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The Esteso rosette that Orson posted has been in the back of my mind since this thread. These are not copies of it by any means but a couple of rosettes I've done recently that were inspired by that one.
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and a bit more colorful one... this was for kind a of a special guitar, a commission from my luthery teacher, more on that later (it's an amazing guitar)
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Thanks for the comps, Dyingsea and Andy. Good zigzag on the middle section Andy.
I can see why you might have thought that. I've just taken the middle out and put bracing in. It will be a blanca and it's really to go with some machine heads that I got last year. It might sound a bit corny, but we are in year of the dragon and last year I got machine heads with a dragon one side and a phoenix the other. The scaly design I've had for a while and have a few more up my sleeve. The rest of the guitar will have self bindings with some more of the green white purfling. I'm having a year of putting things together that are a bit out of the ordinary. I may never make anything like this again, but that is part of the fun. The trick is making it work with the rest and not over-egging the pudding. I'll maybe get around to making a plain guitar one day. BTW. Top rosette is a standard, middle one is for a concert Uke
Gimar, I LOVE it man. It's not easy to get a complex tile perfectly aligned like that. Great design too. This thread is kinda like the falseta swap shop for luthiers now
thnx guys! I'll start a building thread in a while for my 2nd blanca.
I made some easy jigs to help me thickness the veneers and cut-off strip. Basically i took a piece of wood, routed a 0,5mm deep channel, I then put a small violin makers plane on top while i pull the veneer strips out of the channel. Easiest way i could think of to make each strip the same thickness, also found that using a small plane works alof faster that a scraper.
and in the picture i posted you can see the jig i use to taper the tiles. I planed 1 side straight along the centre line of the rosette. I then place the tile in the channel, right agains the side, and the side sticking out i sand off with a simple sanding stick.
Here's an outtake photo from the next rosette video which should be edited and ready to show in a few days. I'm going to go further into the inlay process.
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Small batch of new ones for me using what I have to hand. Got a job lot of the herring bone binding so I made up some new tiles to go. Maybe a little dark overall, but it's all an ongoing process of variations upon a theme. Oh, and a simple soundport decoration which is a new direction - blimey they do push the sound up toward you.
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Like rosette #2 a lot a good job putting the tiles and rim around the sound port, that is not easy on a compound curve surface. I like your feeling for dark colors, I'm going to go into grey-black-blue-silver soon.
I lifted this off the internet, but Manuel de la Chica is inspiring. His tile designs are nutty like tiny crossed golf clubs and stuffed doll crazy eyes.
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Ok, cool Steve - thanks for the heads up on Manuel de la Chica. Yes, No2 is probably one of my favourites. Just wish I had used a half of herring bone in No1. The full herring is a bit too much, but you have to over push things sometimes to know when to stop. Thanks.
I think most luthiers have experimented with natural wood and other non traditional rosettes. But a lot of us go back to traditional mosaic because it just looks right on the guitar IMO. and very simple mosaics can be very beautiful. They're challenging but fun to make.
I have always found traditional rosette designs ( and also headstocks) to be really intriguing.
Apart from the Romanillos book; are there any other books/ stuff/ (whatever?), around, showing traditional rosettes and headstocks?
Sheldon Urlik - A Collection of Fine Spanish Guitars from Torres to the Present
Various authors - The Classical Guitar - A Complete History. Hardly a complete history but it has pictures. And yes people, it does have some info on flamenco guitars.
Luis F. Leal Pinar - Guitarreros de Andalucia and Guitarreros de Madrid
Amalia Ramirez - Jose Ramirez - 120 Aniversario. (Has pics of some guitars by other makers.)
Brian Whitehouse - The Ramirez Collection. (Again, more than just Ramirez guitars.)
All somewhat expensive books if you can find them except for the "complete history" which is available in paperback for $30 or less. Your local library may be able to get the English language books through an interlibrary loan.
Great listing; thanks. Actually I tried to get the Urlik book through inter-library loans a while ago, but no luck!
Thanks for posting Stephen, a small central mosiac bordered red in a black field always works for me. Would that be referred to as Esteso style?
I know nothing of guitar building, but admire and enjoy the luthiers work including the decoration; I would be interested in the luthiers thoughts on the following:
I read somewhere that much of guitar decoration has a functional origin.
E.g. The inlaid rosette serves the purpose of reinforcement around the soundhole opening.
The purfling allows for easier joint separation, if the guitar ever needed a major repair requiring deconstruction.
I read somewhere that much of guitar decoration has a functional origin.
E.g. The inlaid rosette serves the purpose of reinforcement around the soundhole opening.
The purfling allows for easier joint separation, if the guitar ever needed a major repair requiring deconstruction.
Actually the rosette weekens the area around the sound hole hence the need for the cross grain backing on the inside. The cross grain is the real sound hole reinforcement and stiffener.
It's kind of accepted that "purfling" on guitars refers to the inlay at the bottom of the binding which would never line up with the joint between the sides and back or top. I think the binding is there for two purposes...purely cosmetic and as a hardwood bumper to protect the edges of the softwood top. Those edges generally take the most abuse when a guitar is inadvertently banged into things.
Thanks for posting Stephen, a small central mosiac bordered red in a black field always works for me. Would that be referred to as Esteso style?
I know nothing of guitar building, but admire and enjoy the luthiers work including the decoration; I would be interested in the luthiers thoughts on the following:
I read somewhere that much of guitar decoration has a functional origin.
E.g. The inlaid rosette serves the purpose of reinforcement around the soundhole opening.
The purfling allows for easier joint separation, if the guitar ever needed a major repair requiring deconstruction.
I have thought about rosette many times; I think by the time you add the reinforcement behind the rosette and glue a bar above a below it you have fixed the weakness John mentioned. But you have also created a two and three layered laminate area that almost always stops cracks from extending beyond the soundhole into the rest of the top. Imagine an spruce top with an 86mm wide hole and how a rip could start at that hole the break the top on that tear line. The laminate of the rose and all the backing patches keep that ripping from happening. Sometimes you see guitars with small cracks near the bridge side of the soundhole, with no horizontal bar, rosette lamination or backing under the rosette, what sold stop that from ripping until it hits the bridge?
In steel string repair work the binding is often the entry point for removal of a back, which is common restoration procedure for a guitar valuable enough to warrant that technique if needed to access the inside. Most people try to keep the back and top on, but in some cases it has to come off to do the correct restoration. My friend Stewart Port does high end restoration work on old steel strings, he almost always has a job going where he's removed the binding to do some kind of work. He can also get the same binding back on the guitar later then the top of back goes on. He's kind of a wizard. For Prewar Martin-Gibson guitars and mandolins to retain value collectors a dealers demand this ind of preservation in the restoration work. Most classical and flamenco makers don't have the same demands on them, but there are a few who do know how to take a binding off when they have to. But binding is there to protect the corners and seal the end grain, and John put it, they serve as bumpers. But secondary purpose would be to give access to taking the back off.
There area few things in Spanish building that enable makers to do easier repair work, some makers for example don't glue the ribs into the heel slot. There was probably a time when replacing a shattered rib meant cutting the broken rib out taking off half the binding and installing a new rib. Maybe there are some old guitars out there with mismatched ribs? Who knows?
One think is for certain, guitars, unlike violins were not engineered to come apart easy for repair work on the insides.
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These oud inspired rosettes are special IMO.
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