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I found some micro-chisels and thought of cutting rosette by hand. So I got a circle scriber (a circle cutter with a blade on it) and some 1.5 and 3mm chisels. I did a practice run on a piece of flat sawn spruce. The circle scriber kind of jumped a bit when it encountered the grain, and the cut at first wasn't so smooth, so I did the channel with the bevel against the wood and it worked better.

Anyone care to share some more tips on cutting rosette channel by hand?

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

I'm not sure what you mean by micro chisel, but my limited experience is that a small, but not "micro" chisel is easier to handle.

its a 1/16" and 1/8" chisel, any bigger and it wouldn't be small enough to fit inside the channel...

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

You have to do multiple passes with the circle cutter. The first one being only to scribe the wood, as light as you can so the blade does not wander following the grain, then as you get deeper add more pressure. Practice on vertical grain spruce, as it is what you'll encounter on a top, and is more difficult.

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Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

Are there any single bevel razor blades out there that I can get for the circle cutter so I can only cut on one side (and switch to an opposite bevel for the other side)?

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Here is a good talk about this:
http://www.delcamp.us/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=60338

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Build log

After some practice runs... I think some modification to the tools are necessary:

I need some ways of limiting the depth of cut... I think I will place a piece of wood on the blade and poke the blade through, so that only a little bit of the blade protrudes.

I also need a blade that has a flat side so that it lays against the good side, to get a vertical channel... but unfortunately the circle jig only comes with double beveled blades.

I don't have a grinder so how can I make a blade that fits? The blade fits inside the circle cutter with a set screw like so:

Maybe I should just buy the blade for the LMI cutter?

I will also ditch the center spike and simply drill a hole in the center that matches the center pin to avoid the center coming off...

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

I do my rosettes by hand, heres a pic of my rather primitive set up

Looks really good... I don't think a router jig would offer this kind of flexibility...

Those two cherries chisels are really good...

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Nice Oval! You'lll have to give me some rosette tips!

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Old growth, shmold growth!

Oval, brilliant!
Didn't cost much either!

thanks, its simple and easy to do as well as affordable. BTW, the 2 cherries are great, the best and most used tools I own.