Official Luthiers Forum!

Would any one here be able to provide specs for the following Martin rosettes from 1934 through 1944?

Style 18:

Radius of all three rings or distance from soundhole
Width of the white and black lines in the center ring
Width of the outer and inner thin black rings.

Style 28:

Radius of all three rings or distance from soundhole
Width of the white and black lines in the center ring
Width of the white and black lines in the inner and outer rings.


Style 42/45:

Radius of all three rings or distance from soundhole
Width of the white and black lines in the center ring. I think 1.6mm is correct for the pearl?
Width of the white and black lines in the inner and outer rings.
Width of black and white purfling surrounding the pearl.

Todd: Think he is saying, just these dreadnaughts.
Tom

_________________
A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

Logan: A couple of sources for this type of info are the " Johns" ........................Arnold and Hall. The both hang here sometimes but your more likely to find them on the UMGF.....!!! I'm sure you know this but rosettes at one time were considered to be the mark of the maker. Not so much these days. Take care and have fun.
Just came from the UMGF and it looks like your looking for Per or are you Per.......??
Tom

_________________
A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

Ditto on John Hall (Blues Creek Guitars) for detailed specs on the rosettes of this period.
He also has the old style material (celluloid) for the rosettes made after the transition from wood.

Dreadnought size guitars. This is being discussed on the UMGF right now and we aren't having much luck with style 28 and 42/45.

Thanks for mentioning that the rosette is the mark of the maker. I had read that sometime ago but since forgotten. I do really like the look of traditional rosettes with small changes in material or colour like those by John Arnold or Collings.

Just FYI and for the record, you can buy Martin style rosettes for 18, 28, and 45 directly from Martin.

http://www.martinguitar.com/guitar-make ... l?start=40

Ahh, I see, David LaPlante's post...so the rosettes were celluloid back in the 30's-40's? I used an 18 style rosette from Martin for my latest 000-18 build. Looks pretty good and matches up closely to the rosette on my '32 0-18.

Goodin,
To clarify: From 1932 on the style 28 rosette purflings were celluloid.
Style 45 rosettes seem to have continued on with wood purflings, with the exception of the pearl of course and the .040" double ivoroid lines in the center ring of the rosette.
Style 18 seems to have also gone to celluloid around the same time as the 28.
The actual guages have varied over the years.
My impression is that things didn't change much insofar as sizes until the mid eighties when rather bolder multi-ply material was substituted changing the look of the 28 and 45 style rosettes somewhat (though the sequence of white and black lines remained the same). Style 18 rosettes seem to still be quite similar to as they've been right along.
The best way to replicate these is to measure an example that you like, then adjust for the material that you want to use.

Thanks David. What kind of wood would they have used? I assume ebony for the black, holly or maple for the white?

Maple

I have the period rosettes available for the 28 and the 45 The 45 in the CF Martin Museum has no black against the pearl. Other samples do so they were playing a little or used what then had.

_________________
John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

This was my take on a Martin-inspired style 28 rosette. I can't guarantee that it is dimensionally accurate. I leave a 1/8" gap between the soundhole and the inner ring, and a 1/8" gap between the subsequent rings. The inner and outer rings are bwb+bwb purflings from Stew-mac (.04" each). The center ring is BWB+Ivoroid+Red+Ivoroid+BWB. The BWB is .06" purfling from Stew-Mac. The Ivoroid is 0.06" from Axiom, and the red veneer (for a splash of color) is .025" from LMI.

Chris

Nice one, where are you in Virginia? The outlaw in-laws live on an island in the Chesapeake Bay, Gwynns Island, we are over there all the time.

Remember also that the distance between the inner ring and the middle ring is less than the distance between the middle ring and the outer ring (.110" vs. .130" as measured on a recent style 28 top).
Martin's designs are much more sophisticated than one might think at a glance. As previously mentioned the soundhole diameter is different for each body size. The variance in ring spacing gives a certain visual harmony to the design.

Martin rosettes changes a number of time. The sizes changed , material changes , and even spacing changed. I have documented tops from the late 20's to 39. They are similar with a few changes. Mostly material. I have seen rosettes with ebony , rosewood , fibrolid ( celuloid) and another plastic. I have seem Maple as the lighter wood.
The 18 series seems to have at one point used a thinner inner and outer ring . Most were at .020 some at .012
the 28 and 45 for a period used the same inner and outer rings.
b/w/b/w/b/ .012/.015./.020/.015/.012
the 28 inner b/w/b/w/b/w/b/w/b .012/.015./020/.040/.010/.040/.020/.015/.012 I have seen the middle black also at up to .020

_________________
John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

David, the guitar in my photo is OM-sized too. I guessed at the ring spacing based on photos, so I'm happy that I got so close. Still, a difference of +/-0.010" is less than a 1% change in the radius of the rings. I doubt mine is that accurate. I use a Roy Noble type dremel base to cut the rosette. It has a cheap, plastic set of calipers attached to it to set the radius, and the calipers' readability is only .01".

Clinch, I'm to the south of your in-laws, in Newport News. Do you know how close they are to Jim Merrill's shop?