body wood choice to go with flamed redwood top?

[Brian Evans]

I was at our local hardwood supplier and they had a stash of very finely grained quarter-sawn highly flamed redwood. So I bought a piece 12" by 48", 1" thick, so depending on if I resaw or just join it, one or two arch top tops. It's going to have a pretty dark colour. I have some birdseye maple for a neck and binding, but I am unsure about the body wood. I've been thinking of a mahogany body, but kind of looking for other ideas. Not sure if I want highly figured wood to match the top, or less figured wood to not compete with the top. Any ideas?

Brian

[Bryan Bear]

Go ahead and take a big grain of salt now, then keep reading

I have no first hand experience with redwood in any project much less a top. My understanding is that it can be crack prone especially so when highly figured. I would worry that the flame combined with being carved into an arch would leave you with a whole lot of short grain areas that would be prone to splitting under load. I could be way off base, hopefully someone will come along and says so.

As for aesthetics, I would be worried that another figured wood would compete with the figure in the top and one would end up making the other look less impressive. I would be tempted to use a nice quartersawn walnut. That would let the flamed top and birdseye speak for them selves and provide the bling. The walnut would provide the warm base that the bling jumps off of.

[Barry Daniels]

Is this for a hollow body archtop, or an LP solid body.

[Peter Wilcox]

Not an archtop nor figured redwood, but this is one take on redwood and maple.

http://www.mimf.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4061

[Brian Evans]

It will be a 17" - 17.5" archtop, per the Benedetto formula, and I was also thinking walnut for the back and sides. I was thinking a translucent dark color for the neck that lets the grain show through but keeps the dark sense. The top might turn out lighter than I think, I'm going to plane it a bit tomorrow to see what's inside the wood, it's quite old wood and very oxidized on the outside. I loved the contrast between light and dark on the baby flattop, that was very well done. Thanks very much for the ideas. I can buy some flamed maple side blanks on-line, and they had curly/flamed birch in a wide enough board for a back, so that is an idea that would be in line with the early L-5's, if nothing else. And cheaper - the redwood cost $135!

Brian

[David King]

To carve redwood you'll want to have extremely sharp tools. First thing to do is to cut a 1/8" square matchstick the length of your plank and see how the runout fares when you try to bend it. Compare that to an identically dimensioned spruce matchstick and then thickness your top accordingly.

[Michael Lewis]

Flamed redwood has been somewhat problematic in flat tops, though it may well survive as a carved arch top. So much depends on the piece of wood you have. I would carve the graduations a bit thicker than for spruce just because it's redwood, and maybe a bit thicker because it's figured. Only trying it will tell you if it is a good subject for your guitar.

In my experience with redwood tops it is not very forgiving when carving and shaping. It is all too easy to gouge and chip the grain, which then has to be sanded down to get rid of the damage. You need very sharp tools and work with the grain. Your tools will tell you which direction to push, or they will catch and cause more damage. I guess they mostly tell you which direction NOT to go. The figure in the grain only complicates this for your edge tools, so you may well resort to abrasive means for the bulk of the shaping.

I have a piece of flamed redwood that I have been waiting for the right project to use it, and all the above cautions have so far kept me from investing my time into it, but some day I will go there. This piece is rather dense for redwood, so the consideration of strength versus tone and volume may conflict, but if it doesn't sound good then what use is it?

If you make the body of walnut (great choice) why not use walnut for the neck too? Save the maple for a maple guitar.

[Brian Evans]

I jointed and glued the top the other day, and today I started rough-carving using the drill out the waste and carve away the left-overs method. Very tricky to work with, the grain changes in a half-inch, but for rough carving going across the grain works very well. Definitely planning to leave it a bit thicker than for spruce. What an optical illusion the flames give - you would swear they were wavy but you just planed them so you know they are flat! I'm going to make templates before I go any further, adjusting for 1/4" at the rim instead of 3/16.

Brian

[Patrick Hanna]

Brian,
I see you are pressing on. With luck, you will come out fine. But take Bryan Bear's comments to heart. He was giving good feedback to you.
At the very least, please do NOT throw a lot of highly figured woods together. If you do, you will most likely wind up with a bunch of wood competing for visual attention in a very unsettling way--much like a mis-matched plaid shirt worn with a a different plaid jacket over yet another pattern and color of plaid pants.
Patrick

[Jason Rodgers]

I jointed and glued the top the other day, and today I started rough-carving using the drill out the waste and carve away the left-overs method. Very tricky to work with, the grain changes in a half-inch, but for rough carving going across the grain works very well. Definitely planning to leave it a bit thicker than for spruce. What an optical illusion the flames give - you would swear they were wavy but you just planed them so you know they are flat! I'm going to make templates before I go any further, adjusting for 1/4" at the rim instead of 3/16.

Brian

Get within a 1/16" or so of your final dimensions, and then sand your way down with a ROS or blocks/cauls to avoid the gouging and tearing others warned.

[Brian Evans]

Day two of top carving is over, and the warnings were totally on point. Tough grain tear-out, hard to keep edges from splintering, but the wood rough-carves nicely as long as you understand that you will be shaping the final carve with scrapers and sand-paper. I am heartened by knowing that many top level luthiers have made beautiful and great sounding archtops from curly redwood, including the venerable Mr Benedetto. My previous archtop is red cedar, even softer and less stiff, and it turned out really nicely. Leaning towards mahogany for the back sides and neck at this point.

Brian

[Michael Lewis]

Walnut is close in weight to mahogany, and generally bends easier than mahogany. It is also a rather stable wood which is an important consideration. Certainly one of my favorites.

[Craig Bumgarner]

Mahogany would go well with the redwood both in grain and color.

[Brian Evans]

I bought some nice mahogany for the back, sides and neck. I bought a 48 inch by 12.5" 4/4 board for the back and sides, I'll trim off a 3" wide slice to resaw for the sids and glue up the 9" wide pieces for an 18" wide piece for the back. I came within a half inch of getting a one piece back - there was a great board that was 16.5" wide

Brian

[Patrick Hanna]

Walnut pairs nicely with redwood, cedar or spruce. I've made two mandolins with walnut and redwood. Those were induced arch instruments--not carved. I made a carved 17" archtop guitar with walnut back and sides, but it has a spruce top. It's a very nice sounding instrument. I made a walnut and cedar classical years ago. Again, that was a nice sounding instrument. I had some center joint failures in that one--probably due to inexperience. But it played well and sounded nice before the joint failure.

[Brian Evans]

I looked for walnut, but I couldn't find any that was wide enough for a two piece back of a 17' guitar. Grain was fairly twisted, and lots of knots. I didn't want to go to a three piece back, so I got the mahogany. After I took the roughsawn outside off, it has a really nice grain a light colour to it. Boards were fairly twisted after I got it roughed out, so I have some planing to do to create the flat glue surface on the bottom of the back blank. What happened is I cut off three inches from the side of my board to resaw into sides, and it twisted after I took that edge off. Only about 3/32 across the 9" face of each board, but still some extra work.

[Michael Lewis]

So, you have some stress in the wood. Maybe it wasn't dried well, or maybe that's the way it grew, but either way you have to deal with it. If you cut your board at 24" how much warp will show up in each piece? Maybe you can flatten one side of each 24" board and not lose very much thickness. The thickness is not a make or break criterion for making a good guitar, it can be a bit less than an inch. Some of the instruments made by Linda Manzer and Tom Ribbecke use some rather minimal arching.

[Brian Evans]

That is exactly my thought. I'm flattening the back with a jack plane, and I expect that when I carve it the stress, if there still is any, will relax. I actually think I was wrong about the board moving, I think it was cupped a bit more than twisted. Should be good to go!

Brian