Official Luthiers Forum!

Stunning work, inspirational.
How long did you take to make it?

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Hey Colin, if this was directed toward me thank you! It took about 4 days to make all rosette components and inlay them, the vast majority of that time was spent waiting for glue to dry however.

Thanks! Did you make the thin veneers yourself?

I recently made a rosette with a herringbone ring but (not knowing what the heck I’m doing) I bought what I thought were pretty thin dyed veneers - mostly about 1 mm. It turned out ok for a first effort but looks coarse - lacks that elegant, refined look. And the strip was a bear to bend.

I bought all of these veneers already thicknessed to 0.5mm (B and B rare woods) but then used my Byrnes model machines thickness sander to thin the maple and black border veneers. Traditionally an adjustable veneer scraper is used for this task but the little drum sander makes the job much faster. As an aside, I highly recommend using polyurethane glue (I use regular Gorilla glue) to do all of your glue ups with veneer. Titebond or other water based glues can lead to warping which will distort the design and when laminating 20-50 veneers will take days to weeks to fully cure. PU glue also holds up to heat much nicer making bending effortless.

When I'm working in Spain (roughly half the year) I buy much of my veneer from Maderas Barber; they sell thicknesses ranging from 0.3mm to 1.0mm which makes herringbone and rosette making much faster. This herringbone was made from commercially available 0.3 maple and 0.5mm black veneer from Barber. The cuadralitos (square motifs) are made from 1mm black veneer and 1mm maple veneer also from Barber. The only veneers not from Barber are the green lines which are 0.3mm dyed green from Rivolta, I doubled the green lines to make those 0.6mm.

Thanks for the details. I’m going to have to look into that model makers thickness sander. Although it seems a stretch that I can justify it. Maybe I can make my drill press drum sander a little more precise.

Honestly if I didn't have the small sander or want to spend the time making/using a veneer thicknessing jig I'd just have veneer from Barber shipped to the states (I am 100% not affiliated with them other than having spent a lot of money there). Bear in mind they sell veneer in 1 square meter bundles so you receive between 7-9 sheets for about 9 dollars. Shipping will be a little pricy but not as crazy as you'd think; their pricing compared to us suppliers more than makes up for the added shipping costs

https://maderasbarber.com/tonewood/en/n ... size-03_mm

Unfortunately, Jim Byrnes passed away sometime in the last two years. The family has not yet made any plans to have someone else make Jim’s fantastic little machines. You might be able to find them used, but due to Jim’s death, the price for used models has gone up a lot.

I am lucky enough to have bought one of Jim’s table saws, a thickness sander, and a small disc sander, all used, and all before he passed away, so the prices were not completely crazy. I also stocked up on spare parts and accessories after Jim’s passing (they are selling what they have on hand). Very prized possessions. Great little tools.

I will say, though, that you can put together a decent small drum sander without much work. A motor driving a drum, and a table that tilts, are all you need. That’s all Jim’s sander consists of (albeit with really nice parts).

I have his table saw and a lot of accessories which are absolutely amazing and accurate. RIP Jim.

Brian, that is a fantastic rosette!