Well, I decided to take a day off from work today and mess around in the basement. I finally was able to finish some rosette tiles and rope border. Here is my process:
Thin the veneers to size using the drill press sanding jig (shown later). Then cut the veneers to size, approx 10" x 2".
Next, stack the veneers in the correct sequence and glue up using epoxy (water based glues expand the veneer way too much. It will mess up your pattern)
Veneer sandwiches ready to be cut.
Here I cut thin strips off the sandwich which are glued up again to make the final pattern. I'm using my fret slotting blade with a blade support from Lee Vally. The strips come off smooth as silk and very uniform.
Each individual strip is taken to the drill press and thicknessed down to .030" and prepared for glue-up.
Here are all the individual strips thicknessed and ready for glueing
Individual veneer strips make up the sandwich--ready to glue up into final log which tiles will be cut from
Piece of log. Tiles are cut from the end making the final pattern in the endgrain section
Sanding the glued veneer for my rope borders
Completed tiles and ropes ready to be inlaid into the soundboard to complete the rosette
Sorry for the long post, hopefully you find it interesting.
Cheers!
John
