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I made a batch of traditional mosaic rosettes years ago, and they turned out well, but man was that time consuming! It's time to look at rosette making again, and I'm looking for suggestions for rosette designs that can be made in a "reasonable" length of time---define reasonable however you like!
RE: Faster traditional rosette (in reply to NorCalluthier)
There are lots of great older designs that are simple to make (if you can find the right colors) and pack a real punch. Look at especially Domingo Esteso and Santos Hernandez. Or design your own!
Santos:
Esteso:
I have another great Esteso one saved on my other computer.
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RE: Faster traditional rosette (in reply to NorCalluthier)
Hello Norman and Andy,
Norman I watched Michael Thames video, and I use a different approach. I made a dedicated router base for cutting the groove into the top to take the rosette.
I then made a polyethylene plastic mold using that router base with the same router bit. I then assemble the single rosette in the plastic mold, and glue it with crazy-glue, which doesn't stick to the mold, and doesn't swell up the wood like water based glue. The rosette then fits the groove in the top very well indeed!
Andy I've looked at, and admired, many of the rosettes of Santos and Domingo Esteso. I'm all set up to do that type of mosaic rosette, but they all look like a lot of work.
A friend copied an Esteso rosette from the 1920's that is mostly mother of pearl. I thought that I was going to dislike it, but ended up thinking that it was really attractive.
So, having been "given permission" to use MOP in a traditional Spanish guitar rosette by no less than Domingo Esteso, I've been designing various floral patterns that use MOP dots. These designs have the great virtue of being "error tolerant". A black background covers a multitude of sins! I think that they will be relatively quick to make, but then my time estimates for a task are laughably far off. I'm a little bit concerned that they might not find favor with buyers, but I think I'll at least make up a couple of them, and see if I like them myself.
RE: Faster traditional rosette (in reply to NorCalluthier)
I did a three video series in 2012 on how to make a simple handmade rosette and they are posted on You Tube. The basic idea was to make something like the Manuel Ramirez era concentric circle rosettes with maybe one simple tile element.
Foro member "Juan the Bomb" Juan Carlos Moreno, filmed it and edited it. He should get credit for the hard work.
I wish I could take back some of my stupid comments...attempts at being funny, but what is done is done. And I think the videos helped a few people. I should add, when we put this up on my You Tube Channel there was nothing else this comprehensive done with a view to how you work your hands with the materials. Our concept was to show how your hands moved and worked with the material and to cut close in on the work and not be about a guy standing there talking at you. It was meant to teach by showing as much as by explaining. I think you could turn off the sound and still get it.
We did the best we could with production value, and for what it is I'm OK with what we turned out.
I have one short adjunct video that shows using strips of clear plastic instead of waxed 'dummy lines' of veneer to make a space for tiles. Now I'm veering away from making fast rosettes and I'm investing a lot of time in them.
RE: Faster traditional rosette (in reply to NorCalluthier)
quote:
"reasonable" length of time
Is something that is changing a lot these days. So if thats your way of thinking guitar building, you will most probably find that what is reasonable for you today, will not be reasonable tomorrow.
RE: Faster traditional rosette (in reply to NorCalluthier)
quote:
Tom, I have looked at all the available ready made rosettes, and they all seem way too busy, not unlike modern flamenco playing (;->)...
There is certainly nothing wrong with the rosette you made but, as you know, rosettes are very subjective, as I would go for a little more color variance like red, green, and black. I'm still locked into the Persian styles that many Spanish builders used throughout the years.
But to each his own; my hands are getting older and the premade styles keep up with being quality made, and give me time to concentrate on the fine tuning of the voice.
So, go for it! If you have to make a statement about your creative side with a rosette, then do it!
RE: Faster traditional rosette (in reply to NorCalluthier)
Hello Tom,
My taste runs very much to the American "Arts and Crafts Movement" of the late 19th and 20th century. Plain, simple, and show off the beauty of the wood.
What doesn't show up in the photo is the rich look of those wide Brazil rosewood bands. I had to try a bunch of different rosewood strips to get some that would bend to that tight a radius at that thickness.
The floral designs that I'm experimenting with are also "artsy-craftsy", which was very much influenced by Japanese aesthetics.
RE: Faster traditional rosette (in reply to NorCalluthier)
quote:
My very rough estimates for the time I spend:
~ making a rosette 10-15 hours
~ making a guitar 200 hours
Even allowing for my slow, meticulous personality, these seem like excessive amounts of time.
Tom, I have looked at all the available ready made rosettes, and they all seem way too busy, not unlike modern flamenco playing (;->)...
So here is what I've been doing. When I get my floral designs finalized, I'll post them under this topic.
I can make them quite fast, and now that I've practiced making them fast over and over they look really good. However I really changed my head on rosettes, I don't keep track of time, but they are done when they are done. I've doubled back to a much closer rosettes to the Manuel Ramirez, Domingo E Santos rosettes in style and spirit. More black and red, thin against thick lines, thin lines bordering blacks. Mosaic that is complex, but not unreadable visually. I agree a lot of contemporary rosette making suffers from 'horror vacui' the fear of open space. Busier is not better. It's more about how you play movement off of stillness.
Put up your floral tiles anytime we all want to to see them. There is also a "show your rosettes" thread somewhere that has not been updated in several months, perhaps you could find it and add yours? Or I'll find it a bump it for you.
Premade rosettes are an abomination and an insult to the art of guitar making. They have no place in this art other than as disgusting commercial baubles.
RE: Faster traditional rosette (in reply to NorCalluthier)
quote:
Premade rosettes are an abomination and an insult to the art of guitar making. They have no place in this art other than as disgusting commercial baubles.
Stephen, you are in your radical mood today. You know I dont like factory or mass produced rosettes. They make otherwise beautifull instruments look tame and soulless in my eyes. Brian. I like your simple colored rosette.If I were you, I would continue doing what you think looks good and drop the timewatcher. Be proud of that personal view on an important design thing on a guitar. After all, the rosette is one of the few personal parts of the guitar where you are allowed to be an artist. The other one is the headstock.
RE: Faster traditional rosette (in reply to NorCalluthier)
Hello All,
I really appreciate that the rosette is one of the few places that the builder has the opportunity to be "artistic". I also do a good deal of fussing over my headstock. My bridge tie block used to be large enough to allow a bwb purfling inside the bone picture frame, but I redesigned the bridge to be smaller (lighter weight), and there really isn't room for the purfling.
I don't know if it's apparent in the photo of my current rosette, but each of the 14 mosaic rows is tapered so that the log comes out tapered, and the horizontal and vertical lines all line up. Any error gets multiplied by 14! Who said "perfectionist"?
I once told Gene Clark that I made Spanish guitars like a German. Then I corrected myself, and said "More like a German machinist".
The floral design doesn't have tiles. The central area is black, and has holes drilled every 15° to accept the flowers. They are glued in with black epoxy. Hence the "error tolerant" aspect of making a rosette that way. The big question in my mind is whether I'm going to like the result well enough to put it into a guitar.
The whole time thing is just that I need to make and sell enough guitars per year to help us maintain a really modest middle class lifestyle out here in the working class town of Fort Bragg (CA).
By the way, my wife and I just celebrated our 50th!
RE: Faster traditional rosette (in reply to NorCalluthier)
quote:
The whole time thing is just that I need to make and sell enough guitars per year to help us maintain a really modest middle class lifestyle out here in the working class town of Fort Bragg (CA).
By the way, my wife and I just celebrated our 50th!
Congratulations and all the best to both of you. That is really something.
Maintaining a decent middle class or even low class lifestyle by building instruments is getting to the point where its hopeless. I have given up. This also means that I will continue staying 100% true to my musical instrument making visions. What do I have to loose? I accept being poor, but I must be able to look at myself in the mirror. If not, its not worth it.
Good luck. And keep on making your own rosettes.
Btw, I dont make mosaik rosettes and will never do. But my personal taste in mosaic rosettes is simple looking ones. Few colors, no rope and a simple geometric center.
RE: Faster traditional rosette (in reply to NorCalluthier)
Hello Anders,
Yes, it is really something that we have stayed together for 50 years---we can hardly believe it ourselves!
We own our home and shop, and we both get a small payment of Social Security. My wife makes a little money as music director of her church---she is a pianist. So, I only need to sell three or four guitars a year for us to be able to cover our expenses. I teach guitar making as well, though that has declined since the economy has gotten poor.
I have spent a good part of my work time for the last 25 years experimenting, using my technical background to try to figure out what makes a superior guitar. I've reduced that process down to wood testing, initial voicing, and final voicing.
I would be happy to email .pdf's of my notes on those processes to anyone that's interested. Send me a private message with your email address.
I've got a new website under construction that will have a bunch of videos on my methods. It should be "on the air" in August.
My hope is that I will be able to make guitars that are good enough that they sell themselves.
Posts: 1696
Joined: Jan. 29 2012
From: Seattle, Washington, USA
RE: Faster traditional rosette (in reply to NorCalluthier)
quote:
My very rough estimates for the time I spend:
~ making a rosette 10-15 hours
I suggest that you practice doing what you did before. I have found that with practice, everything about guitar making gets faster and easier. And better. I bet you could cut the time down considerably, maybe to a fifth of what it was.
RE: Faster traditional rosette (in reply to NorCalluthier)
Hello Ethan,
Back in the 1970's I invented a leather working tool made from hard maple. In seven years we made 74,000 of them. I timed every operation in seconds, and by the seventh year we had cut the time down to less than a tenth of what it was when we started. So I'm very familiar with how fast it is possible to get at something that you do over and over again.
I'll be making around six to ten guitars a year. My rosette making process produces around 25 rosettes. So Ill need to do a batch of rosettes about every three years. At my age---77---I'll be lucky to be able to reconstruct the process from my notes, and my memory, the next time I need to run a a batch!
I recently gave over the French polishing of my instruments to an expert. I can do it acceptably, but I'm never going to do it enough to get efficient at it---or do nearly as good a job as she does. She has French polished over 1,000 guitars!
So, I'll try making a couple of rosettes of the floral design, and a student and I worked out a method of adapting the basic idea of drilling holes in a black background for doing a Hauser mosaic copy. As I said, a black background, and black epoxy, covers up a multitude of sins!
Also, I'm looking forward to being able to try variations on each rosette, since they will be made one at a time.
RE: Faster traditional rosette (in reply to NorCalluthier)
quote:
I recently gave over the French polishing of my instruments to an expert. I can do it acceptably, but I'm never going to do it enough to get efficient at it---or do nearly as good a job as she does. She has French polished over 1,000 guitars!
It is a wise decision to farm out work when needed, especially french polish.
Now for the rosettes; Many Spanish builders have Germany or Japan to make them due to time consumption having to make each pattern.
This is about saving time, not worrying about changing certain design elements, unless they use an assortment of designs in their practice.
Manuel Reyes had his rosettes made as did Ramirez. The problem with the older master builders having to make their own rosettes fell into the category of not having access to Japan in the older days. Today it is widely accepted to have Japan and Germany supply them.
RE Brune has had his designs made in Japan even though he can make his own.
But for anyone to say its a sissy way to build, has very little knowledge of commerce.
However, if you want to apply it to your practice, then there is absolutely nothing wrong with it.
RE: Faster traditional rosette (in reply to NorCalluthier)
Yeah, sure but when we want to talk about making rosettes you have to be snarky and put your advertisement for the rosettes you sell. You jus ruin the conversation. Over and over.
RE: Faster traditional rosette (in reply to estebanana)
quote:
ORIGINAL: estebanana
Yeah, sure but when we want to talk about making rosettes you have to be snarky and put your advertisement for the rosettes you sell. You jus ruin the conversation. Over and over.
Stephen, in this case I'm forced to agree with Tom. His point is that whether you like it or not sometimes one has to decide whether to spend more time and charge more money or compete. We used to make a custom rosette for every guitar but it took a lot of time and added nothing to the guitar except an ornament around the sound hole. Perhaps I'm not as involved in the artistic side of guitar making as some and I freely agree that there's something to be said for that endeavor but sometimes one must decide where to place priorities. We decided some years ago to place our priority on making a better guitar and forgo the expensive and time consuming ornaments. I personally rather like the look of a guitar without a rosette but that's just me . I look at some of the other luthier sites and see steel string guitars with so much glitter that they look more like juke boxes than musical instruments. But whatever turns your crank!
Posts: 1696
Joined: Jan. 29 2012
From: Seattle, Washington, USA
RE: Faster traditional rosette (in reply to jshelton5040)
quote:
We used to make a custom rosette for every guitar but it took a lot of time and added nothing to the guitar except an ornament around the sound hole.
John, I'm almost in your camp. I like to make nice rosettes for my guitars but I do not want to focus mainly on the looks. My dealer, however, tells me that it is mainly the looks that sell them. Mundo dificil.
RE: Faster traditional rosette (in reply to jshelton5040)
quote:
Stephen, in this case I'm forced to agree with Tom. His point is that whether you like it or not sometimes one has to decide whether to spend more time and charge more money or compete. We used to make a custom rosette for every guitar but it took a lot of time and added nothing to the guitar except an ornament around the sound hole. Perhaps I'm not as involved in the artistic side of guitar making as some and I freely agree that there's something to be said for that endeavor but sometimes one must decide where to place priorities. We decided some years ago to place our priority on making a better guitar and forgo the expensive and time consuming ornaments. I personally rather like the look of a guitar without a rosette but that's just me . I look at some of the other luthier sites and see steel string guitars with so much glitter that they look more like juke boxes than musical instruments. But whatever turns your crank!
_____________________________
That's your choice and Tom's choice. I don't have to do it. I will never do it. And I can make a high quality rosette quite fast. You're both missing the point, we begin talking about rosette making and the conversation is hijacked because someone wants to point out that you can buy a premade rosette. WOW what a surprise! Really? You mean I can buy it already made? Holy ****.
See if we were violin makers talking about scroll carving and we got into comparing scrolls and looking at Guarneri scrolls vs. Amati, there would always be this guy who interjects: "Hey why don't you just buy a Chinese neck with the scroll already made? it would save you time. Commerce.
We are not talking about commerce right now, we are talking about the fabrication of rosettes. Making things and being a maker for the self challenge of building something is not a transactional discussion. It's a makers discussion. So my counter question is what is the agenda of individuals who continue to subvert makers discussions into transactional discussions about the product they sell?
The thing you don't understand about people like Anders and I, and many others is that we are not hard wired as people or makers to rationalize transactional compromises. maybe for you guys it is easy or just comes naturally, but for others transactional rationalizations are not part of the game.
If it were mandated that all guitars be made with commercial rosettes I would never make another guitar. Why? There is no point. Why would Beethoven have said or Paco de Lucia have said "Ok well, I don't like that passage, but it's just good enough." They did not have personalities that worked that way. I have that kind of personality and I live with it. I don't appreciate people putting me down for it. I also would not wish it on anyone.
I also spent all my savings moving to a place to help someone else's family and I can't make it to all the GFA gatherings, I can't promote myself from here. So don't tell me I don't understand commerce. I can't get to the places where commerce happens. I live in an isolated place and it's all be ended my career so please give me my god dammed rosettes.
RE: Faster traditional rosette (in reply to jshelton5040)
quote:
We used to make a custom rosette for every guitar but it took a lot of time and added nothing to the guitar except an ornament around the sound hole.
I totally disagree. A personal handmade rosette gives life and personality to a guitar. Guitars with factory made rosettes look flat, dull and soulless and I dont care if the label says Reyes, Blackshear, Shelton, Ramirez or whatever. It looks flat, soulless and dull. It is also IMHO a complete lack of respect towards the craft. Do you dare calling your instrument handmade??? All this talk about trade is BS. You guys are just going closer and closer to competing with mass produced guitars which are getting better and better. We are reaching a point, where soulless "handmade" guitars look just like massproduced guitars.
Besides, Brian didn´t ask for your advices about using factory made rosettes. He asked how to save time making his OWN rosettes. So go away with your stupid spam that only serves to excuse you own lasy ways of building.
I´m NEVER going to go that way. NEVER. I prefer closing my workshop and do something else with my life if I cannot make a living out of it. I have to much respect for the craft. I say NO to end up being a soulless and greedy luthier.
RE: Faster traditional rosette (in reply to NorCalluthier)
This video has been on my blog for some time so some of you may have seen it already, sorry. I think it adds something to this conversation. I too will always make my own rosettes. It is very satisfying although time-consuming and finicky. http://www.granadaexpert.com/johnray/about-rosettes/
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You know I dont like factory or mass produced rosettes. They make otherwise beautifull instruments look tame and soulless in my eyes. 
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