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The three videos are now up on Youtube. I aimed for these videos to show in depth how rosettes are made. My current method shown is only one of many ways to make rosettes and you can compare this style to many other rosette making procedures shown on youtube. I choose to elaborate on this style because it is very basic. Reminiscent of and inspired by Spanish work from the early twentieth century, I have put my own twist to it. I have been making rosettes this way because it allows me to continue themes and motifs I have personalized, while still keeping an improvisational approach which renders each rosette a unique, one of a kind work. The videos are long I know, but they show small details and risk and in making that would otherwise be edited out of more formal presentations. I hope that beginners at guitar making and those with more skill than I can find something worth while in them if you elect to watch the whole thing. For non guitar makers and the general audience I want to show the process with all it's warts and smoothness. Enjoy.
I want to thank Juan Carlos Moreno ( AKA John Charles Brown, AKA as Juan the Bomb) For making these videos. He is an intrepid first time video producer/director who made these videos and deserves a shout out for his work.
The photograph recently came to light and was sent to me by an old friend Robert Ostlund. Rob is a very fine cellist who also happens to be an architect. We were both students of the grey haired gentleman seated next to me. His name is Burdell Tenney and if he were with us today he would be 98 years old. This photo is circa 1990. Burdell was born in 1914 in El Paso Texas and spent his life as a violinist, architect and a fantastic violin, cello, viola and bass bow maker. He was like W.C. Fields and Francois Tourte rolled into one guy. Rob Ostlund and I both were fortunate enough to have him as a creative mentor in our respective fields. In 1979 I began to work in his bow shop at age sixteen for $3.80 cents an hour. I spent the next 25 years trying to learn everything this man had to offer and I still was not able to learn all he had to give. He was one of those many deserving people in the luthery business who never became super famous, but he was a great bowmaker and a wonderful teacher. I want to dedicate these unworthy videos to his memory.
Thanks, S.
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RE: Rosette making video - part 1 (in reply to estebanana)
That is immensely fascinating! I'm stuck on my rosette trying to decipher the tile pattern that had to happen. I'd love to see how you guys actually apply the tiles around the sound hole. Thank you sir for making such an interesting video!
RE: Rosette making video - part 1 (in reply to estebanana)
All that is coming up. I want to try to make what we do clear so people can ask guitar makers more questions using the terms and names for concepts that we use. Of course I want show my work, but I am also trying to speak about things guitar makers explain all the time. Hopefully it will be substantive and also fun.
Posts: 833
Joined: Oct. 29 2006
From: Olympia, WA in the Great Pacific Northwest
RE: Rosette making video - part 1 (in reply to estebanana)
Very nice video, Estabanana de la Isla. Rosette making is one of the more mysterious aspects of guitar building to me. Looking forward to seeing how you finesse square and rectangular blocks into a nice round shape.
And boy do I ever love that de la Chica/Clarke Navaho blanket color-scheme/arrow-pattern.
RE: Rosette making video - part 1 (in reply to srshea)
quote:
And boy do I ever love that de la Chica/Clarke Navaho blanket color-scheme/arrow-pattern.
Cool, I tend to steal designs, I took the arrow from Clark. I showed him the tiles designs I stole from him and he said well if you're gonna steal steal from one of the best. He also implied that no students in his artistic linage should think of using a pre-made rosette. It comes off as snotty we you say it out loud, but it just means the art of the hand made instrument will go on if we keep doing it in our own modest way. I also think originality comes through working out something thing you get from another artist until you work out the other side and it is yours. When people try too hard to "be original" they lose in to a kind of visual posturing. You can't force it or over do it with complexity just to prove a point. The best designs seen to be uncluttered and they breathe.
I'll make more of the traditional tiles like crosses and arrows etc. in a few months, but for now I'm working out the permutations of the WBWBW oud rose I found. I think I'm going to try to make on that is complex, but the simple tiles.
I'm really not impressed with rosettes past Barbero's work, either that get too busy or too Celtic. Barbero's work freaks me out, it's too good, he's super interesting. I love the Book of Kells, just don't want it on my body or my guitar. I keep getting drawn to Manuel Ramirez, Torres, Santos and the old ouds. There are lots of ways of doing those ideas and keeping them fresh. I'm not ready to abandon that work yet.
There's going to be a follow up videos which show how things go together. I do it a certain way and there a three or so main ways you can do it, so I'm just practicing one of them. The other methods are also right.
Posts: 797
Joined: Jun. 1 2010
From: Halifax, Nova Scotia
RE: Rosette making video - part 1 (in reply to estebanana)
I'm glad you're taking the time to put these together, Stephen. Really interesting stuff. I particularly love the oud inspired designs. I look forward to seeing more of my rosette - I guess that's it at the end of the vid? What colors and materials did you use? It's hard to tell from that pic.
Posts: 833
Joined: Oct. 29 2006
From: Olympia, WA in the Great Pacific Northwest
RE: Rosette making video - part 1 (in reply to estebanana)
You gotta start making “Stephen Falk Luthier” t-shirts spelled out in rosette tile. Or you could buy a tattoo gun and start putting tile rings around people’s arms instead of the usual barbed wire or celtic squiggles. Could be a nice little sideline…
quote:
He also implied that no students in his artistic linage should think of using a pre-made rosette. It comes off as snotty we you say it out loud...
I don’t build guitars, so my opinion bears zero authority, but this just sounds like common sense to me, and of an “if you’re going to do something you might as well do it right, and do it all yourself”, sort of ethos. Seems weird to want to incorporate things that you didn’t make yourself into a guitar you’re making yourself. You’re not gonna forge your own fret wire or cast your own plates for the tuners, but other than that I don’t really understand why you wouldn’t want to do everything yourself.
RE: Rosette making video - part 1 (in reply to estebanana)
quote:
Barbero's work freaks me out, it's too good, he's super interesting.
I totally agree. His later (and could be last) rosette, the red, black and white one with the two different lozenges looks like something you'd see on a Harley Davidson, except Harley Davison never came up wth anything that cool. I've a few clients with Barberos with these rosettes and I've had them in my shop under magnifying glasses trying to draw it out on graph paper, only to fail. Too damn tiny, the individual pieces are well under .5mm
Posts: 797
Joined: Jun. 1 2010
From: Halifax, Nova Scotia
RE: Rosette making video - part 1 - ... (in reply to estebanana)
Since I discovered your work and ordered my guitar last year, I've wanted to have a drink or six with you and pick your brain about your philosophies and techniques in guitar making. Getting drunk at home tonight, this seems a reasonable approximation Loved it! I'm totally geeking out on my rosette, and excited to see what it will look like under finish.
Side question - what finish have you been doing on the POC guitars?
Posts: 833
Joined: Oct. 29 2006
From: Olympia, WA in the Great Pacific Northwest
RE: Rosette making video - part 1 - ... (in reply to estebanana)
The sequel’s even better than the original! Mysteries revealed!
Man, I ain’t never building no guitar, that much is clear. Cheers to all y’all who can roll like that. Seriously.
You start hinting at this direction a bit here, but one of these days I’d be very interested to hear some long-form musings on your “fine arts” back ground and its relation to your work as a luthier, in a blog, over a beer, in some crazy video monograph thing....
Don't make us wait too long for part-three. I'm on the edge of my seat here.
RE: Rosette making video - part 1 - ... (in reply to estebanana)
Glad you like it, hope it answers some questions, entertains. I also hope when players order guitars from builders it helps with asking questions. There are other videos like this on YouTube, but I'm trying to go deeper into why I make decisions about style and what motivates me. Eventually when I get more breathing room to make some show piece guitars I'll re work my ideas and make some other kinds of rosettes.
So if it was not clear why I am doing them this way it is because I want each guitar to have a unique rosette with a definite cohesive style and shared motifs from guitar to guitar, but still be improvisational and fast.
Part three has been shot at the same time as part 1 and 2, but it takes Juan a few days to edit them. I think he is doing a good job at it, he is really learning this as he goes. Part 3 should be along soon.
RE: Rosette making video - part 1 - ... (in reply to Sean)
quote:
Just send your butler to LMI to pick up all those pre-made veneers and forget to pay him.
Also have your butler cut the actual strips off the veneer. You don't want it to be your thumb that is sticking past the straight edge while your slicing down with the blade. Don't ask how I know this
RE: Rosette making video - part 1 - ... (in reply to estebanana)
Tom, One day soon I'll make another strip cutting fixture. Like a block of wood with an adjustable stop and blade that drops through it. I used to have one then I cannibalized it in fit of madness and made a blender handle or something else equally important.
Actually come to think of it a blender in the shop would be a great idea. Fruit smoothies in the morning and fruit daquaris at night...or the other way around, depending.
RE: Rosette making video - part 1 - ... (in reply to estebanana)
What about using one of those paper cuters sold through office supply stores. You know the ones that have a base and you line up the paper and use a long handle with a blade attached that just slices? I've thought of getting one of these for this purpose.
Posts: 3487
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
RE: Rosette making video - part 1 - ... (in reply to Sean)
Great videos, Stephen! I like your talk about how you decide to do it. I'm looking forward to further installments.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Sean
Sorry I was daydreaming what a filthy rich person would probably do
Sometime in the 1980s my college room mate and I were idly driving around Carmel, California. We were in our 40s by then. Simultaneously we remarked how similar it looked to the middle class neighborhood where I lived in Austin, but we knew the house prices were in the $millions.
I said, "Tell you what, Tom, you take one side of the street, I'll take the other. We'll knock on doors and ask them how they became rich."
Tom replied, "All they will say is they can't afford to paint the house and get the children's teeth fixed."
House prices in Tarrytown in Austin are now in the $millions. Congratulations to my ex-wife! And when I visited Tom in Munich this past June he was driving a Lamborghini --or one of his six exotically high tech bicycles.
RE: Rosette making video - part 1 - ... (in reply to estebanana)
Thank you Richard,
I'm actually waiting myself to see part three. You see my "producer" Juan da Bomb, is a foro member and he is doing these videos out of his sheer aficion for guitar making. I have not seen part three yet, but as soon as it is ready I will make it public. I trust Juan's editing and he seems to be getting my points across very clearly.
We did two rosettes of this style, the ones I make with basic concentric lines from start to finish. Then we started in to another topic, but I don't know if we will get to that soon. maybe next month. The next topic is how to make solera with some old crap and junk you find in your car trunk. It will be more sarcastic than these videos. I kind of cut loose for 20 minutes blabbing at Juan about fancy pants lutheirs.
So I thank you Juan for taking time and working so hard to allow me to me explain some of my though processes.
RE: Rosette making video - part 1 - ... (in reply to estebanana)
Stephen,
Happy to do it Yes, it is a lot of work but it's enjoyable work (for the most part!). The frustration comes mainly in trying to figure out how to implement some of my editing ideas since I'm still pretty new to using Adobe Premiere. But at the same time, that technical challenge is what sort of keeps me going. I think the final installment(s) in the rosette series should be done soon. Just a couple things left to decide upon. Nothing major, but I think I should discuss them with you before finalizing them.
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He also implied that no students in his artistic linage should think of using a pre-made rosette. It comes off as snotty we you say it out loud, but it just means the art of the hand made instrument will go on if we keep doing it in our own modest way. I also think originality comes through working out something thing you get from another artist until you work out the other side and it is yours. When people try too hard to "be original" they lose in to a kind of visual posturing. You can't force it or over do it with complexity just to prove a point. The best designs seen to be uncluttered and they breathe. 
Yes, it is a lot of work but it's enjoyable work (for the most part!). The frustration comes mainly in trying to figure out how to implement some of my editing ideas since I'm still pretty new to using Adobe Premiere. But at the same time, that technical challenge is what sort of keeps me going. 
I think the final installment(s) in the rosette series should be done soon. Just a couple things left to decide upon. Nothing major, but I think I should discuss them with you before finalizing them.
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