Mosaic rosette making

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Andy Culpepper

Posts: 3023
Joined: Mar. 30 2009
From: NY, USA

Mosaic rosette making

Hi everyone,
I started a rosette and decided to make a blog about the process.
As I say there aren't any earth shattering new techniques in here but you can follow my progress and see how I do it. Part 1 is posted with two more parts to follow...

http://andyculpepperguitars.wordpress.com/

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http://www.andyculpepper.com

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Mar. 13 2013 22:39:38

Blair Russell

Posts: 51
Joined: Sep. 6 2012
From: Bristol

RE: Mosaic rosette making (in reply to Andy Culpepper)

I haven't seen that method of thicknessing the veneers, it looks like an easy way to get a consistent thickness. I'll have to try it next time I make a mosaic rosette.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Mar. 14 2013 17:59:40

El Burdo

Posts: 632
Joined: Sep. 8 2011

RE: Mosaic rosette making (in reply to Andy Culpepper)

That's very interesting! I use this jig with only moderate success (and very often snapped sticks, generally through over enthusiastic threading). The blade is contoured and I use a feeler gauge to set the gap at the flat part of the blade.

I think your method is less risky so I'll have a go at routing a 6mm slot in some board. At the moment I am having most success with a simple plane but the sticks are now lower than the height of the end stop (a clamped rule!) so they aren't flat at the ends. As the stick I make is halved and folded back on itself that error is multiplied.
What was the traditional method to thicken veneers? I can't find anything.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Mar. 16 2013 15:02:43

prd1

Posts: 206
Joined: Jul. 11 2007

RE: Mosaic rosette making (in reply to Andy Culpepper)

Good stuff Andy..

may be worth mentioning the application that a chap on the foro has provided (nhills) that lets you play around with rosette designs?

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Mar. 16 2013 15:38:41

Andy Culpepper

Posts: 3023
Joined: Mar. 30 2009
From: NY, USA

RE: Mosaic rosette making (in reply to Andy Culpepper)

Thanks guys... here is part II:
http://andyculpepperguitars.wordpress.com/2013/03/16/rosette-making-part-ii/

I didn't invent my thicknessing jig, I think I first saw the idea from Gimar Yestra on this forum. So credit to him, it really works nicely.
I'm not exactly sure about traditional techniques, but I remember Eugene Clark's article about this in American Lutherie, where he showed a jig that uses the back of a plane blade as a scraper, and it would be gradually adjusted closer and closer. That might be pretty close to the traditional technique.

prd1, yes if you search the Foro for "rosette designer" a thread about Norman's software should come up. If only it was available on a Mac... right now I'm still stuck with colored pencils and graph paper

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Andy Culpepper, luthier
http://www.andyculpepper.com

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Mar. 16 2013 20:07:54

nhills

Posts: 230
Joined: Jul. 13 2003
From: West Des Moines, IA USA

RE: Mosaic rosette making (in reply to prd1)

prd1:
Thanks for the plug! It's still available free to anyone by providing me with a direct e-mail address.

deteresa1:
Rosette Designer runs perfectly on a Mac by running Windows with VMWare or BootCamp; however, I have not tried it with Windows 8. It was actually mostly developed on a Mac with VMWare.

Cheers,
Norman

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Mar. 16 2013 20:20:52

El Burdo

Posts: 632
Joined: Sep. 8 2011

RE: Mosaic rosette making (in reply to Andy Culpepper)

quote:

a jig that uses the back of a plane blade as a scraper, and it would be gradually adjusted closer and closer

Yes, that's the principle behind my jig (learned from Gerald Cross at Leeds College of Music) - it's a spoke shave blade contoured into a straight edge with the edge made into a scraper, so the thickness is graduated from left to right. I've just used it - better than I remembered! But still a bit risky-feeling.

Thanks for the second part - how did you contour the inner surface of the stick? The outside is fairly easy, but ..?

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Mar. 16 2013 23:20:00

Andy Culpepper

Posts: 3023
Joined: Mar. 30 2009
From: NY, USA

RE: Mosaic rosette making (in reply to Andy Culpepper)

Aaaand part III: http://andyculpepperguitars.wordpress.com/2013/03/18/rosette-making-part-iii/

Norman, interesting, I didn't know you could run Windows on a Mac. I will check that out, thanks.

Burdo, I like your jig. The contoured blade is a good idea. It's definitely a tricky operation no matter how you slice it

My lutherie teacher was a huge jig/gadget guy and he actually had one of those cheap 1-inch belt sanders that he rigged up to be a very effective thickness sander. He cut off the disc sander part with the motor and mounted the other half of the machine on a stand with his own motor. There was an angled aluminum plate under the lower wheel of the belt, and you could raise and lower the plate with a little wheel which was marked off in thousandths of an inch.
It was complete with a little metal hold-down, a vacuum attachment, and it was indeed accurate to the thousandth. The thing even had adjustable speeds because he used an old treadmill motor.

So that worked pretty quickly for doing rosette sticks, and a multitude of other things.

I'm not nearly mechanically inclined enough to make that kind of thing

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http://www.andyculpepper.com

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Mar. 18 2013 20:06:58

azamuner

Posts: 44
Joined: Jan. 22 2013

RE: Mosaic rosette making (in reply to Andy Culpepper)

That looks like a lot of work but it really adds character to a guitar. One question though. The small gaps that are between the design, how do you fill those? Do you use the same small pieces to fix that or something else? Did they break when cutting with the saw? The whole process is wow. I don't know how you guys do this.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Mar. 18 2013 23:41:02

Andy Culpepper

Posts: 3023
Joined: Mar. 30 2009
From: NY, USA

RE: Mosaic rosette making (in reply to Andy Culpepper)

Hi aza, this was a much more complex design than I'm used to doing, basically because of the lack of symmetry. So it did take maybe 9-10 hours from start to finish. Something like this I can bang out in a couple hours because believe it or not it only takes 3 of those little sticks.

Those gaps came because the white veneers were slightly thinner than the rest so the stack of whites was not quite wide enough. I patched the whole log before sawing it up. The saw surprisingly does no damage at all.
When I make the rosette again I'll fix that problem... it always seems to take me more than one try to get something perfect