Redwood for guitars?

roundthebend

I know close to nothing about wood for guitar building. However, I noticed one of two huge trees near my in-laws had been chopped down and was being sliced up for sale. There's a few guitars' worth in there.

Tannin

Redwood is a noted tonewood, regarded as slightly stiffer than Western Red Cedar, less stiff than spruce, so an ideal fingerpicker's timber. Very good looking too. 

(You could also make electric bodies out of it, which would be a real shame - you can make an electric guitar body out of almost anything.)

Funkfingers

Fender used redwood to make bodies for the 2011 Tele-bration limited edition anniversary guitars and, later, Stratocasters. Famously, the timber source was nineteenth century ex-railroad bridge supports and out buildings - old and very well seasoned.

For guitar building, the freshly felled redwood would probably require accelerated drying.

In use, redwood can be extremely light, resonant and relatively soft to work. The downside is that it marks if you so much as look at it. On Stratocasters with a two-point vibrato, I have seen the posts and threaded inserts gradually tear themselves out. 

roundthebend

Sadly I don't think I'll be able to get my hands on any, for myself or on behalf of anyone who builds. The owner is currently slicing it into those big slabs and asking £3000 a piece.

@Tannin are you saying it would be good on a fingerboard or even the whole neck, but not worth the cost for an electric body? And/or are you saying it's good for acoustic guitar bodies?

WezV

not all redwood is tonewood grade suitable for acoustic tops, most is not.  

Should work fine for electrics once seasoned, looks like its already been cut into slabs ready for drying for the most usable sections of the truck.

Roland

Can I have some?

jasonbone75

The good stuff makes for nice tops. I've got one on my Regius 7

WezV

The quilted stuff generally  comes from the bottom 3rd of giant redwoods, its where the tree has started to compress under its own weight.     This is different to the quilting you see in things like maple

Tannin

roundthebend said:

Sadly I don't think I'll be able to get my hands on any, for myself or on behalf of anyone who builds. The owner is currently slicing it into those big slabs and asking £3000 a piece.

@Tannin are you saying it would be good on a fingerboard or even the whole neck, but not worth the cost for an electric body? And/or are you saying it's good for acoustic guitar bodies?

@roundthebend redwood is highly regarded as a top wood for acoustics: it is light and strong for its weight (like all great topwood timbers) and much sought after. It is quite soft, so it would be a very bad choice for a fretboard (it would probably sound pretty ordinary and it would certainly wear very fast). It is too soft to make good back and sides either - I daresay it might sound OK but it wouldn't be practical or durable. 

My comment re wasting it on electric bodies is simply a matter of sensible use of resources. Redwood is rare: far too much of it was logged in the bad old days and there is now little or no commercial harvest. You can only get redwood by re-using old items like furniture, or from isolated (often urban) one-offs like the tree in your in-laws' street. There is no particular benefit to using it in an electric body - as Funkfingers points out, it is too soft to be practical. Yes, it's light and strong and workable, but so is Radiata Pine  which you can buy from any timber merchant at 1% of the price. 

Funkfingers

For full disclosure, I own a 2011 Tele-bration Old Growth Redwood Telecaster. (Early examples were named Brown's Canyon after the railroad bridge location.) The body wood is soft. I have long fingernails on my picking/strumming hand. Result - scuffs everywhere.

On the Fender redwood Stratocasters, string and spring tension conspire to crush the body wood on the neck side of the vibrato pivot inserts, turning the drilled holes oval. As grip on the insert splines reduces, they rise and lean towards the nut, accelerating the damage.

I was once shown one of the redwood Stratocasters by my (then) local Fender dealer. He asked my opinion of the damage. I concurred with him that the guitar was ****ed.

WezV

it is daft to mount a trem to a softwood body, i would also be aware of wraparounds.   A good through body strung bridge would be fine 

mrkb

Funkfingers said:

For full disclosure, I own a 2011 Tele-bration Old Growth Redwood Telecaster. (Early examples were named Brown's Canyon after the railroad bridge location.) The body wood is soft. I have long fingernails on my picking/strumming hand. Result - scuffs everywhere.

On the Fender redwood Stratocasters, string and spring tension conspire to crush the body wood on the neck side of the vibrato pivot inserts, turning the drilled holes oval. As grip on the insert splines reduces, they rise and lean towards the nut, accelerating the damage.

I was once shown one of the redwood Stratocasters by my (then) local Fender dealer. He asked my opinion of the damage. I concurred with him that the guitar was ****ed.

My basswood body HRR floyd rose strat did that as well. I had to insert a brass plate to repair the trem stud mounting area.

Stuckfast

When I was a child, we had a humungous redwood in our garden, which had to be felled when I was in my teens. Think most of it went into the wood-burning stove... but I remember the wood being very coarse, fibrous and extremely soft. I'd be surprised if it was practical to make a guitar top from it. Are there different species? Or does the wood vary if grown in our climate?

Roland

Yes and yes.

earwighoney

WezV said:

not all redwood is tonewood grade suitable for acoustic tops, most is not.  

Should work fine for electrics once seasoned, looks like its already been cut into slabs ready for drying for the most usable sections of the truck.

The owner of the tree would make an absolute packet if he could get some acoustic sets out of it.

UK grown Californian Redwood would be up there with some of the most exclusive/rare tonewood out there!

crunchman

I had a Ltd Edition PRS (from 1990) that had a figured redwood top on top of a chambered body.  It looked really nice.  Unfortunately I couldn't get on with the wide thin neck profile.

guitargeek62

I’ve got a beautiful ¾” bookmatched top blank to use at some point on a build. It’s got mild and very wide figure on it like nothing I’ve seen before - should be pretty cool once finished!