Ok, so I'm pretty happy with this one.
A couple of things, this is the first spruce top I've worked with (yes, after building 6 guitars all with cedar tops) and I have to say that it is really a joy to work with. What the heck took me so long
This is a AAAA Lutz spruce top from Shane at High Mountain Tone Woods (thanks Shane).
The rosette is made up of Tasmanian Blackwood, black fibre paper purfling and Kevin Ryan's Zipflex blue abalone (which is very cool stuff)
The Tassy Blackwood tiles are from the back for this guitar, so the coloring is going to match great.
Here's the process I used (I'm sure there is a better way, but I don't know it yet).
First I drew out the rosette in cad to make sure it was sized right. (no picture of that)
Than I made a paper template for the tiles (although you don't need it) and I cut out the tiles. I made sure to label them so that they would be bookmatched once I glued them all together. I also made some purfling strips from some black fibre paper I got from BobC at RC tonewoods. These will separate the tiles.
Attachment:
faulkes guitar (19).jpg
Next I used a piece of tinfoil to glue the tiles together. The tin foil will not permanently hold the pieces when gluing with CA. I worked my way around till the tiles were all together and each has a 0.010" black line between them. I did this by hand, just holding the tiles tight together with one hand and wicking in CA with the other. The tiles will hold tight on the tinfoil enough to glue the next piece on etc...
Attachment:
faulkes guitar (27).jpg
Finally I had all the tiles together and I took them off the tinfoil and put them on a piece of polycarbonate (similar to UHMW) that I have. This will give me a work board to cut out the abalone channels.
Attachment:
faulkes guitar (3).jpg
After I tacked the tiles to the workboard, I attached a piece of MDF in the middle, ran that through the thickness sander and marked out the center by connecting the lines. I drilled my center hole and cut the channels for the abalone (the Zip flex has 0.005" black purflings at the edges) and glued them in with CA and ran it through the sander again to get it all level.
Attachment:
faulkes guitar (8).JPG
After that, I cut out the OD and ID of the rosette and took it off the workboard. Scraped the bottom and it was ready to inlay into the top with the 0.020" black purfling lines.
Attachment:
faulkes guitar (23).JPG
I routed the channel on the top (I love my wells/karol precision router base for all this), sealed it with shellac and inlaid the ring and the 0.020" black edge purflings. Once the CA was set, I ran it through the sander to get it all level and cut out the soundhole.
Here's the top with the back behind it and a closeup of the rosette.
Attachment:
faulkes guitar (10).JPG
Attachment:
faulkes guitar (25).JPG
Attachment:
faulkes guitar.JPG
Thanks for looking
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