Which tonewoods best complement Redwood soundboard?

[fitness1]

For my ear, I'd want Mahogany, Koa or Walnut.....probably in that order

[TomB'sox]

Originally Posted by Alan Carruth

Thanks for the support Tom B'sox.

zmf wrote:
"Good luck with that, Alan. Strong the belief systems are on this forum."

I know. In the Navy we used to call it "shoveling against the tide". I'm used to it.

As I said, the LS redwood I've used is great stuff, although I've gotten redwood at the lumber yard that was just as good acoustically, if not cosmetically. Used right it make a great guitar with any B&S wood. The problem is that it's so easy to make a bad guitar out of good wood: I've seen a lot of those. It takes a pretty savvy maker to get all the sound out of a top that it's capable of producing, and a good maker will make a fine guitar out of any reasonable excuse for wood.

Oh, and Wade: I know I'm no fun, but I do try to make fun instruments.

I realize I love redwood as I started to think about it, I have several RW topped guitars. One is called the Black Lion a parlor sized guitar, but the redwood top was made from a piece of RW that was indeed obtained at a lumber yard by a friend of the luthier. 3/4 inch thick, about 8 inches wide and 20 inches long, basically a shelf (but perfectly quartersawn and tight grained, it even tapped well as a plank). I wanted to call the guitar the shelf guitar, in the end it turned out fantastically, but I always tease the luthier for making me a guitar out of a piece of wood he use to have on some brackets with stuff on top of it. I think he found it when cleaning out his shop prior to my visit .

[fitness1]

[QUOTE=Alan Carruth;6449197]The problem is that it's so easy to make a bad guitar out of good wood: I've seen a lot of those. [QUOTE]

I've owned a few!

One of the downfalls of online purchases (no audition before buying)

[BrunoBlack]

I’ve owned 2 nice redwood OM guitars made by the same builder (Bourgeois). One was redwood/EIR the other redwood/walnut. Both were great guitars. I always thought the walnut had a deeper richer tone, but that could be attributed to many factors. Nice guitars that are easy on the eyes.

[Erithon]

The first Redwood-topped guitar I played was an OM HighLander built by Tim McKnight. The back and sides were Cocobolo. That instrument really turned me on to the magic of Redwood and now I play a Lucky Strike Redwood over Cocobolo OM built by Michael Bashkin. So in my experience Cocobolo is worth considering.

But it really comes down to the experience your luthier has with Redwood.

[Alan Carruth]

There were supposed to be some blank spaces in that quote, it's :"Shoveling against the tide" You can probably fill in the blank....

The main problem with redwood is that, like WRC, it's prone to cracking. Although it's often said to be soft and low in density, almost all of the redwood I've seen, including all the the LS, was very simliar in density and hardness to Red or Sitka spruce. It's not as good for classicals as WRC, but better for steel strings, IMO. I like to use walnut for the bridge on the redwood top; the lower density allows for a larger bridge without too much weight, and the bigger footprint keeps the stress along the back edge of the bridge down, so it's less likely to peel off.