I didn’t build this guitar, but refinished it using shellac and a french polishing technique. While I had it apart and stripped down to bare wood, I decided to carve and install a chip carved rossette. It’s extremely thin and seated/glued into a circular rabbet about 128th inch deep. The initial carving was done with the basswood somewhat thicker (about 3/16″ – 1/4″) and then reduced further from the back side to make it just slightly thicker than the spruce top of the guitar. I routed a very small shoulder (rabbet) around the outside bottom edge of the carved rossette so it would overlap the recess that was routed into the top, making a perfectly clean round edge.
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The beam has deep detents that index the fence precisely at 1/2-in. increments, and there’s a well-machined and easy-to-read micrometer adjustment that will set the gauge to any distance between the indexed points. However, the detents are so positive that they sometimes interfere, drawing the fence toward them.
The back and sides of this Tacoma guitar are Koa - a beautiful wood to work and finish. The original finish had started to de-laminate from the wood, showing large ugly gaps between the film finish and wood.
A close-up of the Koa back. The figure is much more prominent under the french polished finish than it was under the original (thick) film finish.
While I was at it, I decided to replace the original plastic torsion rod cover with a chip carved piece of Koa - complementing both the primary wood in the guitar and the chip carving in the rossette. Koa is a lot harder to carve than basswood, but for such a small piece, it was doable.
With its graceful curves, cabriole legs, and ornamental back splat, a Queen Anne side chair is a bucket list build for many woodworkers. Dan Faia had a very specific Queen…
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Comments
Nice and good job MountainWoodWorks.
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