[patchmcg]

I was off-line for most of the holidays, but Dan's been busy during that time. I am officially at the "try-not-to-get-too-excited" stage of the process...

(December 29, 2017)

I had to acquire a couple of tools to route the rosette channel and cut and round the sound hole.

First step is to measure and drill the indexing hole. Even though it looks off center in the photo below, it's actually on-center for the glue joint. The glue line was caused by the masking tape I used when jointing the top.



The Dremel circle cutter is pretty crude. So I decided to splurge and buy the Stewmac circle cutter. It's pretty nice, but it only cuts to 6" and the rosette for this guitar is ~6-3/8". So, I had to use the old Dremel to route the outside of the groove, then use the Stewmac to route the inside of the groove, the sound hole and round the sound hole.

The sound board is clamped into the routing fixture.



The outside of the groove has been routed.



Now, switch to the fancy-schmancy Stewmac circle cutter. (All kidding aside, it is really nice)



Inside of the groove has been routed.



Routing off everything in-between.





Test-fit of the rosette --success!



Route open the sound hole.



Route a round corner into the sound hole. This will get fine-sanding after the sound board has been thicknessed.





Test-fit the rosette into groove.



Wet down with naptha to get an idea of how it will look. It's pwetty...



Put the top into the go-bar deck to glue the rosette.



Squirted a bunch of binding cement into the groove, then pushed the rosette in all around. Laid down a disc of visqueen, then a clamping disc made from a scrap test piece.

I'll let this dry for 24 hours, then it'll be ready for the thickness sander. Once that's done, things will start happening pretty quickly.