Redwood tops?

[Scott Crabtree]

Does anybody have any insight? I live in the redwoods in Northern California and I would like to find out some information about the ins~outs of this as a building material. Since I live in the trees, I thought it might be apropos to pick one and or own one. I see there is one up for grabs in the classifieds.

Thoughts?

[flatwound]

Scott,
I have the one in the classifieds. The redwood top first caught my attention from Shawn Lane of Blue Highway. They have good bass and bell tones on the highs. Volume is good but that really depends on builder. Most I have played have good volume. Ray Deastone is probably the most well known luthier of Redwood topped mandolins.

[mandroid]

Yea it's an option, a softwood like spruce, cedar, less common than those , It is a soundboard tonewood..

Forests of limited range, and disappearing before your eyes.. [ethics of consumption subset]

if You were through The "Avenue of the Giants" in the 50's-early 60's,
and then post logging pressures, recently, where it is more of a View Corridor along the highway.

You would have to decide if you want to be part of the Demand side ,

though board/foot small, that's a choice , too. though, Its already done, on a used instrument..

[Scott Crabtree]

"Forests of limited range, and disappearing before your eyes.. [ethics of consumption subset]"

^^^I live in the Santa Cruz mountains on 1000 acres, it is logged responsible. It was once an old growth Forrest, but at the turn of the century it was heavily logged unfortunately. I would have a problem with this if the material were from an old growth stand. However most redwood for decks, finish work is from secondary growth(re forrested) land. If the wood were from say the Headwaters Forrest up by the Ave. of Giants I would have an issue. I have a 200 foot redwood growing out of my deck. While living in these beautiful woods, I thought it might be nice to "become one" with my surroundings; right down to the mando. I wonder if anybody uses redwood burl as a tone wood? It has beautiful patterns and grain.

[Scott Crabtree]

Flatwound~Do you have any sound samples? More pictures(headstock,etc...)

[foldedpath]

I play a Lebeda F5 with a redwood top, and I love the way it sounds for the music I play: Irish trad, OldTime, Blues, a little quasi-Bluegrass. It's warm and woody on the bass end, and has a nice ring on the trebles. Maybe a little more sustain than a hardcore bluegrasser would like? I dunno, it isn't a Loar clone and I wasn't looking for one.

I live on the coastal West Coast USA too, a bit north from the native Redwood zone. I've always liked playing instruments that are a little different from what everyone else is using. And I had heard good things about redwood (and cedar) as a tonewood. When I found the redwood Lebeda (online, at a store in the midwest), I was taken by the idea of buying something made in the Czech Republic from wood that grew not far from where I live. Bringing the wood back home, in a sense. Anyway, it does seem to like the damp coastal climate out here, even if I have a hard time adjusting to it myself, sometimes.

Forests of limited range, and disappearing before your eyes.. [ethics of consumption subset]

You would have to decide if you want to be part of the Demand side ,

Well, yeah... there's that, but I don't think it's as high on the endangered scale as some other woods that most of us seem comfortable buying in an instrument, like koa or ebony. I assume that's due to relatively large amounts of legacy wood and second-growth cutting that's still being used for things like landscaping, interior paneling, picnic tables, etc.

For what it's worth, and assuming the wood used for mandolins is Sequoia sempervirens (Coast redwood), the IUCN lists it as "Vulnerable." That's a step down from the "Endangered" category where the various Diospyros species of ebony are listed. We're all still buying plenty of instruments with ebony fingerboards, although that won't last forever.

It's always good to be aware of these things, and I'm not slighting the vulnerable status of redwood, I just think it needs to be placed in context. The only completely guilt-free "green" instrument is one you buy secondhand, since any new construction involves non-renewable resources one way or another.

[fishtownmike]

I have played guitars with it but never a mandolin. It has a more mellower tone then spruce. I have a nice quilt figured redwood top in the shop that one day i might use for a flat top mandolin.

[Charlieshafer]

Picking up on the "green" mandolin materials part of this thread, has anyone ever tried using old spruce from buildings? I restore old houses in Connecticut for a living, and every now and then, there's some gorgeous straight-grained fir, pine, hemlock, and rarely, spruce. Air-dried for 200 years! If someone wants to give it a go, I'll start saving what I find for someone to experiment with.

[Bill Snyder]

Charlie, some of the builders frequently used salvaged wood. Bill Bussman (Old Wave) has used a lot of it.

[Charlieshafer]

Interesting, Bill. I'll have to contact him to see if he likes it, and if so, what does he look for. Might as well attempt to put the stuff we pull out into a different orbit.

[Bill Snyder]

I am not a professional builder, but I have built a few instruments and I am about to start a tenor guitar made from all salvaged woods. The top will be clear, quartersawn redwood from a 28 year old deck. The back, sides and neck salvaged mahogany from a remodel on a 37 year old house or maple from an old church.

[Michael Lewis]

Redwood can make great soundboards, or not. I find it less forgiving than spruce, like it has a narrower "window" of dynamics, and consequently is a bit more sensitive to how it is used. I find it is better to leave it slightly thicker than I would leave spruce to avoid a woofy response. Capitalize on it's qualities of stiffness, high Q factor, and light weight which tend to bring out clarity of tone, sustain, dry warm tone.

I have a stash of old growth redwood that was taken from a "blow down" that was so damaged from the fall the lumber folks didn't want it. It has yielded a good supply of excellent instrument tops for both archtop guitars and mandolins.

[Charlieshafer]

Hey Michael, I get blown-down old-growth Port Orford cedar from up in Oregon, and it can be beautiful stuff, so I bet that redwood is just gorgeous. Are you getting one-piece tops , or glueing them up? I know one-piece would be better, but wonder about defects. Of course, in redwood, the trees are so huge, that's probably not an issue.

I have to say, there's something about Bill's recycled deck project that's really great. I hope the tenor sounds wonderful, just for the sheer cool factor. Make the pickguard out of a recycled tire or something, to really get that ethos spinning. Good luck!