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Hi all,

I'm building my first guitar (classical) and I made a mistake where I routed the outer circumference of the rosette channel larger than the outer circumference of the rosette itself. I have the rosette installed but now have a gap of about 0.020" to fill along the outer edge of the rosette. The edge of the rosette is black, so I tested filling it with minwax walnut wood filler. It turned out that it wasn't dark enough and I also thought that it was going to stain the top as well so I took it off. I'd just like to know if anyone has any ideas on how to approach this, ie what type of filler to use and how I can ensure that the soundboard wood doesn't stain too deep.
Any ideas are appreciated.

Thanks

Thanks Filippo.

Now to try and clean out the hardened glue squeeze out from the rosette. D'oh!

If anyone has a shop tip for that, I'll take it.

Thanks again.

De-Glue-Goo and an Xacto knife with the bevel ground off.

As long as your rosette is EXACTLY in the center you could use your Dremel or circle cutting jig to dig out the majority of it before you have to hand remove the rest. However, the purfling strip is your best bet to fill in that gap once you have it clear.

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The old standard is to fill with sanding dust from the top. I was suprised how well this works. You would need the gap to be free of dried glue in the upper part, so that the dust can work in. You then run in some white glue thinned a little with water, and quickly sand the adjacent top wood to get dust that you push onto the wet glue.

PS

The sanding dust method is often done at the time of gluing the rosette, while the original glue is still fresh.

The situation you are in might best be handled by routing out the rosette and starting over. But that is a decision you can make after you attempt repairs.

Ive never had to do this , but I will say that Filippo's recommedation makes most sense to me . I say this because im SURE before its over I WILL have done this too !

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Filippo's got it right. Worked for me!

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Because most spanish builders used to assemble their rosettes by hand in the groove that they can cut for that section, they would often set in the inner rings or outer rings first, cut out the wider groove for the central rosette tile and then fit the remaining inner or outer ring strips. Because of this often they would have to fill to fit as you have and that is why a central part of the design of most traditional spanish rosette is usually thin dark lines at the inner and/or outer edge.

So what you have done it cutting your outer ring too laree is followed the traditional of most classical builder and Fillippo's solution is the traditional way to deal with it so you are consistent with historically how all classical builders have dealt with this. We are so prone to think of premade rosettes of a given diameter and use whatever router, circle cutter or gramil to cut to that size but in the past all rosettes were assembled per guitar and adjustments were always made.

I routinely keep a selection of black and white lines in .010 and .020 as you never know when they will come in handy for just things like this. If your outer ring is already black one trick is to add a .010 white/.010 black line at the outside and it fills nicely and also refines the look of the outer ring.