flat sawn redwood

[thistle3585]

How would flat sawn curly redwood work for a flat top mando?

[sunburst]

I don't have any experience with such a thing so I will not say that
it wouldn't work, but If I were to speculate, I suspect the strength and
stability would be lacking because of the flat sawn orientation and possibly
because of the curl if it is extreem.

[Bill Snyder]

There have been some incrdible looking mandos made with curly redwood tops. I don't know enough about the redwood to know if the curl is possible on a QS piece or not.Here is an octive mando (http://www.markswansonmusic.com/guitars/bouzouki.html)with curly RW top. Not as striking as some I have seen, but attractive just the same.

[Spruce]

Curly redwood is a very attractive wood sawn on the slab....

I dunno...
I've seen some old French fiddles built from very bearclawed spruce cut dead-on the slab...
Seems to have held up OK...

I'll actually be checking out this fiddle in the next few days in London.
Will try to snap a few pics...
It's pretty cool visually...

Structurally, I just doesn't make sense to go that way, but left thick and braced well it might work out just fine...

[Jim Rowland]

I dunno,Thistle. I just finished another Redwood topped "F" with very straight grained materials I bought from Spruce a while back. I don't think I'm kidding myself that this is a great mandolin. BUT..well seasoned Redwood is really soft. I worry some about carving it to specs I use for spruce,but I get away with it by some innovative bracing. Redwood has a tendency to sound a little muffled if not handled correctly,and I think It needs the linear lines to transmit a clear tone and maintain structural integrity. Could be wrong though.