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Has anyone (because I have not or ever contemplated doing so), removed an installed rosette and put in a new one.

Thing that has me stumped is not able to get an exact center in soundhole to route it. I also don't want to tear up the channel digging at it.

I am thinking and need advise if making a very small and then spatula or micro and heating it and working my way very, very slowly. Then clean up channel. I know don't want to get the thing to hot to mess with any finish, but enough to slowly heat the adhesive to lift it.

I know a tedious endeavor, so going to test it out on a garage sell guitar I have used over the years as a thing to work on. It has a real rosette and not a decal and appears some sort of wood fiber.

Any ideas would be much appreciated. The clients guitar isn't a collectable or expensive, but it is important to him. And to be sure the old one is butt ugly.

This is one of those, "let me check it out and see if can or want" jobs

Rout it out. Get an accurate center hole by making a round insert to fit the sound hole leaving a lip to hold it in place. I haven't done this but I think it should be fairly straightforward assuming you have a router base with a circle cutting attachment.

I've done this a number of times on unfinished instruments with neck off. You won't get exact center, but will come out mighty close. Using a Stew Mac router and rosette jig or something similar, rout a plug the same size as the soundhole. Put a big ole block of maple where the center pin goes...



You can try to rotate the plug around to get the best fit and maybe a little tape shims...
Rout the new rosette. Might have to be fractionally bigger), but with careful work, I've had them turn out fine.




Before...


After...



I've also flipped insides and outsides on a couple of rosettes.
Doing it on a finished instrument will require removing the F/B extension...

I routed one out once. I made a round router base almost as big as the sound hole and just went around trying to keep it straight. Worked great!

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Pat

Thanks all.. I will go this rout on old garage thing before messing with it for a customer. Told him it may be awhile before fully comfortable doing it. Will cut off fret extension because pretty sure the neck is epoxied in. Lower end Tak.

I've done several as Hans described and it works fine. Be as precise as you can when making tge center caul for routing out the old rosette.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

If you don't want to mess with the fingerboard extension you could elevate the router above it using a piece of 1/4 inch plywood as a subbase, extending it past the router base behind the bit, and adding a piece of 1/2 inch plywood under the extension to provide the lift.

And how would you deal with tucking the rosette under the FB extention?

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

I have pulled this off twice, using two different methods: Affixing a circle inside the soundhole and affixing the circle to the router base. Both worked but the latter was a bit simpler. (Thanks to Todd Stock for that idea.) Either way would be far superior, IMO, than trying to a devise a method of chiseling out the channels.

I think it would be easier to remove the fretboard than not.

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George :-)

After giving it some thought, a simpler solution came to me as to how to elevate the router base over the F.B. extension - just make the soundhole plug tall enough to be above it. As to tucking the new rosette under the fingerboard - Why bother?. I would rout as close as I dared, finish the channel with a chisel, and if I felt it needed to be tucked a little, excavate under the fingerboard a small amount. The old rosette could stay hidden under the fingerboard.

The exchange process is quite straight forward using the false centre method that others have described. The difficulty on an old guitar will be matching the colour of the spruce to its surrounds after you've leveled the new rosette.

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

If you could "float" the new rosette perfectly flush (or a hair below) with the top and not disturb the finish on the spruce you may not have to match it. The new channel would remove the old rosette and maybe some spruce, but with a sharp bit you might avoid chipping the surrounding finish.

Another way to level the rosette without removing finish is to use a sharp scraper with a layer of tape placed over both ends, keeping the cutting edge just slightly above the surrounding finish.

I modified an existing big wide ugly rosette on a finished guitar by using the technique Haans describes. I placed an inflated balloon inside to help support the already snug fitting disc. The neck was removed and the lacquer finish was redone after leveling the new rosette scheme. Worked just fine and still looks great.


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"It is easier to fool a man, than it is to convince him that he has been fooled"
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