Splitting the Brace

Though I haven't really completed the rosette for #4, I decide to work on #3 a bit more.
I began to prepare the brace blank.
I had a good brace blank from Shane of High Mountain Tonewoods so splitting them was quite easy.
My previous experience wasn't easy as the LMI stock had quite some runout.
This time round at first I try to chisel and then split but that didn't quite work out.
So I ripped saw the 1st part (cater for more allowance, I need 7mm wide I but I split at double width 14mm), and then use the chisel to split.
After that I analyse the split and look at the grain and then plane it to shape.

Splitting the brace blank.

Using the chisel to split

Planing to size

After splitting and planing the brace, I shoot them to get a good gluing surface.
Following that, I saw the brace into 1/2s since I only need 7 mm wide 3 mm tall, I can get 2 braces from one blank.
Each is about 14mm thick.
After some work here is roughly the brace layout.

Sawing the braces into halves to get 2 brace.

Rough brace layout.

The bracing layout. After I sawn the closing brace and treble bar into 1/2s

New tools!

Well I got my first Lie Nielsen tool and it's a router plane!
I also bought a old Stanley #15 Jack plane.
Looks like I got some tuning to do.
There will be an iron upgrade for the Stanley but the IBC plane iron has not arrived yet.
Here are some pics.

The jack and the router plane.

3 work horse plane: Stanley #5 Jack Plane; Stanley #4 Smoothing plane; Chinese wood plane

LN router plane. No wonder LN is so priced in woodworking scene. The quality is excellent. Can't wait to try it out.

I tried out the router plane it works like a charm.
The adjust is very easy and the cutter cuts pine like butter.
The only thing now is to get the narrower blade for rosette channel routing.

This is the woodcraft IBC match pair of chipbreaker and iron. It's a whopping 1cm thick iron! I probably need to file the mouth bigger and adjust the frog back...

Thicknessing the top

Although the rosette wasn't perfect, I continued on working on the top.
I use my good old #4 Stanley plane for the thicknessing.
When I started planing I noticed that there is some run-out so I had plane one side of the top and then turn over and plane the other side in the opposite direction.
If I don't do it this way there will be some tear out.
When the rough thicknessing is done, I cut the sound hole.
The bridge area of the lower bout is about 2.5mm and perimeter about 2mm.
Right now the upper bout is still pretty thick but I plan to take it down to about 2mm.
The top weighs about 159g which is heavier than my #2 top (133g before bracing).
I plan to reduce the UB further to try to bring it down to 140g region.

Planing the thickness down using my #4. Due to run out I had to plane in an opposite direction for the 2 different sides.

The shaving.

Cutting the sound hole using my circle cutter. I cut one side then flip over and scribe the other side.

Weight of top is 159g

Can see the silking on the top after planing.

The #3 top and the back

After some more thinning of the UB, it dropped to 145g. Well I guess I can leave it for now.

The bracing pattern for this build. It's slightly different from Torres fan. I leave out one fan on the treble side and add a treble bar. Also I add in the Bouchet bar across traversely at the bridge region. On the bass side I remove the closing bar.

Some more new wood stock...

Well I have the ZAS or WAS (Zoot/Wood Acquisition Syndrome).
I just could not stop myself from getting more wood.
What did I get this time round?
Some Osage Orange, IRW, and HRW.
Osage Orange is commonly used for making bows.
It is a very dense wood and a "drop-in" replacement for the famous BRW according to Alan Carruth.
Well since I can't get BRW so I might as well get a the nearest replacement.
The IRW I got was premium set dark and straight grain.
HRW is by far the most dense wood I have in my collection.

Osage Orange

IRW

HRW

Making the rosette

Well for the guitar #3 I wanted to keep the ornaments simple, so I decided to do a simple wood rosette.
I had some nice burl wood from RC Tonewoods for the rosette.
At first I tried to use the manual cutter to cut it, but at some portion the wood is brittle and for that part it literally crumbles to pieces when I cut it.
So I resort to my circular routing method and it works fine.

Cutting using the circular cutter.

The rosette.

Routing the rosette

Outer circles routed

Inner circle routed.

The rosette.

The rosette with surrounding purfling. I bought the purfling off eBay.


Then I began to scribe the circle for the rosette.
At first I use my manual cutter to scribe and concentric circle then chisel it.
I discover I was too slow... (I didn't have much time to do it)
So I resort to my B&D RTX (dremel equivalent) with the circle jig.
Thing got fast and because the outer and inner rims were scribed, the circle didn't appear too bad.
The inner was remove using chisel but much less materials to removed.
Then I threw in some PVA glue (dries transparent) and glue and clamp the rosette.
The fit wasn't too great but since there will be a purfling border I guess it should not matter too much.
The purfling channel however must be perfect, as there will not be any more room for error.

Scribe the circle

Rings of concentric circle

Chiseling time

Cutting the channel with RTX (dremel). Still have some more waste to remove with chisel.

Testing fitting the rosette in the channel

Base of the channel almost flat by using the chisel.

White PVA Glue in the channel

On the rosette too.

Glue in the rosette with squeeze out cleaned.

Rosette clamped
After I removed the clamps, I check that the burl rosette was inlaid quite nicely.
I shave it down using my Stanley new sweetheart low angle block.
After that I began to scribe and inlay the inner channels.
After scribing the outline of the channel, I use the RTX to remove the materials.
I test fit the purfling and it went it snugly.

Leveling the rosette with a LA block plane (new Stanley Sweet heart low angle block plane)

Almost leveled

Looks rather nice.

Scribing the channel

Test fitting the purfling

Inner ring test fitting done. Looks OK.
Now when I was doing the outer ring I made a terrible mistake...
I switch to a 3mm router bit I thought it was a good fit for the purfling.
What a mistake I made.
First I route too deep and 2nd I routed into the rosette.
What is worse is that I have already scribed the channel...
Now the channel is too wide at some parts.
What can I do at this point? nothing.
I just glue in the purfling and indeed the outer channel is too deep and it can't stay there.

Start to glue in the purfling

Inner ring done nice and tight.

Start gluing the outer ring

The purfling doesnt want to stick insider the channel....

I have to resort to tape to stick it back into the channel.

From far the rosette looks quite nice.

Front view

Near view.. you can start to see all the mistake. Inner ring is nice but not the outer ring. Lesson learnt never change method 1/2 way... Argh...