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This is the second in the "Patching a botched . . . " series . . .I messed up a ukulele rosette by cutting the channel too wide. I thought I could recover somewhere along the way, but no, and made the mistake of cutting the soundhole too soon, so was left with trying to patch it. Spruce sawdust and epoxy made an awful mess, so I decided to try to re-rout the channel - but I no longer had a centre hole for my Veritas circle cutting tool and Dremel. I made a support with a strut like the one in one of the photos, with a notch for a back brace, and a piece of 1/4 inch play fitted as snugly as I could get it in the confines of a ukulele soundhole.

Next step was to cut a circle of spruce the same thickness as the top and as nearly perfect a fit as I could get for the soundhole opening. Then I screwd that down to the plywood crosspiece. I was hoping to rely on the soundhole plug to keep the support below it from moving around, and it worked. I used the circle cutting tool to rout the old rosette and cleaned it up a bit by hand. Next step is to cut a new hardwood ring and fit purfling bands to finish. (Easy peasy, right? We'll see . . . Bruce W.)

Here's the outcome: I cut, fitted and glued a new walnut ring (took two tries). Then I cut channels for two BWB purfling strips. They were the right thickness for a downcut bit I had. Turns out they were two narrower BW strips stuck together, and they delaminated where the two whites joined when I put them on the iron to bend them in the tight radius of the ukulele rosette. I was able to reglue them and install them. The result is much better than before - whew!