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If I were building a guitar, I'd cover this up with the fretboard, but on a soprano uke the fretboard stops north of the soundhole. The holly and walnut veneer are .023" and the mango is about .045". It's all just gently bent into place - no heat. The diameter of the ring is just over 2", so relatively tight. I did the best I could, but am not happy with the results. Any advice or tricks to getting a better joint at the top of the ring?

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sweat the small stuff.

This is a tough one, difficult to get it absolutely invisible. There are 3 options: a butt joint, a mitre and a scarf joint.
I would select the scarf and put each line in individually. Use the 'wallpaper joint' overlap and cut through the overlap with a scalpel. Remove the little off cut and you should get a near perfect joint. Stagger the Brown line joint in respect to the White lines.
The central wider line will have to be a scarf but you won't be able to do the wallpaper joint.
The most difficult one that I've done is the type found on romantic Guitars such as Lacote. Looks simple yet incredibly difficult to get each joint exact.

Sorry, why can't you extend then FB to cover it up?

Thanks for the advice, Michael. I hadn't thought of the scarf joint. I first tried a miter and had a difficult time, so I thought I'd make do with a butt joint. Not exactly elegant and my execution was poor. Can you further explain the wallpaper joint method you mentioned. I'm not familiar with that terminology. Also, when you say, "scalpel," do you mean a sharp chisel, an X-acto type knife or something different entirely?

Ed, I suppose I could cover the joint with the end of the fretboard, but if you look at the vintage Martin sopranos, there's just a very short part of the fretboard that extends onto the soundboard. I'm no uke expert, so I can only speculate about the reasoning. A limited soundboard vibrating area being covered by a chunk of rosewood or ebony comes to mind though. Also, I just like the way it looks, to be honest. I'm not a fan of the ukes that look like little guitars. So I guess the more it looks like one of those vintage Martins, the happier I'll be.

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sweat the small stuff.

I mean a scalpel as in knife. The wallpaper joint is a method of obtaining a seamless joint. Instead of trying to cut and join it, overlap (eg. the White), then cut right through that overlap (you will be cutting through two/both Whites) peel back and remove the little excess. Now join the two ends. Best if you glue 90% of the line in position first, just leaving an inch for that overlap/joint.

I think staggering the joints as Michael suggested would do the trick.
Could you do a small inlay over the joint and add three more around the circumference?
Just a thought.

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wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

Stagger your joints, use titebond or hide glue, use scalpels or exacto blades to keep the seams aligned, cut the purflings a teeny bit to long so it will push itself together, use a sharp chisel and cut perfectly square, that should do

If u must, then use scarf cuts and stagger them. And take ur time.

The way you do this is by making a 2 inch mandrel and wrapping veneer around it in a barberpole fashion.

Then you will have enough to slice of several rosettes.

There will be no seam.


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Ken

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Ken

Ken, that will certainly work for multiples. The method that I describe is for building the rosette/lines directly into the soundboard (I suppose it's the Spanish method), as in one off's although there is no reason why you can't assemble a few at the same time.
Trying to trim each line to exact length is certainly possible but chances are it's going to take you a lot longer than you think (been there many times), probably with a number that end up being a little short. Even a 0.1 mm gap stands out a LOT on a White line. With a Black line that same gap is invisible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqXf09jkaT8

1:50 is where he cuts through the overlapped veneer. Unfortunately it's obscured by the map pins. I personally glue the line around the perimeter first but without gluing the 1 inch that is to form the joint (the overlap). I let it dry before doing the joint. He makes his cut from above, I cut as a scarf, coming in from the side.

I have always extended the tab on ukes, partially for this reason...but if I wasn't going to extend the tab, I would just put it in and get it as close as possible. Generally I use wood glue for gluing strips of wood into a rosette channel, trying to get it as tight as possible. Although in this situation, I would go ahead and scrape the pieces so they move a tad more easily than usual and I would then just really take my time and aspire to make the but joint as tight as possible. Once its all in place and looks decent, I would drop some super glue on it. It'll be hard to hide, but personally, I wouldn't get carried away.

I've pondered this same scenario, too, although I haven't actually executed a uke rosette yet. My plan was to inlay a small rectangle of similar woods or laminations at the joint--similar to the typical oval rosette on a Selmer gypsy "small mouth" guitar. But I'll also say I don't believe there's any reason why you couldn't extend the fingerboard.

Two things I do differently. First, no matter what size uke, I always extend the fingerboard tongue right up to the sound hole and sometimes even a smidge past the lip, and I do this because I like the look. Even though the miters are covered, I still try to make them as close to perfect as I can. So secondly, I do multi line rosettes in segments. I route and inlay and glue the main inlay (usually a Paua or nice wood ring). Then I route channels for borders, usually black/white/black purfling. If the main ring is slightly off alignment, this will even things up. Then you have to do good miters for the purfling, which I find easier when you are only mitering one piece at a time.

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Kevin Mason
Mason Guitars and Ukuleles on Facebook
http://masonguitars.net

I would cut as much as can out of one piece as possible. I would also stagger the joints some. I would also make a jig where I can fit and glue everything up into a single ring then install the completed ring.

I had to do this for the small hole on a harp ukulele. I use a single wood ring for the center of the rosette that I install, I then route the inside outside purfling line, in both cases edging into the installed wood rosette. Then I keep the purfling a touch long so that the ends are forced together. If the channel is even a touch wide it is hard to have it line up correctly.

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http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

Try inlaying a keystone at the top to cover up the joint.

bring the fretboard end to a point and cover it on this one.

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Michael F Smith
Goat Rock Ukulele
http://goatrockukulele.com

make the completed ring first then install. for me i'll make the inner larger pieces out of several sections, then glue the purflings onto the ring. sometimes i'll taper the purfling ends to a scarf joint. i'll cut the slot first then sand the ring to fit.

optics really help and a surprising number of people don't even use them. get a magnifying lamp, microscope, or at least a vision visor. makes the work far easier if you can see what you're doing.

Hey, guys, I didn't want to let this thread linger too long without responding. I've read over everyone's suggestions a few times and have taken some really great advice to the work bench. I cut the old rosette out and started over, as I wasn't quite willing to live with this one. Who knew a little multi-line rosette would be so difficult?! This has been a great experience for me and I've learned a lot. Switching from a chisel to a razor blade made a huge difference, as did staggering the joints of the veneers. I'll post a photo when I get the rosette back together. Thanks, again, to all!

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sweat the small stuff.

Okay, Heath. It has to work to your personal satisfaction, so you made the right choice. Please show us your results on the next rosette. Best of luck with it.

I have never used a rosette on a ukulele. The tops on my ukuleles are around 70 thou thick which leaves things too close for routing a decent channel.

Good luck.

Bob

Well, it took four attempts, but I finally ended up with something I can be proud of. I don't want to understate how much help everyone was. Thanks so much for all of the replies and different perspectives on the subject. I feel like I gained a really useful understanding of this method and I know it will surely come in handy moving forward.

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sweat the small stuff.

Nice job!

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

That looks really nice, Heath.

Nicely done, Heath! Almost a shame to cut the sound hole out!

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker