Post #7 - Rosette installation

Got a chance to install the rosette tonight. Well, that was harder than I remember. The inner and outer rings weren't that bad, but installing the middle purfling was not as easy at all. Now I know why they charge $$$ for fancy rosettes. In the pictures below, you can see the white teflon piece installed with the purfling bunch in the center ring. It functions to reserve space for the abalone pearl, and is removed once the rings are established. The vacancy left by the teflon piece is then filled with the pearl pieces. Time to let it dry overnight. After sanding level with the top and cleaning the excess glue, it should come out okay. The other fun part of tonight's project was cleaning all the dried cement from my fingers. Hopefully I will have time to install the back strip tomorrow.

Post #6 - routing for rosette

I started by laying out the template and outlining the guitar edge on the top wood.

Next step was to drill a pivot point at the center of the rosette.  I used the same drill bit as the pivot pin for the rosette cutting jig.  The first cut was the inner ring.  I used the edge of the soundboard to do a few test cuts to check for proper depth before making the ring cuts.

Here I am dry fitting the center rosette purflings to check for proper width.

Finally, cutting the outer ring to the same width as the inner ring.

Another shot of the outer ring:

Last cut is the soundhole, and the top is ready for installing the rosette.

I came across an interesting link with various D-28 soundboard, side and back thicknesses from different years of production: http://www2s.biglobe.ne.jp/~somemura/itaatsu.htm

Post #5 - Rosette

Hopefully, I'll have time to layout the rosette dimensions and template on the soundboard tonight. Here's another shot of the D-45 style rosette:

Update: I measured the individual rosette purfling pieces.  First, the soundhole has a 4" diameter.  From the soundhole edge to the first (inner) ring is a gap of approx. 0.115."  The  inner and outer rings comprise B-W-B-W-B purfling of approx 0.087" width.  The gap between the center ring and the outer rings is approx 0.125."  The center ring comprises B-W-B-W'-B'-Pearl-B'-W'-B-W-B purflig of approx. 0.316" width.  The B' and W' segments are thicker than the other B and W segments.  The pearl segment is approx 0.069".

Post #4 - Prepping for inlaying top and backs

I had already jointed and joined the top and back when we were still back in Tahoe (circa 2000).  They just needed to be thicknessed.  The top was thicknessed to 0.12" and the back 0.11" 

Here are the pieces ready for the rosette. I'll be employing a rosette similar to the D-41 and D-42 (BWBWB-BWBWB|ABALONE PEARL|BWBWB-BWBWB):

The back will have the HD-style (zig-zag) strip:

Here is my home-made (fiberglass) rosette cutting jig and the stew-mac dremmel jig.

and mounted to the dremmel:

Now I need to go find my routing bits...

Post #3 - Side Bending

Time to bend the sides and begin forming the rims. First step was to soak the sides in warm water for about an hour.

Here is the bending iron clamped to the workbench.  

I started with the upper bought, then the waist then the lower bought.  There are a few good videos on Youtube showing the process.

Half way there:

What takes most luthiers about 15 minutes took me an hour or so, but overall I'm happy with the result.  Time to let the wood dry for a day or so.  It will be another week before I have time anyway.

Post#2

While waiting for some parts (glue, cement, adhesives, etc.) to arrive from stew-mac, it was time to cut and put together the spreaders for my dreadnought guitar form.  Glue is still drying, and I'll finish off with a flush cutting bit on the router.

The other build was to put together a side bending iron from some parts from home depot.  I generally followed the suggestions from this link, and made some modifications to make it fully enclosed with the pipe mounted directly to the enclosure.  The finished iron is shown below.