Inset roses are more often in fruitwood (often pear), parchment, or some combination of the two, but with wooden layers extremely thin. As a starter, consider emulating the rose of the Cutler-Challen mandolino by Stradivari as a relatively simple example in three layers:
http://orgs.usd.edu/nmm/PluckedStrings/Mandolins/StradMandolin/StradMandolin.html For lots of inspiration, check the work of Elena Dal Cortivo: http://www.parchmentroses.com/ There are a couple rose carving tips on the homepage of my friend Chad's blog: http://www.neallutes.com/ If you opt to use any wood other than straight parchment, I would probably recommend at least the base layer of whatever rose pattern you use be parchment and wooden layers be some fruitwood. ..And enjoy, Eugene -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Joshua E. Horn Sent: Friday, March 01, 2013 6:47 AM To: Lute Mailing List Subject: [LUTE] Rose? Hi guys, I have an early morning idea that I want to get opinions on. As I mentioned a couple days ago, I bought myself a Guilele. It is plain however, it does not have any designs around the sound hole. My idea is to print out a pattern of a Lute rose on stiff paper (or parchment), scaled down to the size of my soundhole, and carve it out on a thin sheet of Balsa wood. Then I would place it in my Guilele's sound hole. The main question I have is, does the type of wood used for the rose going to affect the sound of my Guilele? - Because, Balsa wood is the thinnest (with varying thickness), inexpensive and most available wood I can get locally. It would be ideal for using with an X-acto knife, since that's probably all I'm going to find around here too. Any opinions on that? Thanks! Josh To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
