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I've watched a couple classical builds, and one in particular had fancier Torres type rosette. The first rosette for the small one I'm doing is just simple. But one thing I noticed was color. It is subdued, and quite nice. I imagine that they were just colored/dyed with natural colors in the day. Besides white and black, this one has green, brown and red. Would natural pigments work, or does it need to be a dye?

Another thing is simply the material. .25mm and .9mm wide stock. Where do you find veneer/inlay/rosette stock? The one size is quite thin, and the other is quite thick.

Thanks in advance.

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Why be normal?

Hi Ken - As one would expect, there are many ways to prepare the material for a rosette. I can tell you what I've been doing, and I'll be anxious to hear what others are doing as well. Many builders are using natural colored wood like purpleheart and things. Romanillos is known for that. I tried a range of dyes, such as leather dye and others, but the best results for me, were from analine dyes. The downside of analine dyes which are derived from coal, is that they are carcinogenic. I am careful to use protective gear when using them.

I used to dye the wood in a very large pressure cooker (as I had learned from Richard Schneider), and wind the wood into it, and then clean up with bleach. I bought all the materials to make a vacuum infuser, what creates a vacuum in a space where the wood and dye are held (Schedule 80 PVC pipe) and the dye can infuse even when cold. It seems safer than the pressure cooker. I bought the materials just before the virus hit, and the materials are still sitting in the corner. Fortunately, I have a good supply of veneer, and I've bought veneer online to use for the time being.

A pressure cooker can dye through a piece of wood slightly thicker than 1/8". I played around with it a lot years ago, and was able to die with blue, but pull it out early, and the color would be blue on the outside, but since it did not go all the way through, it would be with increasingly lighter colors on the inside, so it would be a thin band of blue on the outside (which was the dye color), just inside that, a darker greenish color, and inside that less dark green - it takes a lot of experimentation. I used to make my bindings out of poplar, which I would dye different colors. I had no problem getting the dye to go completely through the wood.

Eugene Clark wrote a two-part essay in the Guild of American Luthiers Quarterly on Rosette building, and discussed his method of dying the wood, and like everything on guitar making, there is probably lots of stuff on the web.

As to making the wood veneer itself, with a good band saw, you can saw hardwood into veneer. It is actually quite easy with a good blade and a good fence. The other day, I sawed up some mahogeny sides for laminating, and then sawed a piece of that which was 0.025" thick. I'm using a good Lenox blade on an 18" bandsaw with a homemade fence, and the sawn surface is very smooth, and only takes a little sanding. Then, I take it through a drum sander (Byrnes) - which can thin, at least for me, down to less then 0.007" For many years, I used to use regular veneers from one of the hardwood stores here in L.A. and sand them when I needed different thicknesses - I think the standard was something like 0.043" thick. Then I started buying veneer in bulk from skateboard wood sellers. However, unlike the veneer sellers of years gone by, it doesn't seem like there is a "standard" veneer thickness, and what I get is much thinner. Which is why I have been making my own. You can also use a well-tuned plane when you have a knot-free straight grained piece of wood. I've done that some times. I build my rosettes in the top, so often, my calculation is off a bit, or, I take out a section and the replacement needs to be a slightly different thickness, so it helps to be able to make your own.

Rosette design and construction, at least for me, is a fun and satisfying part of building, even though I stick to very Spanish motifs, but I enjoy looking at rosettes made by others that are much more avant garde.

Interesting points. Poplar wood worked for color. Maybe 1/8" thick poplar cut into the thin, and the thick strips. Color to suit. It doesn't seem like rocket science. The second one does have a herringbone, and squares, so that needs fancy cutting and gluing. Then you end up with left-overs too.
Good bandsaw? We'll go for thin stock, and high hopes; thicknessing with a pull through thing. The colors I saw looked very soft. Not anything like a slice of colored wood. Inlaid PurpleHeart might look cook, but it is not the same thing.

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Why be normal?

Torres used Ferrous Sulfate (copperas) to dye sycamore green. With some other woods I think it can make black. You can find it on eBay along with other natural dyes. The "wool gathering" crowd (spinners and weavers) also use a lot of natural dyes and mordents.

Yes, I think a bit of research is needed. I have dyed black, but you can buy black. I probably have a bunch of thin black. I made it with a plane. works pretty well. 1mm thick plane shavings? Using a thinner piece of wood; maybe. It is the colors that have to be found., and they are used in 1mm or so strips, and 1mm squares.

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Why be normal?

The problem with using natural wood is that they tend to change color in fairly short time. I have never made traditional classical rosettes before but if I did I think I would use dyed wood so it retains it's color.

I love working with dyed veneers (store bought):



LMI sells very good quality dyed veneer, but the prices are better at places like B&B Rare Woods.

Well Don, that could make things so much easier. They have the colors I need, and the thick ones. The thin ones would have to be thinned in half or so.

I did just find this site, minimal to no real guidance; but the colors are nice;

https://pioneerthinking.com/weaving-bas ... re%20items

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Why be normal?

While I like to do a lot of things for myself, I put dying my own wood in the same category as cleaning bone for making nuts and saddles: just not worth the trouble, when I can pay someone who does it for a living.

There is a wonderful online course on Robbie O'Brien's Lutherie Academy website about making custom purflings. The John Bogdanovich book and video series is very helpful, too.

I actually prefer to use natural woods because dyes either tend to fade fast or else change colors in weird ways. With natural woods it's best to ignore the colors and think 'grey scale', since all woods fade to brown anyway. You work out a design that will look good, using the lightest color you have as 'white' and the darkest 'black. Don't go for a lot of gradation in between. Keep in mind that with the usual end-grain rosettes the colors will tend to be very saturated when they're finished, and that can cut down on contrast.

I'll also vote for Clark's articles: I learned a lot from them, even though I don't use many of his techniques. Here's one with all natural woods, mostly in side grain.

B and B rare woods is a pretty good source for half millimeter veneer here in the states. For Torres style rosettes I've found the "acid green" veneer sold by Rivolta in Italy to be quite close in color to the veneer Torres was using. The Torres style rosette below features quite a bit of that acid green veneer. For 1mm veneer (what the square motif is made of) I simply resaw my timber of choice to 1.5mm, use the thickness sander to get down to 1.1mm and finish up with a bridge city block plane with depth stops set at 1mm. Here are two rosettes from a batch I made this summer featuring 1mm cuban mahogany lines which were processed in the same way.

Mosaic motifs are also quite enjoyable to make, these were made with half mil veneer sourced from Madinter, Rivolta, and a few other suppliers in Europe and the US. There's a decent explanation on how to make these in Roy Courtnall's "Making Master Guitars" book.

Geesh Brian those are just spectacularly lovely.

Brian, those are the colors I saw. Very nice. Rivolta. Many on violinmakers forums use Rivolta.

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Why be normal?

Try www.touchstonetonewoods.co.uk

They have some purfs that are great ,the brown rope one is smaller then we get here.
Also premade roses.

I use natural woods for my purfs.
Glue up a 32" x 6 inch set of two or 3 woods -on a flat piece of 3/4"birch plywood
with wax paper on it and put down one slice of veneer-add a light coat of glue(your choice)
then place the second one on-rolling the air bubbles out .
If doing a thrid one do the same.
Then put wax paper on that & top with another 3/4" of plywood 7" wide on top.
Then clamp with as many strong clamps that you have.
Let sit over night & remove the ply.&wax paper.
You should have a 2 or 3 ply glueup that can be sliced on a tablesaw with a fret slotting blade.
& a feather board to hold the piece down.

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Mike Collins

have you gone to www.gurianinstruments.com

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Mike Collins