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I was noticing how beautiful some of that flamed redwood was that Bob C. was selling, and also a few guitars that appeared on this forum with the same top-wood. I was just wondering what the results have been relative to tone with these tops, are you finding that the highly figured stuff is similar to regular redwood in tone. I recall several people referring to redwood as WRC on steroids. Is the beauty of this wood just an added benefit, or is it clouding my decision-making abilities.

Thanks,
Greg

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Gwaltney Guitars

Greg I don't think the figure has much to do with the sound produced but it sure adds to the beauty of the wood.

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Beautiful and unusual tone woods at a reasonable price.
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1109 Military Rd.
Kenmore, NY 14217
(716) 874-1498

Redwood is a great tonewood. The presence of figure like the stuff on Bob's site makes it an atttractive top wood for that great-sounding, eye-candy kind of guitar. I have one set that was a gift that I'm very reluctant to use though. The really tight flame that can happen can be formed from serious runout. Not with the wide flame like Bob's stuff though. That's not an issue with those.
Hesh was probably refering to the well-know "LS" redwood tops, (I can't repeat the story and do it justice) which are very musical and have a great sustaining taptone, at a nice high frequency. Don't discount wood that rings at a lower frequency though, as that can be great on smaller bodied instruments.
In my stash of tops I have some killer redwood tops that are comparable to the LS, and it is very nice indeed. I have some that is stiff as a rock, light as a feather, with all kinds of overtones.
Try it - you'll like it.
Don Williams38902.4491087963

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

What does LS stand for?

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Gwaltney Guitars

I have one LS top set that I'm saving for a future special build. It has the most amazing tap tone I've ever heard in a soundboard wood. Very metallic, almost like a very nice set of EIR or Brazillion.

I have built a couple of classicals using redwood (not the fabled LS, though), both with padauk back and sides. Here's one of 'em:



This was my third build. I used a standard 7-fan pattern to brace the top (Euro spruce bracing). It has a big sound, with resonant basses and good trebles.

I have a pretty large stash of redwood that I resawed from a couple of 8/4 planks I found at a local hardwood retailer. I have one more guitar in the early stages of construction that will have a redwood top, and I look forward to building more of 'em.

Couple of caviats when working with redwood:

Sometimes a top set will split along grain lines unexpectedly. So it's a pretty good idea to flex the top a moderate amount during the selection process.

Sometimes glue adhesion can be a problem with redwood. Don't really know why this is. The above guitar's bridge popped off a couple weeks after I strung it up. Since regluing the bridge, it has held fine, though. That was about two years ago.

Best,

Michael

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Live to Play, Play to Live

[QUOTE=GregG] What does LS stand for?[/QUOTE]
Hi folks..
seems a computer crash of two weeks back and the subsequent rebuild of files left me out in the cold on OLF. Just "re-registered" so I could answer this question.
LS stands for Lucky Strike, so named for the tone/vibration felt through the entire log when struck with an ax. It was a blow down tree that had been laying across a ravine for an estimated 30 years so the entire harvested portion was able to air cure slowly and thoroughly. There are areas of the grain line that are almost imperceptable due to their closeness (ie; VERY slow growth). The tree was harvested in the early 1990's by the late Craig Carter and his wife, Alicia. I am fortunate to have obtained what remained from their harvest, along with other billets from other trees (TA, TB and ST) which stood for Totally Awesome, Tono Basso and Singing Tree.
A number of builders on this forum have purchased sets of these tops and build guitars with great results.

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Hank Mauel

HEY!!!! you told me you weren't selling any of the LS.... what gives?   

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

The set of LS im getting ready to use for a Koa Om has a very glassy sound when you scrap the two sides together, much like a nice dry set of brw would have.
I have build 2 guitars useing the LS redwood and both have sounded great. There IS a differance with this stuff, its like no other Redwood ive ever had, seen used tapped etc. Wish I had more

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Brian Burns said that the LS top wood that he tested for mechanical and acoustic properties had the lowest damping of any top wood he'd seen. With a Q value of 200 in his tests, it was right up there with Brazilian rosewood.

I got two LS tops from Alicia at H'burg in '99. In my tests they came out with lower numbers than Brian saw, but still higher than most other woods I've tested, and still in the BRW class. Redwood in general has low damping. In fact, I've got some tops from a big plank I scored at the local lumberyard that test out virtually identical to the LS wood: I call in my 'LY' redwood. It's not as 'clean' looking though. Somtimes redwood looks 'dirty' for some reason.

Redwood is also generally harder and denser than many other top woods, being right in the same league with Sitka and Red spruce in those regards. All woods vary a lot, of course, and there's a lot of overlap.

Curl usually reduces the long-grain stiffness of wood, but can increase the cross grain stiffness.

I love the look of Bob's curly redwood. I'm waiting to see if he will get some of the ultra figured curly redwood back in. Some beautiful stuff. Bobc do you know when that will be?Michael Shaw38902.7646990741

Anyone here have any apprehensions about gluing a bridge to a curly
redwood soundboard considering that you're basically gluing to end-grain??

Spruce
This one's been glued on for 3 years with no sign of lifting.

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Beautiful and unusual tone woods at a reasonable price.
http://www.rctonewoods.com/RCT_Store
The Zootman
1109 Military Rd.
Kenmore, NY 14217
(716) 874-1498

[QUOTE=Michael Shaw] I love the look of Bob's curly redwood. I'm waiting to see if he will get some of the ultra figured curly redwood back in. Some beautiful stuff. Bobc do you know when that will be?[/QUOTE]
I have some billets now. Just need to cut it.

_________________
Beautiful and unusual tone woods at a reasonable price.
http://www.rctonewoods.com/RCT_Store
The Zootman
1109 Military Rd.
Kenmore, NY 14217
(716) 874-1498

Hank Maul is the man when it comes to Redwood tops:
http://www.mauelguitars.com/

-C

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Freeborn Guitars
and home of BeauGuard©

I think it would be misinformation to say that you are gluing to end grain when gluing to a curly redwood top. That's not really the case.
A little runout is not the same as end grain. There can be severe bi-directional runout, but that's not the same. And the examples shown here by Bob and Hesh don't exhibit that kind of severe figure.

_________________
"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

[QUOTE=Michael McBroom]

Couple of caviats when working with redwood:

Sometimes a top set will split along grain lines unexpectedly. So it's a pretty good idea to flex the top a moderate amount during the selection process.

Sometimes glue adhesion can be a problem with redwood. Don't really know why this is. The above guitar's bridge popped off a couple weeks after I strung it up. Since regluing the bridge, it has held fine, though. That was about two years ago.

Best,

Michael
[/QUOTE]

I'm surprised to hear you've had trouble gluing redwood. Was it just this one instance? In general, softwoods are easy to glue.

Patrick Spielman, in "Gluing and Clamping" (a great book to have on one's shelf, by the way) says this about redwood: "Glues very easily with glues of wide range in properties, and under wide range of gluing conditions".

Was it possibly a lack of adhesion to the wood the bridge was made of? Hardwoods, especially oily ones, can be much more difficult to get good adhesion with.


Phil

I hate to speak for him, but since he is heading out of town I will give the readers digest version. I know Tim McKnight has suffered from certain boards being tough to glue.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Tim had trouble gluing some redwood tops with HHG. Here is the link to the redwood discussion.

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Don Atwood
Arlington, VA

Hey Phil,

I recall reading somewhere about the difficulties folks sometimes have -- after I had the problem with mine, but before the thread of Tim's that Don mentioned.

The bridge that popped off was padauk. Not an oily wood.

I dunno really if I'd want to put too much blame on the redwood. I figure that I was at least equally to blame -- probably didn't do a good enough job preparing the surfaces. It was my third build and all.

But since I have read that others have run into problems at times, I thought I'd pass it along. In the future I'll make sure to do the due dillegence when it comes to preparing the surfaces, though.

Best,

Michael

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Live to Play, Play to Live

If Redwood has "numbers" similar to Braz. wouldn't that mean it would make a great B/S wood?

Greg

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Gwaltney Guitars

[QUOTE=Don Williams] I think it would be misinformation to say that you are gluing to end grain when gluing to a curly redwood top. That's not really the case.
A little runout is not the same as end grain. There can be severe bi-directional runout, but that's not the same. And the examples shown here by Bob and Hesh don't exhibit that kind of severe figure.[/QUOTE]

Here's some photos to illustrate curly redwoods inclination to show endgrain on the surface as Bruce stated.

In photo "A" there are two almost identical looking pieces from the sawn left side edge grain appearance. One has deeper curls than the other obviously.   On the right side you can see where I've hand split the edge to reveal the true nature of the undulating grain. "A" is not acceptable as acoustic soundboard use (in my opinion), while "B" shows fairly straight grain with little run out. I would have no problems calling this acoustic grade curly redwood.

In photo "B" you can see how precarious the deep undulating grain In wood sample "A" really is. The break follows the grain.

In photo "C" look for the white marks that highlight an end grain split in the surface..actually several of them. Follow the grain split carefully and you see it follows the grain right up to the surface. This checking can occur almost anytime, but think of how weak the board really is at these points. There certainly are stronger points in a board, and the crap shoot comes when the bridge is located. Maybe it's a stronger point that will hold or maybe not.

I'm not saying the sky is falling on curly redwood, but consumer education has merit in my book. Be very careful buying curly redwood off eBay or other un-proved sources if you want to reduce the risk. The OLF sponsors are a great group of responsible, knowledgeable folk and you can bet they've checked the quality of their curly redwood offerings. Good luck!!