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What a simple elegant solution. I already route out the sound hole just to the desired thickness of the top while I have the tools out to make the rosette. The ring drops out as I thickness the top. I have to whack myself in the head to think I missed the step of filling the routed channel.

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I got that idea from Rick Davis, so the credit for it goes to him. It does work like a charm.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

I have question, came here to a GREAT source of info and found this old thread.
When I'm trimming guitar tops with defect down to bouzouki and ukulele top sets, I accumulate 6" wide cutoffs. A visiting customer suggested sound hole reinforcements. Looking at what other luthier supply vendors offer, I question whether there is any use for these 6" x 6"+ cutoffs?
What do you folks have to say?

If your cutoffs are longer that 6", maybe don't cut them shorter. Longer is easier to go through a drum sander. Also, longer can be alternately used for under bridge straps.

As a general rule, I don't cut anything off shorter because the next time I'll need a longer piece.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

The reject guitar tops are 22-23" long when they get ripped to 6" wide for the boukouki/mando/uku and then trimmed to 16-17" long , pretty much leaving a 6"x6+" x .180" plate.
Another trim we get a fair amount of clean, clear 2-4" x 22-23" x .180+" strips that we get when trimming over width guitar tops to inventory/shipping width.. A lot of product is cut from the block over width, because there as so much hidden defect like whiskers, pitch pockets or inclusions, toredo holes, or color bands. Always looking for the prettiest, most usable, most sellable, highest grade boards.

Is this too small to do anything with? making it something else to toss to the kindling dumpster?

6" wide pieces are great for sound hole reinforcements. I like to run the grain of the reinforcement almost along the grain of the top, just crossing it by 3-5 degrees. This adds a lot of splitting resistance but doesn't introduce much stress from differential cross shrinkage. This is the what violin repair people often do with a sound post crack patch. I try to run the patch out to almost the outer edge of the rosette, with the edges covered by the bracing around the hole.

One product I suggested to lmii (or its predecessor) years ago is cross grain strips for center seam reinforcement, which they then added to their catalog. But I think this ought to be smooth if already cut into small strips. Due to problems smoothing small pieces, I would rather buy some of your lowest grade backs so that I could run them through the sander easily.

for these strips, Folks can get our craft wood boards that sell in bundles for $2/lb or B grade guitar tops when we have them. or the orphan boards

I would buy these 6x6” pieces for soundhole reinforcement if the price was right. I currently use the offcuts from each side of the waist of the top, joined, to make the soundhole reinforcement. But time is money so a way to avoid this piece of work is always of interest.

Same for me - I would buy both the soundhole patch and the reinforcement strip. I have a batch of B grade tops (came from ASW actually ) that I chop up for both of these purposes.

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Some instruments are relatively long and narrow (baroque guitars and such) so you might want to keep some of the tops long.
You might sell a few 6X6 pieces for soundhole reinforcements, but I think many people piece them in from off cuts from the top, similar to doing that for back graft strips.
I bought some 5 1/2 - 6 in wide full length tops that were cosmetically perfect and have made a few 4 piece tops from them by gluing on "wings" in the lower bout. When well matched the joints are inconspicuous. For those willing to do that it is a way to get a lower cost high quality top.
Resources are dwindling, so use them wisely.

Thanks Guys. Just Made a listing in the store for the soundhole reinforcement boards.
https://alaskawoods.com/product/soundho ... forcement/

Nice, that price works for me. Costs me much more than that in time to make them myself. Since they’re offcuts from your production process, I still feel like I’m helping reduce waste too.

The cuttoffs can be as long as 7-8”. I get them from trimming down guitar size sets that won’t pattern even a parlor size guitar and are ripped to 6” wide for flat top mandolin/bouzouki/baritone uku, and trimmed to 15-16” long, leaving the 6x6” for these reinforcement plates. They must work for some as we have sold quite a few since listing the product.

my soundhole reinforcement is a solid ring of maple on the outside. Its the foundation for the rosette. Looks good too!

Mike