Inlaying the Rosette

201208016
After the components of the rosettes are almost all prepared, I began to inlay the rosette directly into the top.
I was deciding between pre-assembling the rosette and inlay in one shot or inlay as I go.
This was partly my wheat pattern purfling was not one part but assembly by small sections.
So I made a fitting channel and inlay the strip, it will clamp by itself.
For dry fitting, I route the channel on the MDF and test the dry fitting.
After that I began to route the channel on the actual top.
It didn't go too well. The channel was abit too deep but luckily my top is thick and so I have allowance.
I chip the ring at 2 places so I just use my manual cutter and cut a smaller ring and chisel out the channel.
I think handtools offer alot more control, I have to keep reminding myself that.
If only I have a narrower router plane blade, I can use the LN router plane.
That would be perfect.
Now it looks ok except that I have a smaller sound hole.
But since the plantilla is small, it doesn't look odd.

Dry fitting in the test channel.

Dry fitting in the actual top. At the center, the direction is pointing toward each other. This create a more balanced look.

Preparing more strips

Started gluing the purfling

After it dried I began plane it down.

Not fully leveled but looks quite OK.

Next ring was a challenge, I decide not to use the dremel, it'll just will spell disaster.
Hand tools offer more control.
I scribe the next ring about 5mm in width but I lack of the appropriate chisel to remove the waste in the channel.
My nearest chisel was 6mm and smaller than that was 2mm.
The 2mm was very hard to control the depth of the channel.
After some attempt, I discover the channel bed was very uneven.
In the end I decide to enlarge the width of the channel and use my LN router plane to do the job.
It worked like a charm, and the bed was smooth and even.
I glued in some veneers so separate the ring.
To hold the veneer in place I use pins and was surprised they held the veneer very tightly.
Hmm why didn't I try it sooner in the 1st place?
Now I know exactly what to do, I guess it would be easier.

Scribing the outer channel.

Chisel the channel with 2mm chisel

The effect isn't too good. It's hard get a even channel bed with chisel.

Router plane to the rescue! LN is top notch!

Gluing the veneer with pins.

After removing the pin, I began to plane down the purfling.
Then I discover a mistake; the black ring (1st ring) did not sit on the channel bed.
Thus when I plane it down the ring was missing...
I had consider joining it but decide to redo the entire ring.
This time round, I do one ring at a time.
Glued the black ring held by pins.
When it dried, then 2nd layer white ring, and similarly after the white ring dried, the 3rd blue ring.
For each ring I make sure the ring sit perfectly on the bed of the channel.

One part missing... initially I just thought if joining this porting so I chisel away the blue outer ring for this portion, but it sure looked ugly...

Redo the black ring

... White ring

... and lastly blue ring

The 2nd round worked.
Now the problem will be next ring.
I did a sample dry fitting and discover that the channel wasn't wide enough for the marquetry diamond and the central tile theme.
That will make the rosette very wide and funny.
In the end after some tries I decided to make diamond next layer ring and a narrower central theme.
THe central theme will be IRW ring with the 1/2 size tile which I made earlier (about 5mm wide).
The diamond will need to shaped appropriately and glued.
Again I use pins for holding them down.

Dry fitting to see if the channel width is enough.

2nd fitting. 2 inner ring of diamond and central ring of IRW and the smaller matrix tile which I made earlier

Applying glue to the diamond tile.

Hold down by pins while the glue dries.

After the glue dried. Looks good!

20121023
Somemore pic updates but not quite done as yet.

One side done and I ran out of the lozenges tiles.

With the central tile. I was thinking of reducing the size of the tile by 1/2. If not the rosette will be overly big!

With the back inlay. The meander pattern is bold and looks good from far.