I received a shipment of Engelmann not so long ago from Boltwood Tonewood in Canada. I have chosen to use European spruce almost exclusively and have been lucky enough to have a large supply. However, Iam always interested in quality wood. Canadian forests produce some of the best spruce in the world and Boltwood seems quite well situated to take advantage of this. I got some top grade Engelmann and also some excellent bearclaw.  As you can see from the photos the colour is very good and uniform, as is the texture.  These particular pieces are also very stiff.  I am not much in favour of buying wood sight-unseen but if the price is right and the seller understands your needs it can work out fine. 

My teacher Rolf Eichinger used a technique which I think was new in rosette-making although it was surely used for making wide purfling or decorative strips in other fields.  The fact that the “logs” are not glued to each other but are glued to a veneer strip allows them to bend into a circle.  There is a limit to how tall a design can be and still bend without breaking.  Here is one more picture just for aesthetic value, nothing like a nice sharp plane.

I am making a new rosette, a copy of one by Santos Hernandez which I saw and liked.  The process has been shown many times in many different places so I won’t explain it in detail. I decided to post these photos just because I am excited about this rosette and I think you will like it when you finally see it completed. 

Veneer stacks ready for glueing.

Clamping the glue-up.

Just before planing and slicing into strips

Abstract

Strips thicknessed to 0.4mm.

This will show more clearly once it is glued and scraped clean.

I spent a good chunk of time intonating the gut-string guitar on Thursday and came to the conclusion that unless I am going to start building a lot of these guitars, the compensation doesn’t really need to be modified.  In building the guitar I had reduced the compensation by 1mm but used a wider saddle so that I could find the perfect string length.  For the treble strings it ended up being very close to the compensation I use for nylon: of course that is for these particular strings I am using.  For the basses I used Pyramid lute strings that use some synthetic core, I don’t remember what it is. Those seemed to want less compensation than the nylon.   In the photo above you can see the colour of the strings and the look that gut has.  I am very happy with the sound of this guitar with these strings and will consider doing this again.  The problem of course is the fragility and the inconsistency of gut.  Not many people are willing to put up with it and I can’t blame them.   I made up my own set of strings to keep the tension below low tension nylon strings because of the extremely light build.  This can be played at 440 although I imagine it will end up with slightly heavier strings and tuned down some.