Rosette Attempt 2

I've finally inlayed the rosette. Because bending the bloodwood didn't work so well, I cut strips of it with my dremel circle-cutter setup. I bent these around a disk of walnut (eastern walnut we had on hand) and then cut out the center of the donut.

Gluing the bloodwood pieces to the walnut disk


The channel (about 1/16 of an inch deep maybe a little more)

Using a toolbox, a battery and a cement stepping stone to press the rosette into the slot.
With the Rosette inlayed and soundhole cut (also done with the dremel).

It doesn't matter that the bloodwood doesn't go all the way around at the top because it will be covered by the fretboard. I still need to finish sanding the soundhole and cut the top down to final shape.

So next I'll work on the neck, sides or bracing. But I go back to school tommorow and unfortunately its kindof hard to build a guitar in a dorm.

Back Bracing Part 1

Well bending the bloodwood around the rosette didn't work. It broke the rosette so I cut another. This time I'll cut curved strips of bloodwood instead of bending it.

I also rough-cut all of the back bracing and made a template for the radius I will put on them (which in turn radius the back.)

Pictures tommorow.

So I've been working on the rosette. The Rosette is a wood ring composed of a quarter inch thick walnut ring sandwiched between two 1/16 " bloodwood rings.

4 pieces of walnut cut from the back


Glued together and ready for the dremel


Bloodwood strips being soaked before bending.


I cut the ring out and started bending the strips. The strips didn't bend well and splintered in a few places. I glued the splintered areas and hopefully I'll be able to finish bending/assembling the rosette.

Cutting out the top/back bracing strip .... Progress!

The strip that runs along the joint of the back is cut from the spruce top. Unlike the rest of the braces, it is cross-grained.


Here you see me tracing the shape of the guitar onto the spruce top from the mold. The mold isn't perfect but I just need to get the basic shape now, it'll get trimmed down to the final shape once I join the top to the sides.


Another shot of the mold, I don't think I've added pictures of it before.

It actually looks kindof like a guitar. This was taken shortly after cutting out the spruce top with the jigsaw.

So I've been experimenting with the rosette. I got the dremel circle cutter to work well so it should make the rosette pretty easy. The rosette is going to be a 5/16th inch thick (outer radius-inner radius) walnut ring with a bloodwood outer ring thats 1/16th inch. More about that later.

Thicknessing the back

I thicknessed the back first with a block plane and then I sanded it the rest of the way with 60 grit on a palm sander. It was tricky because I don't have a nice caliper so I hope everything is the right thickness. The block plane worked pretty well but I got a little bit of grain tearout so maybe I should of toothed the blade.

Next I'll brace/cut out the back.

Neck Scarf

So I've gotten pretty tired of the working on the rosette so I decided to do something totally different and start on the neck.

The neck is peruvian walnut and is going to bolt onto the body with bolt inserts in the heel and bolts that go through the neck block.

First I made a wedge out of some scarp plywood to get the scarfjoint angle of 10 degrees.

It was a little tough getting everything to stay in place while I cut the scarfjoint with the tablesaw. (The picture below was taken afterthefact without clamps, but you still get the idea)



Then I clamped the pieces together and planed them so they matched.

Then I flipped the short piece over and glued it onto the long piece.



I also worked out a bending iron from a piece of iron pipe and a 200w lightbulb (which provides alot of heat) but I think I'll up the wattage before I bend the sides.