This is 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.

Here you can see me checking the fit of a rosette being inlaid into a cedar top.

I don't have any sort of catch-all template that makes inlaying rosettes a "snap." Each one is a little bit different, and I fit and inlay each one by hand.

Here you can see how I glue the tops and backs of psalteries on. It is called a "go-bar deck." Thin pieces of wood are wedged between the psaltery and a ceiling, assuring even and accurate gluing pressure along the entire width and length of the instrument.

I veneered the sides of a few psalteries with a striped veneer in a vertical fashion. Normally, when solid wood is used, the stripes have to run along the length of the board; but with veneer, I was able to use multiple pieces side-by-side and orient the stripes perpendicular to the length of the instrument. Sort of an optical illusion.

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.

This is 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.

This is the 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." 

Here's 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.

Here is 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.

Here is 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.