Hello Laurence:
don't be dismayed at your having lost your first several attempts..
However if you are using a good piece of Picea Abies, I'd save that for ribs
both small and large if not for a top.
Use 3rd grade wood , Engleman will do, and make it about 1.4 mm thick and
glue on a backing of good nonacidic watercolor paper impregnated with hide
glue (thinned) on the bottom of the wood you have selected.
When dry , this paper will help prevent cracking on those parts of the rose
which are across the grain. Then adhere the pattern on the top (although
this is more of a Baroque practice)
here I use remount spray adhesive VERY thinly sprayed onto the paper pattern
but not onto the wood. this will create a decent enough bond and will with a
little alcohol, come off the wood excellently.
I would NOT recommend using an exacto knife unless you want to regrind the
tips.. Use surgeon's scalpels and grind them to a sharp edge on the other
side of the blade opposed to the factory edge and thin out the blade as much
as you can.You want to be able to pierce the wood along the grain and then
remove the tip of the scalpel and see practically NO mark at all.
IN his course, David recommends using , instead of a slicing type of blade,
a chisel type blade of various shapes, some flat, some curved like a gouge ,
some wide, some narrow - this will require regrinding and sharpening . This
is so that you can follow almost any line with a plunge cut ...
Again the sides of the blade must be sharp and the tool steel must be VERY
thin as you want an insertion of the blade into the wood with the LEAST
amount of side ways pressure. This sideways pressure will as the thicker
part of the tool steel moves into the cut made by the edge, spread the wood
apart creating tensions .... Its this pressure which can crack a delicate
tracery of wood...
And as one might expect , David's course does contain (as mentioned in Din
Ghani's excellent post) just about everything you will need to know about
cutting a good rose... remember though that rose cutting is really about
tool control more than anything else and so as well as getting good advice,
so you will have to practice a lot .....
good luck..
Richard Lees
----- Original Message -----
From: "Laurence Hall" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, March 07, 2009 1:32 PM
Subject: [LUTE-BUILDER] cutting the rose.
Hello everyone,
I'm thinking of taking a shot at David van Edwards "build your own
Baroque lute" course, but, having made an EMS lute 25 years ago, I made
a complete mess of the rose. I'd like to try to practice this a few
times before I go for the whole thing, but I'm having some problems.
I've got a piece of Picea Abies to practice on, and I read that an
exacto knife is used for this purpose, after glueing a paper drawing of
the rose to the prospective soundboard. Is this how most people do it?
I find it extremely difficult to control (the exacto knife) and I can't
help feeling I'm missing something.
I looked up some info about chip carving on the web, they use larger
knives for much the same purpose, only on a much larger scale than the
detail we're used to in a rose. Can anyone tell me what the best tools
are for this work? And if it's not too impertinent of me, could you
give a rough sketch of how a professional does it?
Many thanks,
Laurence Hall,
Amsterdam
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