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Hello,

I am trying to make a classical rosette using the method in Roy Courtnalls' book.
Gluing up stacks of veneers, then slicing off a thin plank that will be one line of the rosette tile and finally gluing these planks together to form the tile log. The veneers are 0.6mm thick.
However, I am having trouble thicknessing the planks to 0.6mm. On my small bandsaw I can cut them to around 1.mm, or slightly over before they split.
As the book suggests, I used a a very sharp scraper with veneers either side of the plank as packing but as soon as I get close to the desired thickness, the planks begin to separate into strips and split.
I am very aware that this is probably due to my poor technique (this is my first attempt at building a guitar) but I just cant seem to get a consistent thickness along the plank without it separating. I could see how this would be easy with a thickness sander but I don't have one.
Does anyone have a tricks or advice for this??
Many thanks
Will

Try sandpaper instead of scrapers?

I sand mine with 100 grit on a drill press disk sander. You have to be careful not to take much at a time, but it works great. I thin mine to 0.5 mm before glue up.

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Glue two strips of veneer on to a board. Use a block plane (in skew fashion) that rides on each veneer with your rosette strip clamped between them. You will have to turn the strip around, planing away from yourself.
That should get you very close to desired thickness. If you need more accuracy you will probably need to go to a pull through thicknesser.
You shouldn't be having trouble with the pieces separating. I've glued hundreds of these things together and only a very few have delaminated. I'd look at your gluing/clamping technique. Perhaps it's taking too long to get the individual pieces glued and clamped.

Try using fish glue. It gives you much more open time It's sticky, but cleans up well. You can even thin it up to about 50% without any issues.

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Thanks for your posts guys,

Good advice. It's fiddly business this rosette making. Fun though, in a kind of neurotic way.
The more I hear about fish glue, the more I like the sound of it..
Will to try it at some point.

Thanks again,

Will

I like to use the method that Eugene Clark wrote up in the GAL: gluing up each layer separately from sticks. He showed white glue, but I prefer HHG.

What Michael N is talking about is the beginnings of a plane jig: use taller side rails to guide the plane, as well as the veneer shims and stop. I can plane the glued up layers down to about .3mm with one of these, so long as the logs are no longer than the nose of the plane. The plane has to be pretty sharp...