Nick sent me some photos of the rosette under construction. The early Martin and Stuaffer versions had the pearl diamonds set in a mix of ebony dust and glue, but Nick discovered in the first attempts of his own back in the 70's that the paste would shrink over time, so he uses solid ebony triangles. Cutting out tiny triangles resulted in pieces too small to be able to easily handle, so instead Nick started with triangular strips of ebony that he trimmed.
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