Day 9: Rosette (again)

Today I inlaid most of the rosette and started thinking about the sound port. As I mentioned on day 6, the first attempt at creating the log for the rosette motif was a failure. This was due to three reasons: My inexperience, the nature of the design, and being supplied with square lines that weren’t uniformly 1mm.

I had asked my 10 yr old daughter to come up with a simple design for the motif. She decided upon our initials: J G S. When drawn on 1cm square graph paper this amounted to 11 columns and 5 rows plus a column at each end for spacing, so the finished log would be 13 x 1mm square lines across and five planks deep. Roy said this was not as simple as it seemed because it was wider than a typical motif and there was more opportunity for misalignment of the square lines. Furthermore, unlike an abstract pattern, the familiar lettering and monochrome (walnut/sycamore) tones made any mistakes immediately obvious. To add to this, the square lines were badly cut by the supplier and so I was dealing with variable width materials. You can see the first attempt on the right in the picture below with the second attempt on the left.

The second attempt was improved mainly because I asked the supplier to check the materials they sent me the second time around and I double-checked with a vernier caliper too. I also glued one plank at a time rather than all five at once, which helped me check the alignment at different points. I finished the second log off with sycamore veneer on the top, bottom and one side to provide more spacing when cutting each piece to fit the rosette circle.

I then cut each piece off the log, cut two circles, and chiselled out the waste and glued them into place.

I decided to decorate the motif with simple concentric circles of walnut and sycamore. The outer veneer inlays were glued into place but I didn’t have time to finish it all off today but will do next weekend.

I’m quite pleased with the rosette. It has my daughter’s input, was technically demanding but instructive, and looks OK, too, even if a little idiosyncratic. From a distance, the lettering looks like an abstract pattern but also has personal meaning.

Today corresponds to Roy’s book pp. 201-207.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.