We really appreciate our imaginative clients. Recently, Rick was asked to make an oak leaf rosette on a classical guitar top of sinker redwood using Malachite and other green stone materials. Here's how it is going:

The first thing to do was to scan a few of of Rick's favorite oak leaves from his favorite oak tree near the shop. (obviously it was wintertime when this was started)

Rick already had a small brick of man-made Malachite. This is made from about 75% ore, acrylic resin and some other secret sauces. Rick slices the brick with the bandsaw to make sheets that will finish out to a final thickness of .060".

After much discussion, sketches, renderings and head scratching, Deana "Photoshopped" a proposal that was accepted. Even though the real thing looks a shade better, the client gets a very close concept of what this will look like.

Rick made an AutoCAD drawing over the top of the scanned leaf images to create cutout patterns.

The patterns were glued to the Malachite and other stone and then were cut out using a jeweler's saw with a fine blade.

To achieve the 1mm black stroke around the leaves, they were first inlayed into ebony. Then the ebony was cut out using the jeweler's saw by eye.

Here, the leaves with the ebony outlines are sitting on a piece of paper, waiting to be inlayed.

The leaves are temporarily glued to their locations to the top. A final approval is given by the client. The leaf on the upper right is "veined" in black so the client can see what the final inlay will look like. Usually, any engraving is done after the inlay is complete and  polished.

It's a little difficult to inlay in soft woods like redwood because of its inconsistency. It has hard grain lines and is soft in between. Still, you can get pretty close with the router bit and trim a little where required with a knife.

The trimming process continues until the fit is good and tight.

The veins are drawn on the finished inlay. Then, using an erasing shield and a scribe, the vein line engraving is started.

The graver tool will follow the scribed lines if you take a small amount of material off at a time.

The completed rosette. The veins have been filled with a black inert filler.

Here's the finished product.