The next step on the rosette is to drill the center hole:
From there I can cut out the rosette pocket and install the Amboyna burl center ring and the bordering purfling strips:
You can see I have white teflon spacer strips here which are place holders for the additional Amboyna burl rings.
Here is where it gets tricky. The Amboyna burl sticks that I'll be installing into those groves are best if they are .073" thick. Not .072" or .074, .073". Burl doesn't have any real grain direction and it is very brittle and delicate so I need a clean accurate cut. Preferably a cut that doesn't need to be cleaned up. Preferably a cut that doesn't heat up the burl and make it even more brittle. This is one place where a contemporary hand tool can shine:
This is my hand operated rail saw you can think of it as a manual table saw but instead of a carnivorous screaming rotary saw blade it has a surgically accurate Japanese straight saw blade that you put delicate things like this burl across on a sled:
The sled rides on linear bearings along four rails with absolutely no play. There are a variety of articulated hold down clamps to keep everything in place as you slide it across the saw blade:
Here are the sticks:
From here I use heat to ever so gently bend a curve into them. The curve doesn't have to be exact just close enough that the sticks don't crack as they are glued into the pockets left from the removed teflon strips:
Then it's just a matter of cleaning it up!
Thanks for viewing. You can see this completed guitar at Tom's B.I.G. show!
Mark