Cracks circling soundhole?
 

I've never actually seen this before, so I'm interested if anyone else has any experience with cracks like this. It looks like rosette around the soundhole is cracking/splitting. How well can something like that be repaired? I'd worry about having to figure out a way to put little cleats around that area...

On a scale of 1-10, how troubling are cracks like these?

https://i.imgur.com/valjD9W.png?1

P.S. Sorry about the image. I had to zoom in on the area and adjust the contrast and saturation a bit to make sure the cracks were clearly visible, and it keeps coming out super large.

A lot of times these are just signs of old age, a bit of shrinking of the celluloid material the rosette is made from. The top itself is most likey just fine and needs no repair.

Apparently it's wood purfling, which isn't terrible, but there's a crack under the pickguard that is close to linking with it, with could certainly complicate things. I suppose a soundhole reinforcement ring could be glued inside it, but I always worry that might impact the tone more tangibly.

Hide glue to close the gaps and reinforcement.
 

This part of the guitar top doesn’t contribute much to the o7md so I wouldn’t be too concerned about adding a soundhole reinforcement patch; many excellent guitars are made with this feature as a matter of course - mainly classical but also Lowden guitars all have soundhole reinforcement.

Cracks can often be close by adding moisture to the area and then using hot hide glue. Timing can be tricky as you want the gap to close with the swelling of the wood but need to get the glue in at the right time. The good thing about hot hide glue is that it will grab the sides and close the gate to some extent and is also very easy to clean off. This job will be easier if the rosette purfling is made of wood rather than plastic.

I see no crack under the pickguard .

The rosette is a laminated wood that is inserted in a slot.

The rosette wood layers are separating from shrinkage, age, dryness, whatever. Their glue is letting go.

As. B. Howard said it's purely cosmetic and nothing to worry about at all.

Rosettes were not originally a decorative feature.

Their purpose was (and still is) to reinforce the area around the soundhole to prevent the top from developing cracks eminating from the sound hole. So, they are kind of like "hems" sewn at the end of sleeves to provide reinforcement and to prevent sleeves from fraying.

So in some ways, the rosette is there to "take the hit" for the rest of the top.

A good luthier can fix or replace that for you.

Personally, if the guitar has sentimental or monetary value I'd get it fixed so that the rosette continues to be a strong "hem" for your guitar's top and is not compromised in preventing cracks.

Or you could let it go all "Willy Nelson's Trigger" on you. :)

Yeah, I was sent another picture showing the crack. It's not terrible; maybe 3 inches long at the edge of the pickguard lower down. It doesn't cross the bridge, so that's a relief.

When I was looking to find other examples of that, I did notice that it seemed to truncate cracks that would otherwise split into the soundhole. It's funny how a functional thing eventually turned into cosmetic decals in most modern guitars.

If it was mine, I'd have it repaired before it gets any worse.

I found this answer to be pretty good:

https://www.quora.com/Why-do-guitars-have-rosettes

Binding around the edges of guitars provide a similar protection.