Hi everyone,
I thought I'd come in on the question about the Cypress as I may be able to help.
Monterey Cypress (Cupressus Macrocarpa) is originally native to California, but it was introduced to the UK many years ago (middle of the last century I believe) and grows very happily here too.
Alongside traditional tonewoods, using English grown timber to build guitars has become a bit of an obsession for me, one that started early on in my luthiery journey. I set out to find English grown timber for every wooden part of the guitar and I’m really pleased to say that I’ve built a number of “all English” guitars called E-Series guitars.
While developing my E-Series approach I used English grown Western Red Cedar (Thuja Plicata) a number of times quite successfully and when visiting my “local woods” tonewood supplier to get some more, he told me he had sourced some Monterey Cypress if I wanted to try it. Try it I did and wow, I loved it!
I used the Cypress on an English Cherry backed TM model and loved the aesthetic plus tonally, it was a bit brighter than the Cedar so gave me an alternate English option to offer. I have since found tonewoods like Yew (Taxus Baccata) and Cedar of Lebanon (Cedrus Libani) which are great for soundboards too.
Sorry that got a bit long! But I hope that’s cleared it up a bit for those interested.
I’m more than happy to jump back in if you want to know more!
Bye for now,
Rosie
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