GS Mini 15

Thursday, March 6th, 2014:

On to the Eccentric Rosette!!!

TODAY WAS A BIG DAY. Yesterday my 1/8" bloodwood had arrived, so today, after finishing the fingerboard, I was ready to tackle my "eccentric rosette". (I decided to do this rosette because I think the wider part of this rosette is a nice counterpoint to the arm bevel on the bass side of the guitar.) I'm a nervous wreck (not really), but it all turned out well!!!!

(1) I first used double-stick tape to affix the bloodwood blank to the MDF board which held the 3/16" pivot pin, for use with the Stew-Mac circle-cutting jig and the Dremel. After figuring out the size of my rosette, and the diameters of the two circles, I first used the circle-cutting jig, with a 1/16" downcut spiral bit, to rout out the inner edge of the rosette, using the soundhole's center pivot pin. I only routed about .080" deep (the thickness of my finished rosette ring) into the 1/8" thick bloodwood blank.

  

 

 

(2) I drilled a new hole, to the right of the first, and repositioned the bloodwood blank, to use that new hole for the pivot pin. I then routed out the outer edge of the rosette ring. This second circle, which would form the eccentric ring, would have a 5" diameter.

 

(3) I then removed the blank from the MDF board, and took it to my thickness sander. I sanded the back of the blank, little by little, until the rosette ring was freed from the blank.

 

 

 

(4) Once I had the rosette ring free (you can just see it in the upper left-hand corner of the photo below), I traced it onto the top.

 

        

 

(5) Now it was time to rout out the channel in the top for the eccentric rosette ring. I used the two different pivot pins, with the circle-cutting jig again, to rout out the inner and outer edges of the rosette channel.

  

 

(6) Then, I used circle-cutting jig, set in the two pivot pins, to rout out as much as I could of the inside of the channel. I could only rout out a portion of the channel this way, however, and had to remove the remainder of the channel freehand, with just the Dremel in the router base.

  

 

(7) Once the rosette channel was all routed out, I checked for the fit of the rosette ring and the black/white/black purfling rings (.040" each), which would be inserted on both the inner and outer edge of the bloodwood ring.

Here you can see that, so far, the channel would only fit one ring and the bloodwood ring.
         

(8) I used the circle jig to widen the channel just a hair, and that did the trick. Now, both of the black/white/black purflings fit into the channel.

 

  

(9) Finally, I glued in the rosette with the purfling, using Titebond. I will wait until tomorrow to scrape/sand down the rosette flush with the top, and will then thickness the top to its final thickness (sanding on the other side of the top).

  

BY THE WAY . . . I just now realized that I hadn't taken a photo of the circle-cutting jig in action. Here it is (not actually doing any routing right now), as it will later be used (after I thickness-sand the top) to rout out the soundhole.