Roses, rosettes, veneers, inlays, and other decorative features:

My very first tiered rose. I was inspired after seeing an image of a snowflake under a scanning electron microscope. You can just barely make out this six-pointed figure on bottom of the rose.

Another angle showing the tiered rose. You can get a better sense of the depth of it from this angle. It almost goes all the way down to the bottom of the psaltery.

An inlaid Star-of-David rosette. There are two interlocking and overlapping triangles that form the star.

An overall shot of the Star-of-David rosette, to give a better perspective of the overall appearance on the psaltery.

I veneered the sides of this psaltery with a striped veneer in a vertical fashion. When solid wood is used, the stripes have to run along the length of the psaltery, but with veneer, I was able to use multiple pieces side-by-side and orient the stripes perpendicular to the length of the instrument. 

A rosette made of just over a dozen or so pieces of Paua shell strips. This type of rosette looks very flashy because the shell material reflects light and changes color depending upon the angle of the light.

I had to add this psaltery to my gallery; I named it Santa Fe, and it had a lot of unique features. You can see the inlaid strips of Maple above. The rubbed out satin finish helped tone down the bright orange Padauk sides.

Above you can see the back of the Santa Fe. It had a three piece back with a tapered piece of Padauk wedged between two pieces of figured Maple. This psaltery was incredibly responsive and had a wonderful depth to the tone.

A three-piece back of Bloodwood and Yellowheart. I really got a kick out of building this psaltery, because the woods have such bold colors. The Bloodwood is really red, and the Yellowheart is really yellow.

Almost a twin of the picture to the left, this is actually a back made entirely of Honduran Rosewood, (and Curly Maple binding), with a natural occurrence of sapwood forming the center strip of the back of the psaltery.

Nearly 100 inlaid shell pieces were used in the construction of this psaltery. The side pattern above shows a central Paua shell, with four smaller white mother-of-pearl (MOP) dots at the corners.

The sides of this psaltery are semi-inlaid with Leopard-skin jasper cabochons. (The base of the stones are inlaid, but they dome-shaped and project above the wood's surface.) Unfortunately, this psaltery was damaged in shipping and never really got to be played/enjoyed.

Ode to Cocobolo: (some uses of my favorite wood)

A fairly standard-looking Cocobolo bowed psaltery back.

A unique and figured Cocobolo bowed psaltery back.

Above is a bowed psaltery made from some of the nicest Cocobolo that I've seen in a while. For whatever reason, I was never able to get a photograph that captured all of  its figure accurately.

A shot of the same psaltery as the one pictured to the left, taken during its construction. This picture shows off the color contrasts and details a bit better, but it's considerably lighter-colored when freshly sanded, as is the case above.

A four-piece bookmatched Cocobolo back with some incredibly detailed and figured sapwood to contrast the orange/brown heartwood.

A closeup shot of the Cocobolo's sapwood mentioned in the caption to the left. Notice also the inlaid ammonite shell in the side of the psaltery.

Technically a five-piece back, taken from the same assembly as the four-piece back seen above. A fifth piece of Honduran Rosewood was added to the middle to get sufficient width, and a decorative backstrip was added overtop.

A custom-made Cocobolo rosette. I had some quartersawn Cocobolo that I was cutting, and upon looking at the flat-sawn edge of the board, I saw the craziest and most psychedelic figuring, and decided to make a rosette from it.

Candyshop:

A psaltery that I had a bit of creative fun with. I called it "Candyshop" for its cutesy appearance, but it actually played/sounded quite good. The rosette is based upon a crop circle design.

The back of the "Candyshop" psaltery. It features a pattern of stripes made up of Purpleheart and Holly. The binding for the instrument was also done in Holly, with the sides being made of solid Purpleheart.

A second Candyshop I made, with a 3-lobe rosette style. I had a whole bunch of leftover purplish rosette banding, and I was trying to think of a way to use it all up in a creative fashion.

For the back of the second Candyshop, I inverted the colors, purple<=>white. Also, I decided to use quilted maple instead of holly.

Yet another bowed psaltery that's earned the name of Candyshop. The main highlight of this psaltery is the binding, which consists of purpleheart, curly maple, and pink ivory.

The back was done entirely out of quilted maple. I didn't want the back to distract from the details and contrasts of the binding, as would've been the case had I used another striped back.

A closeup shot of the binding and the amethyst note markers used in the third Candyshop bowed psaltery.

An overall view of the binding and quilted maple sides.

Colors:

I was inspired by the skin patterns found on Coral Snakes, and so I decided to replicate this pattern using Bloodwood, Yellowheart, and Ebony. This bowed psaltery definitely has a southwestern feel.

 A Curly Maple back dyed green.

Spruce top of a psaltery that I shaded blue. The rosette is a 1/8" strip of white mother of pearl. It also has a Curly Maple bridge and binding. This psaltery had the name: "Atlantis." 

The back of the "Atlantis" bowed psaltery pictured to the left. The blue dye really brought out the quilting that was present in the Maple. All in all, I think it made for a unique psaltery.