 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Not logged in - | |
| Moderated by: Richard Hefner |
|
||||||||||||||
| Cutting Rosette Channels - Best tool - Instrument Repair and Luthiery - General - ezFolk Forums | |||||||||||||||
| Author | Post | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||||||||||
|
JBosworth Approved
|
I'm building a tenor ukulele, sapele sides/back and an Englemann spruce top. The most challenging task so far has been the cutting of the rosette channel in the top. A dyed in the wool Luthier would mark the channel with a compass and proceed to chisel it out - painstaking and demanding. A rich Luthier would buy LMI's rosette cutting tool for the drill press. It is precise and, once the cutters are set up, one could blast out perfect rosettes forever. But nearly $200 for a simple aluminum disk with a few little steel cutters makes it a tad pricey. Stew-Mac has their proprietary router base that turns a standard Dremel tool into a multi-purpose router/cutter. Add the circle cutting attachment and they say perfect rosettes can be made quite easily. Well, I didn't have either of these but I did have a RotoZip tool with a circle cutting attachment. I wanted to rout a 3/32 channel for a paua abalone rosette on my uke project. I got it all set up and did a couple of test runs on scrap. Seemed OK, though the RoroZip is a bit large and bulky, so difficult to maneuver. The result in the Englemann spruce was far from perfect. The channel was round, but it varied significantly in both width and depth. The weight of the RotoZip and its power cable dangling made it difficult to control. An attempt to retrace the channel was a mistake - it just made it worse. So now I have a nice piece of expensive, bookmatched, edge-joined spruce that will probably end up being used to make bridge patches. Bottom line: Can anyone recommend the best, fastest, and most accurate way to cut rosette channels? Is the Stew-Mac router base and circle cutter attachment for the Dremel a good choice? Or is the overpriced LMI rosette cutter the only way to go? Is there another tool out there? Thanks!
|
||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
|
banjo brad Super Moderator 
|
I found instructions on making one in a luthier book I got back in the 70's when I wanted to make a guitar. I no longer have the book, or the cutter, but it wasn't hard to make and inexpensive. Check your library for books on building classical guitars - it was a well known one by a respected builder. I think it (as well as the wood kit) came from Luthier's Mercantile out of Healdsberg in California.
____________________ ezFolk Help Brad Prickly Pear Music Banjo Brad's ezFolk page TOTMC |
|||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
|
JBosworth Approved
|
Thanks, Brad. I surfed around and also found an excerpt from a book on making Spanish guitars that had some plans for a circle cutter for a laminate trimmer. I have a Bosch Colt laminate trimmer and may attempt making a plexiglass cutter attachment - eventually. However, in the same search, I found that my favorite ukulele Luthier supplier, Hana Lima 'Ia (http://www.hanalima.com) in Honolulu, is now selling Englemann spruce tops that are edge joined, cut oversize (for tenor uke) and have a rosette channel already cut - $26. They also have the Paua abalone curved rosette pieces in 3" diameter that fit this top ($10). So, for a mere $36 or so, my issue is immediately solved. However, I still want to be able to do it myself. I'm beginning to lean toward the LMI drill press rosette cutter. Even though it costs $200+, in the long run it will probably save me a lot of time and money. Mahalo, Jeff http://jwbosworthguitars.com
|
||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
| Current time is 06:51 am | |
| ezFolk Forums > General > Instrument Repair and Luthiery > Cutting Rosette Channels - Best tool | |
