanted to make this joint on my double o build, and as a result, I started reading alot about this joint, which was hand made on old martins as well as on houser classical guitars.

I gained much benefit from this experience. I learned how accurate the fit must be, otherwise, glue is not enough for holding this joint. I also tried to decorate the joint with internal binding, after seeing the work of luthier Jim Olson.

there are some articles out there in the web, about how to make the v-joint. I eventually chose the method being described in OLF forum. the method described there is the houser style, demonstrated on a classical guitar. this means that in this method, the volute is being removed. I chose to keep the volute as in Martin guitars.

Here are some photos of the process.

this is the headstock after V was cut. its made of Honduran mahogany, with a Zirikote head plate for the rear of the headstock.

Here is the V -joint neck

Fitting the neck with the headstock

 

Rear view

 

Adding binding around the headstock before gluing

 

 Gluing using hide glue. hide glue is important because if headstock is detached from neck because of an accident of any kind, hide glue is easier to be removed and re-glued compared to PVA glue

 

the joint after been glued

 

 

next steps are to glue the front headplate and to bind it. and also to shape the rear binding and remove the waists near the joint.
 pictures will be taken soon.
Yair

Few words about guitar sides

Few words about guitar sides.

Usually you start with a 5 mm width of timber and you need ot go down to 2 mm.
thats 3 mm to go down on a hard wood with rough grains.

Till now I have been dong such work with a stanely #5 1/2 or #6 (Fore Plane)

thesse planes did the work but requied meny adujustments of the blade along the way, and a sharpening onsce a while (during the work on one side)

here's how it looks like

it need to be waxed every few strokes to make it go smooth.

recently I upgraded to to veritas low back bevel smoother plane , and its like riding mercedes
very smooth , and quite, and you dont need that much of waxing

Here's the waste of just one size

Thats all for now

Yair