Yesterday I sanded the two rosettes flush to the top and took a good look at them. I just wasn't happy with how they looked, and the edges of the wood against the colored strips. The edges of the rosettes just didn't have a good clean edge, even though I sanded them. There were a lot of tiny little gaps that I didn't like. So I decided to re-do them. I routed the colored strips out from around the wood rosettes using my
dremel, a
down cut bit, and my circle cutter. I adjusted the bit so it cut just inside the colored strips and overlapped the wood just a touch. That way it would remove the colored strips, and trim the edges of the solid wood rosette part. It worked very well. I got nice clean edges on both rosettes and a channel that would accept three strips of colored lines. I re-glued the colored strips in and let them dry. Today I sanded them flat and they look a lot better. I am very happy with the look and now I can continue on. I cut the sound holes out sanded the soundboards down to the almost final thickness so they are currently .100" thick. My goal after final sanding is to have them around .95". I then cut the X-brace intersection on one top. You may recall that I am going to use an 'A' frame support under the fingerboard extension instead of the
popsicle brace that I have used on my other guitars. This is supposed to be a much better brace which is stronger and less prone to failure. However, it also entails a fair amount of additional work as the X braces need to be notched to accept the ends of them, the transverse brace needs notches to accept them, and the top needs to be mitred. The neck block also needs to be notched to accept these braces. I got one completed but didn't start on the second one. I will get to that one tomorrow after I get the first one glued up in the go bar deck. You may have noticed that I am not
pre-shaping the braces this time either. I want to carve them after they are glued to assist me in my attempts at tap tuning.
The first rosette after re-doing it. The lines are red/black/red.
The other rosette. These stripes are green/black/green. If you look you can see a small nick in the rosette at the top inside just to the right of center. This
spalted maple is very fragile stuff and it is a piece that fell out during the routing process. I oriented it so that spot will be under the fingerboard extension.
The A brace.
Here you can see the required notching for this. It is a little
tedious but it was also kind of fun.
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