# Building an Acoustic Guitar



## pjaromin (Nov 28, 2007)

*Building an Acoustic Guitar*

I've been rather busy with life the last couple years, but I'm *finally* back in the shop and up to no good again! Here's what I'm up to for anyone who's interested…

A few years back I was conversing with a co-worker and fellow guitar player. Aware I was an amateur woodworker, he suggested I build a guitar. "Luthiery requires special tools and skills…training. Naw, I couldn't do that," I said.

*Google search.*

Fast forward to last year when essentially out-of-the-blue I recall this conversation and start thinking - could I? It didn't take long to find numerous examples online of folks like me, some with no formal shop and less woodworking experience, building beautiful custom acoustic guitars. So I thought, "why not?"

*Have you considered, maybe, boxes?*

One of the things I like most about the idea of building guitars is their relatively small size and raw material requirements. The majority of my projects to date have been cribs and dressers that tend to overwhelm my small 300 sq. foot shop. Building these require significant planning so I don't wind up painting myself into a corner, or more accurately behind a large, heavy cherry dresser! I've often admired the work of many of the folks in the LumberJocks.com community who specialize in small, ornate wooden boxes. The skill, patience, and artistry involved is sizable though the end product is anything but. I considered trying my hand at one, going as far as to draw some designs and pick up a cheap grinder for doing some wild shaping work. However in the end, though I'm sure I'll get to it some day, they just don't interest me all that much; and although I feel fairly confident in my design abilities I don't think I could come close to matching many of the others I've seen.

*The Plan*

It didn't take long to discover that the book "Guitarmaking: Tradition and Technology" by Jonathan Natelson and William Cumpiano (frequently discussed simply as "the Cumpiano book) was essentially the core curriculum. So I bought and read it, twice. The authors' build process is centered around a guitar-shaped workboard. After settling on a style (Martin Grand Auditorium), I cut the shape out of acrylic and then used that to build the board. Being unable to get my hands on a Martin, I purchased the body layout online and had it printed out on a large format copier.

I knew I'd also need some additional specialty supplies. I have a reasonable stock of suitable wood. However I didn't have any tone woods well-suited for the top and internal bracing. Although I did find an example of someone doing excellent work with domestic American hardwoods, I wanted to maximize the likelihood of having a decent, playable instrument at the conclusion of the process - so I placed an order with Stewart-MacDonald for some cheap sitka spruce tops, bracing, a couple truss rods, and some other incidentals.









The completed workboard

I lack any experience building guitars - or for that matter, any type of stringed instrument. However, as I see it my biggest challenge in this process will be overcoming my tendency toward impatience. I love seeing a project come together; and, with the exception of my personal safety, if I see a quicker way to accomplish something I'll typically take it even if it means risking screwing it up. To be fair, part of this urgency comes from the fact that I have very little "shop time" available to me - with four young kids, a full-time job, and frequent additional distractions and obligations, I try to make the absolute most of every moment in the shop. So a big concern was I would spend six plus months working on a guitar only to screw something up dramatically near the end of the build. My hedge against this: build more than one in parallel! I figure I might screw up one, but two, or three? Far less likely. Of course, there's always the risk when working in parallel of making the same boneheaded move on all of them. So I'm actually going to work it in sections and complete a section from start to finish on the least attractive piece as practice for the next. Hopefully I'll catch any issues with the first one before doing the same on subsequent pieces.

*Building the neck*

Cumpiano's book begins with the neck. I figured I'd follow his lead and start there with my guitars. For a time I considered making multiple necks using different woods and build methods. The traditional scarf-joint method would naturally be first. However I also planned to build one by carving it from a laminated block of contrasting woods. A large curly maple board would make a great candidate for another carved neck. When it came time to actually build the necks it turned out that the lamination/carve method would waste far too much nice wood and by using the traditional method I would be able to build four necks with a relatively small amount of figured stock. So the decision was to resaw a large board of curly maple into a couple blanks and another board of birdseye maple as well. Thus I ended up with enough wood for four blanks using the scarf-joint method.









Neck blanks milled from curly, birdseye, and straight-grained maple.

The remaining pictures highlight the process taken to date. I began by building a quick custom taper jig for the bandsaw for cutting the 15° angle in each blank.









Sawing the scarf joints on the bandsaw

Then I sanded and scraped the resulting cut to clean it up and flatten it out (though apparently I didn't take any photos of those steps), cut the sections for the heel block, glued it all together, and then sanded/scraped it flat, flush, and clean.









Scrapping the glued scarf joint.









Glueing the heel block.









After routing a channel for the truss rods and notching the tenon at the heel end.

*Next steps…*

Because I had originally ordered only a single truss rod, I decided to stop at this point before burying the one I had in one of the necks. My next step will be to glue a shim over the installed truss rods, scrape it flush, and then probably glue the veneers to the headstock. On a visit to the last woodworking show I picked up a $30 sample pack of veneers. I figured they might be useful for the guitar build, and it looks like I was right. Now I've just got to make a final selection of the specific veneer sandwich to use for each neck. I'll probably stop with these two at that point and begin the process all over again with the other two blanks…provided I don't discover some major mistake in these two before then!









A sampling of the selection of veneers in consideration for the headstock

[Originally posted at http://tenonandspline.com/blog/archives/510]


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## Maverick44spec (Aug 7, 2011)

pjaromin said:


> *Building an Acoustic Guitar*
> 
> I've been rather busy with life the last couple years, but I'm *finally* back in the shop and up to no good again! Here's what I'm up to for anyone who's interested…
> 
> ...


Awesome. I've aways wondered how they were made. I can't wait to read more.


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## Bertha (Jan 10, 2011)

pjaromin said:


> *Building an Acoustic Guitar*
> 
> I've been rather busy with life the last couple years, but I'm *finally* back in the shop and up to no good again! Here's what I'm up to for anyone who's interested…
> 
> ...


Subscribed!


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## strst31 (Feb 5, 2012)

pjaromin said:


> *Building an Acoustic Guitar*
> 
> I've been rather busy with life the last couple years, but I'm *finally* back in the shop and up to no good again! Here's what I'm up to for anyone who's interested…
> 
> ...


Definitely watching this blog. 
Looking forward to your progress. Thanks for sharing!


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## Kentuk55 (Sep 21, 2010)

pjaromin said:


> *Building an Acoustic Guitar*
> 
> I've been rather busy with life the last couple years, but I'm *finally* back in the shop and up to no good again! Here's what I'm up to for anyone who's interested…
> 
> ...


very kool. I'll be followin


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## pjaromin (Nov 28, 2007)

pjaromin said:


> *Building an Acoustic Guitar*
> 
> I've been rather busy with life the last couple years, but I'm *finally* back in the shop and up to no good again! Here's what I'm up to for anyone who's interested…
> 
> ...


Thanks, all. Hopefully I'll be able to post a video of a reasonably decent sounding guitar at the end of the project!


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## blackcherry (Dec 7, 2007)

pjaromin said:


> *Building an Acoustic Guitar*
> 
> I've been rather busy with life the last couple years, but I'm *finally* back in the shop and up to no good again! Here's what I'm up to for anyone who's interested…
> 
> ...


Hey Pat, good to hear your enjoying shop time, I sure these guitars will come out just wonderful with your talents. Those sample piece of veneer look just spectacular looking forward to seeing the progress enjoy….Wilson


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## JimDaddyO (Dec 20, 2009)

pjaromin said:


> *Building an Acoustic Guitar*
> 
> I've been rather busy with life the last couple years, but I'm *finally* back in the shop and up to no good again! Here's what I'm up to for anyone who's interested…
> 
> ...


Watching this one!...Also, if you care to look up "steves guitar making" on you tube, it has a pretty decent step by step videos.


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## pjaromin (Nov 28, 2007)

pjaromin said:


> *Building an Acoustic Guitar*
> 
> I've been rather busy with life the last couple years, but I'm *finally* back in the shop and up to no good again! Here's what I'm up to for anyone who's interested…
> 
> ...


Funny you should mention Steve's . My first read was "Building an Acoustic Guitar in your Kitchen" (by a different 'Steve') Right after reading that blog, I watched the entire "Steve Dickie's Guitar Building" series on YouTube.

Extremely helpful and informative…the funniest thing was how he cuts his hair between videos in the series. Looks like he got a real job selling real estate or something during the process.

Thanks, Jim!


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## JimDaddyO (Dec 20, 2009)

pjaromin said:


> *Building an Acoustic Guitar*
> 
> I've been rather busy with life the last couple years, but I'm *finally* back in the shop and up to no good again! Here's what I'm up to for anyone who's interested…
> 
> ...


yes, the hairstyle change is kind of drastic.


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## shilothree (May 19, 2013)

pjaromin said:


> *Building an Acoustic Guitar*
> 
> I've been rather busy with life the last couple years, but I'm *finally* back in the shop and up to no good again! Here's what I'm up to for anyone who's interested…
> 
> ...





















I have been away from the site since 2014. However, I have a number of building and finishing projects since I renewed my membership in the last couple of weeks. I started to build an acoustic guitar in the past 6 months and have completed the sound box, rosette etc. I have not carved out the neck or installed the truss rod.
Even though I follow instructions and plan in KinKeads book, I am at the point a bit nervous concerning the neck angle, connecting etc. I read your blog part 1 building an acoustic guitar. It is a pleasure to read and view your photos. I took a couple of pictures of the guitar and neck where I am at. I am truly interested in following your work and blog.
thank you Patrick
Louis Petrolia (Shilothree)


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## pjaromin (Nov 28, 2007)

*The Neck, Shaping the Heel*










My lovely wife spent her weekend watching the kids and provided me with nearly two full days of shop time. In the intervening days I'd decided I wanted to build one of the guitars from cherry. I have a rather large stockpile and had read somewhere that Martin made/makes a "sustainable" series out of cherry, so it can't be all that bad an idea, right? I'll just set aside one of the two maple blanks for later and replace it with a new cherry one.

Another impressive touch are those laminated "racing stripes" in guitar necks, so I figured I'd try this as well. After pulling a nice looking cherry board from the stack I quickly cooked up another neck blank. For this one I would slice the blank up into three sections, insert some thin strips of purple heart, and glue it all back together.

This one went together fairly quickly and I was ready for the next stage. Per the book, I would glue a spline into the slots in the neck, covering the embedded truss rods. This spline is then planed/scraped flush.










*Veneering the Headstock*

Although steel string guitars traditionally feature a single 1/16" veneer on the headstock, I wanted to use some of the nice figured veneer sheets I bought at the last woodworker's show. Because I'd used purple heart for the racing stripes, I decided to sandwich a 1/16" piece of purple heart in between the veneer sheet and head. Although it most likely will be hidden behind purfling, there's a chance I'll leave the purple heart edge exposed in at least one of them.

For one of the veneers, I "borrowed" an idea I got from another guitar builder's blog post and created a two-toned effect by inlaying a wedge-shaped piece in the middle of the head. Although I'm pleased with the results, I focused almost exclusively on the vertical alignment and neglected to check how well-centered the piece went on. The result is that the lamination is noticeably off center. Ultimately I don't think it will detract all that much from the final piece-and as this is meant to be a learning project anyway, consider this "lesson learned."

I wanted to keep the headstock shape relatively simple. The pattern from the Cumpiano book was a bit too simple for my taste, however, so I made some minor modifications. I'm not sure it's my favorite design, but it should work pretty well. I drilled for the tuning machines, cut the basic shape on the bandsaw, and sanded the headstock to its final shape.



















*Shaping the Heel*

I've been looking forward to this part of the process for some time. Most of the projects I've tackled to date featured nearly entirely machine-cut components. Even the hand-cut parts were essentially square, comprising straight lines and angles.

The heel, however, features smooth contours and significant hand-carving. Although I really had no clue what I was doing, I drew out some guide lines, touched up the sharp on my hand tools, and pretended that I did. And it was fun! First was roughing the curve on the bandsaw. Simple enough. Next, I started with my new low-angle block plane, narrowing the heel close to it's final width at the fret board. The next step featured the 1" and 3/4" chisels to slope the sides down toward the heal cap. I'm guessing this would have been much easier with mahogany as opposed to the hard maple of this neck. I soon switched to a curved rasp, which made rather rapid work of wood removal. Switching to a rat tail, per Steve Dickie's video series helped refine the final curve. I used a scraper and some course sand paper to finish it up.

There's a bit more refinement I'd like to do yet, but I needed to call it a weekend. I'm still working on designs for the headstock inlay. At this point I'm considering forgoing an inlay on the maple neck and moving forward with the soundboard. After shaping the heel on the cherry neck, I may spend some time on a significant inlay on this one and then set it aside while I complete the bulk of the work (and hopefully make the bulk of any mistakes) on the maple one. Then again, I might just soldier on with both guitars instead. We shall see…



















[Originally posted at http://tenonandspline.com/blog/archives/553]


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## LeeJ (Jul 4, 2007)

pjaromin said:


> *The Neck, Shaping the Heel*
> 
> 
> 
> ...


You' doing a very nice job on this.

It looks great.

Lee


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## Kentuk55 (Sep 21, 2010)

pjaromin said:


> *The Neck, Shaping the Heel*
> 
> 
> 
> ...


coming along nicely.


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## pjaromin (Nov 28, 2007)

pjaromin said:


> *The Neck, Shaping the Heel*
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks! I ordered some inlay materials today so hopefully I'll come up with something interesting for the headstock.


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## crazydoc (Feb 13, 2012)

pjaromin said:


> *The Neck, Shaping the Heel*
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It's looking good - nice job. I'm building my first acoustic instrument - an Irish bouzouki - using Cumpiano's book for a lot of the building techniques.

I just wanted to let you know, if you don't already, that he's posted a lot of updates and corrections to the book at Textbook

It's especially helpful for the bolt-on neck design - works like a charm.

His homepage has links to his articles and newsletter which are also very interesting reading (to luthiers, of course :>) )


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## pjaromin (Nov 28, 2007)

pjaromin said:


> *The Neck, Shaping the Heel*
> 
> 
> 
> ...


crazy- just this afternoon I was looking around for inlay materials and information when I stumbled upon the updates…and the new bolt-on neck design. D'oh! Although I've gone past the recommended point for drilling the holes, I do intend on drilling them this week to use the updated design. Thanks!


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## Grumpy (Nov 9, 2007)

pjaromin said:


> *The Neck, Shaping the Heel*
> 
> 
> 
> ...


A great idea Patrick.


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## SPHinTampa (Apr 23, 2008)

pjaromin said:


> *The Neck, Shaping the Heel*
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Great blog … interesting topic.


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## pjaromin (Nov 28, 2007)

*The Soundboard and Back*

*Back to work*

I took some time off guitar building to spruce up the shop and make some much needed improvements. Also, with the parents visiting for the week, the shop was occupied for a time with more pressing matters…









Gramma helping the older kids paint their bird houses on my new workbench

*Alterations*

This weekend I was finally ready to get back to the build. Since carving the heel on the first neck (maple), I've learned that William Cumpiano has posted some significant updates to his landmark book. He's changed the recommended method of joining the neck to the body. Instead of pinning with a peg driven through slightly offset holes, he now recommends using common barrel bolts used in RTA furniture. Unfortunately the holes for this style of assembly are best drilled prior to cutting the tenon and carving the heel. So a bit of retrofitting was necessary to make this work. I also discovered that the most appropriate size for the barrel bolt hole is 10mm, which meant ordering a drill bit and waiting a few days for it to arrive.









Retrofitting the neck tenon

*Carving the second heel*

For the first neck, I basically just went at it with a rasp until it looked about right. For the cherry neck I figured I'd follow the book's specific step-by-step directions. I learned two things from this experience. First, my chisels weren't as sharp as I thought they were. Second, mastering this technique is going to require a good deal of practice. Although far from perfect, I think it should work.









Second heel block carved (wiped with mineral spirits to preview finish)

*the Soundboard*

I purchased three of the most inexpensive sitka spruce soundboard sets from Stewmac.com for $20 each. I figured it would be best not to learn on expensive wood. After looking at the pieces I received, I'm not sure why I'd order anything else. They all look great to me and one of them features some rather interesting and beautiful rays. I chose the least interesting one to start with. Although Cumpiano goes to some length in his book about the superiority of a hand-planed joint edge, I couldn't see taking the time to craft even a basic shooting board when I have a sharpened and recently setup jointer at the ready. So I tried machine jointing the boards. After setting it up to take thin shavings, and taking a few light passes, I wound up with a light-tight, near invisible joint. Although I can appreciate the affinity some have for hand tools, sometimes it just seems to make more sense to take advantage of modern technology. I feel the same about thicknessing the plates. The book goes to some detail about how to use a toothing plane followed up with a standard plane to properly thickness the soundboard and back. For me, however, nothing beats running them through my 24" dual drum sander a few times until the desired dimension is achieved. Much, much faster.









A sitka spruce soundboard joined, thickness sanded, and rough cut to shape

*The Backs*

For these first guitars I decided to use stock lumber I have lying around the shop. Fortunately I happen to have a rather nice piece of walnut that I resawed into bookmatched plates for one of the guitars. The cherry neck will be part of an all cherry guitar-so I sliced up a piece of cherry into four book matched plates that I'll be able to build two guitars from. One of them had a sizable knot that unfortunately broke out during planing. I've put that set aside for now, but I think I'll ultimately just patch it with a small patch and epoxy, perhaps hidden by an inlay design of some sort, and use it for a future guitar.









Resawn walnut for back









The cherry backs

*Next steps…*

I ended the afternoon a bit earlier than planned-basically because I wasn't prepared for the next step: the rosette. I'm still working out the basic design. I'm thinking of trying my own technique for building the rosette. I've assembled a bunch of components for the rosette, including some shell tiles. The typical method for shaping these involves building a simple though somewhat involved jig that will certainly require a couple evening's work. I'm not exactly sure I'm ready to commit to that quite yet. Also, rather than constructing the rosette piece-by-piece on the actual soundboard, I am seriously considering inlaying it into a separate scrap board and then cutting it out to inlay it as a single piece. It seems safer that way, and a couple of the design ideas I have would be far easier to execute if it were done on scrap. It's just a thought at this point however, so I may change my mind in the coming days.

[originally posted at http://tenonandspline.com/blog/archives/615]


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## Grumpy (Nov 9, 2007)

pjaromin said:


> *The Soundboard and Back*
> 
> *Back to work*
> 
> ...


Looking good Patrick.


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## Kentuk55 (Sep 21, 2010)

pjaromin said:


> *The Soundboard and Back*
> 
> *Back to work*
> 
> ...


oh yes. coming along nicely.


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## JimDaddyO (Dec 20, 2009)

pjaromin said:


> *The Soundboard and Back*
> 
> *Back to work*
> 
> ...


very nice. Congrats on the project coming along.


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## pjaromin (Nov 28, 2007)

*The Rosette*

The soundhole rosette is an aesthetic embellishment that provides an excellent opportunity for the luthier (or newbie like myself) to leave his distinctive impression on the finished instrument. Consequently I spent much time considering the design for the rosette on my first guitar build. Although I've significant experience inlaying wood, I've never worked with abalone or mother of pearl as is commonly used. In researching materials, I discovered just how pricey abalone and "abalam" blanks are - ouch!

However, while perusing a local Michael's crafts store, I discovered some packaged "mosaic shell tile," which though designed for mosaic work, were clearly real shell, albeit in smallish 1/2" - 3/4" square tiles. And at about $1 and oz, significantly cheaper than "Abalam" blanks. I spent much of my first day experimenting with this material to see just what I could do with it with the tools on hand.









Inexpensive shell tiles from Michael's

*the Design*

By midday one thing became clear - radiusing these small tiles to form a ring simply wasn't going to work with stuff on-hand. I spent some time crafting a jig, but my stock bandsaw blades simply weren't going to cut it, literally or figuratively. Turning to my scroll saw, I found that 25tpi blades would work acceptably. Though they didn't offer the kind of precision I'd prefer, I thought I'd give it a shot. So I worked out a design that required relatively simple, straight cuts in the shell. The design would consist of a walnut ring cut with my new trim router and shop-made circle jig. I'd then cut some diamond-point triangular rays in the ring into which I'd inlay some of the shell pieces.









Cutting the ring halves in a walnut blank using my new adjustable circle jig









Walnut halves cut ready for glue up









Flushing the walnut ring









Previewing the design









Routing out for the shell pieces









The ray edges inlayed

*Finishing the edges*

Because the shell was cut square, the bottom edges naturally didn't follow the smooth curve. To fix this, I decided to route a 1/16" ring on the inner and outer edges of the rosette. In this space I inserted strips of a mahogany veneer and white paper card stock. I essentially chose the material because it happened to fit nicely into the space and I thought the white of the card stock would produce a nice thin line. Basically the entire thing was then saturated in CA glue and then planed, scraped and sanded flush.

If you were paying attention to the earlier photos, you undoubtedly noticed the distinct blue coloring on the smaller inner shell pieces. What I failed to realize when I initially installed them was that this color was merely a dye applied to the surface of the tile. It scraped right off when I began flushing the surface. Thankfully I noticed this during a test scraping after only inlaying the first tile, and ultimately wasn't surprised when everything turned white in the end.









Routing the channel to finish off the ring edges









Inserting the veneer and paper strips

*Mostly done*

One of the unfortunate things I didn't anticipate was the way a couple of the point edges would chip when hit by the router bit. The router worked very smoothly and the bit cut without a hint of the transition between wood and shell. Unfortunately though a couple of the sharp points at the end of the shell chipped instead of cutting cleanly. I should have cut a bit further in to clean this up, however I failed to notice this at the time. Consequently I'll need to fill in these couple of small cavities before moving forward. Not a huge deal, but it does distract a bit from the finished look at this point.









The completed rosette

*Some time off…*

My next move on this build will be to cut, install, and shape the soundboard bracing. However this will need to wait as I have a couple boys, ages 3 and 5, in immediate need of a bunk bed! So the guitar will sit for a bit while I tackle a this (physically) much larger and more practical project.

[Originally posted at http://tenonandspline.com/blog/archives/640]


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## LeeJ (Jul 4, 2007)

pjaromin said:


> *The Rosette*
> 
> The soundhole rosette is an aesthetic embellishment that provides an excellent opportunity for the luthier (or newbie like myself) to leave his distinctive impression on the finished instrument. Consequently I spent much time considering the design for the rosette on my first guitar build. Although I've significant experience inlaying wood, I've never worked with abalone or mother of pearl as is commonly used. In researching materials, I discovered just how pricey abalone and "abalam" blanks are - ouch!
> 
> ...


Great work, beautyfully done. Very creative thinking, which makes all the difference.

Lee


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## wee3 (Mar 6, 2012)

pjaromin said:


> *The Rosette*
> 
> The soundhole rosette is an aesthetic embellishment that provides an excellent opportunity for the luthier (or newbie like myself) to leave his distinctive impression on the finished instrument. Consequently I spent much time considering the design for the rosette on my first guitar build. Although I've significant experience inlaying wood, I've never worked with abalone or mother of pearl as is commonly used. In researching materials, I discovered just how pricey abalone and "abalam" blanks are - ouch!
> 
> ...


Cool,nice work


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## Kentuk55 (Sep 21, 2010)

pjaromin said:


> *The Rosette*
> 
> The soundhole rosette is an aesthetic embellishment that provides an excellent opportunity for the luthier (or newbie like myself) to leave his distinctive impression on the finished instrument. Consequently I spent much time considering the design for the rosette on my first guitar build. Although I've significant experience inlaying wood, I've never worked with abalone or mother of pearl as is commonly used. In researching materials, I discovered just how pricey abalone and "abalam" blanks are - ouch!
> 
> ...


Oh yea! I likes it, likes it alot.


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## pjaromin (Nov 28, 2007)

pjaromin said:


> *The Rosette*
> 
> The soundhole rosette is an aesthetic embellishment that provides an excellent opportunity for the luthier (or newbie like myself) to leave his distinctive impression on the finished instrument. Consequently I spent much time considering the design for the rosette on my first guitar build. Although I've significant experience inlaying wood, I've never worked with abalone or mother of pearl as is commonly used. In researching materials, I discovered just how pricey abalone and "abalam" blanks are - ouch!
> 
> ...


Thanks Lee, Bill, & Roger. I'm dying to move forward with the bracing, so I'm going to need to knock out this bunk bed. Thanks for the support!


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