Official Luthiers Forum!

hi all!
for a while i will be unable to concentrate on guitar making (my 2nd child was born and i´m gonna be home for the next 3-4 months), so i´ve been concentrating on research for this past time. one thing i´ve been doing is a survey of classical guitar rosette design. my fascination has always been the romanillos design (some find it distracting / overwhelming ) , but i am starting to be attracted to more subdued designs (eg, bouchet, hauser). the more intricate taracea designs don´t usually attract me much, but the point is not what attracts me, rather to grasp the scope of designs available.

so i was wondering if some of you in the know could point me to some rosette designs that they find valuable / interesting / original / etc.

thanks for your time and interest,
miguel.

_________________
member of the guild of professional dilettantes

I am very interested in this as well, as I will probably have quite a bit of time before I can start my 3rd guitar, but have been wanting to try to make up some rosettes for future use.

Here are some that I've found very influentiall for me:
Romanillos:

Manouk Papazian:

Vicente Arias:

Torres:

thanks so much david!
i remember that vicente arias rosette from that other thread. of course that torres design is classic elegance and understatement in itself. the one from Manouk Papazian i did not know (nor the luthier), but it´s very nice: although the picture turns a bit blurred when zoomed, the central motif (flowers, i suppose) seems exquisitely designed and masterly achieved.

IIRC, you were in a guitar course with jose romanillos, right? did you make the rosette a la romanillos?

cheers,
Miguel.

_________________
member of the guild of professional dilettantes

This is the one I made for the course Miguel, I wanted to do something that was a homage to Torres and to Jose' without copying either's designs.
I thought the classic meander used in a circular pattern would be appropriate....Jose' thought it looked "a smashin"...........

Here's a shot of another Papazian rosette :


And another by Torres:

thanks again david! that meander shure is something!


cheers,
miguel.

_________________
member of the guild of professional dilettantes

BTW, were you in siguenza a long time ago? were you - by any chance with a portuguese builder? next time i´ll speak to master romanillos, i´ll ask him for you (if you don´t mind, of course).

again,
thanks!

miguel.

_________________
member of the guild of professional dilettantes

The Romanillos course was only 2 weeks so there was no time for building rosettes although I know of several Romanillos alumni who have reproduced the Romanillos rosette as homage to Jose.

I was in the 2006 and 2007 classes and one of the years I was in the class I met a really great guy from Portugal, a lawyer Luis Motta Da Silva who had built a few guitars before and who I believe still builds in his spare time. I believe he was in the 2006 class and his wife works as a professional translator of books from English into Portuguese.

Luis played guitar so in the evenings after people would get done building for the the day and would sit around talking and drinking into the night, he and I would play and discuss Fado and other traditional Portuguese music.

Hi shawn! yes, Luis was the guy i was talking about... he was in the 2006 course. i plan on meeting him sometime soon. i didn´t know the course was only two-weeks long, it must´ve been pretty concentrated stuff...

cheers,
miguel.

_________________
member of the guild of professional dilettantes

This is still my favourite rosette, made by Joshua French.

Colin

_________________
I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

I agree Colin...Joshua's rosette is one of the classiest and most distinct rosettes I have seen. Another that I really like is Alan Carruth's in which his leaf motif is really clever.

Joshua is another of the Romanillos alumni.

Yes, Shawn correctly points out that none of us had the time to make a rosette at the Romanillos course, I (as the others who make their own rosettes) prepared mine in advance along with the other components (necks, glue blocks, bracing etc.) listed for us in the preliminary information.

Joshua's rosette is lovely........has anyone been in touch with him?

Hope all is well with you Colin and Shawn!

Here are 2 rosettes I think to be particularly brilliant, by Kevin Aram and Sebastian Stenzel.

_________________
Build log

I like those also Alex.
Did ya get the Pegheds yet?
Mike

_________________
Mike Collins