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I'd be interested in hearing people's thoughts regarding the use of Western Red Cedar for steel string guitars. I've played a couple of retail guitars with WRC tops (Tanglewood, for one) that sounded very nice, and now I've made a couple that turned out pretty well.

Beyond the ususal caveats and qualities ( it's a softer wood, take care not to damage during building; cedar guitars open up right away, no waiting; gaining favor among steel string builders/players; must be left thicker, for structural purposes), can anyone add any other considerations, recommendations, etc.?

TIA,

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Ken Mitchell
Durham, NC

Well, there is cedar and then there is cedar. Some of the coastal WRC is as dense and stiff as Euro spruce. Really, if you work it out to the same thickness as a spruce top, the weights will be almost identical. I have not the slightest hesitation to use this heavier cedar for steel strings. The lighter colored, pink to tan stuff seems to be the heaviest . Chocolate cedar is usually the lightest. The lighter weight cedar might be a bit too tender for steel strings, IMO. You should have no problem finding the lighter colored stuff as that seems to be what most vendors have.

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Stay with the happy people.
--Reynolds Large

I have used some very chocolate WRC on a couple OMs with great sucsess. The were not a stiff as some Euro or Sitka by any means but not flimsy either. I thind to .125" as my pre-voicing thickness and all worked out just fine One is over 6 years old now with no issues. I am not so sure the color really tied to the density. It may be but I would not reject a top for still sting use on that basis.

Ken my friend from reading your post I think that you covered all the bases for working with WRC already and understand what to watch for.

I'll reiterate though that at least in my case WRC dented very easily and great care needs to be taken while building to avoid dents. They do steam out but it's a pain and the worse part for me was that to this day I have no idea how my top dented or what I did to cause it.

I used the darker chocolate variety and since this was an SJ and a larger guitar I went with .130 before final sanding and thinning it around the edges a bit.

Even though what we hear is very subjective to my ears WRC produces a very rich sounding guitar with lots of overtones.

WRC/mahogany combination is a steel string fingerstyler's classic.

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Colin,
Yes, of the three WRC topped guitars that I've made so far, the first was WRC and mahogany, travel size w/ a deeper body, and it turned out to be one kick-butt little bluesy guitar... quite impressive for its size! So yes, the WRC/mahogany seems to be a great combo.

However, the second WRC/african striped mahogany has developed some issues, probably due to an inferior piece of WRC. It developed some cracks during finishing, before I'd even strung it up. Some finish cracks appeared first, probably due to my trying to spray in the winter, moving it in and out from kitchen (night) to mud room / make-shift spray room (with exhaust fan pulling warm air through from the kitchen). I was very careful to warm up the mud room with a little space heater, and let the guitar acclimate as well as possible. But after getting a virtually flawless series of coats on the guitar, it developed some finish cracks... long, windy, branching out from the bridge area It must have been from temperature change, in spite of my efforts. Then while wet sanding the top (to see just how bad the finish cracks would show), the moisture caused some longitudinal semi-cracks to show up. These were 'into' the wood, and I'm now thinking that I'll have to do a re-top. I think that this was just an inferior top set. I have some 'good stuff' from one of our sponsors that I'll probably replace it with.

The third WRC guitar that I've made has rosewood back and sides. Based on the first 3-4 months of play, this doesn't seem to be as good a combination of woods.

Hesh, you're right... I've had some dings appear in WRC while on the bench. Some I realize right when it happens. Others just appear out of NOWHERE!#$%

MBD's...Mysterious bench dings.

Thanks for the input, everyone. I'll proceed, but with caution

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Ken Mitchell
Durham, NC

I've used WRC on 4 instruments, and I love all of them. One was my bouzouki which was WRC and Koa. This is the best combination of all, but I did use lattice bracing. On most guitars I've played, I notice the trebles are thinner and not as round sounding. Don't know if that is just a characteristic of Cedar, or if it is just bracing and thickness of top. But I love the tone of cedar, and it smells nice. All of the instruments I have done have dings in them. It was impossible for me to protect the top during the build. So you might want to cover with some sort of thin plastic while handling it around the shop.

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Tracy
http://www.luthiersuppliers.com

True (especially Cuban mahogany):



But . . . WRC/European maple is another heavenly marriage:

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

I'd like to also add cedar/walnut to the mix as another combination that is pretty special. It is very warm and very rich. There seems to be more separation in the notes than with rosewood, making it a lovely combination for fingerstyle.

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Dan

I've built (and have 2 in the works right now) 5 cedar toped guitars to date for a total of 7 of 8 guitars with cedar tops (the other is Lutz spruce). 4 of them have EIR back and sides, the 5th has big leaf maple (Dave's was my inspiration). I love the sound of a cedar toped guitar. You can't drive them as hard as a spruce top as the tone seems to get muddy but you can strum them and they won't distort to bad. The one thing I find with cedar toped guitars is that you can brace them heavier (not that you need to) and you won't get a thin sound from it. You will still have the warm lower tones which cedar is so well known for.

As far as thickness goes, it really does depend on the wood you have in your hands. The top on my maple cedar guitar sanded to 0.115" before bracing so I bet it's about 0.110" now with no signs of bellying or abnormal distortion. The bracing on it is also 1/4"x9/16" X brace, scalloped (only slightly though). So again, it depends on what you are shooting for, for sound (that maple cedar was built for finger style, it doesn't drive hard very well) and what you're working with.

I sort of hate to give out numbers because as many of us know, they can really be misleading. I'm privileged to have a great cedar supplier in my back yard and a sponsor to the OLF in CV Tonewood so I've got to handle a large amount of cedar when I went to pick my sets.

As for dings, ya cedar seems to ding and dent just by looking at it funny. What I do now with cedar is after the rosette is installed, I final sand it to 240 then put on 2-3 coats of shellac, let it cure for a couple of days before I start bracing it. This seems to help keep the dents down.

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Great tip, Rod!

An East Indian Rosewood/Cedar SJ was the first acoustic I fell in love with and also the one that got me to run "building a guitar" into a search engine when I was 16. The sound is warm with heavenly overtones that seem to shimmer on and on. The attack is a bit less defined in my experience than the spruces. It's the Vibrolux with 15" speaker of the acoustic world. It's the perfect combo for someone who wants a guitar for acoustic jazz, R&B, perhaps coming to steel string from a classical . . . that type of thing. A mellower sound that isn't as in your face.

The in between is redwood. I think redwood has many of the same characteristics with a more defined attack. Not as warm, but still plenty of it with the similar un-ending shimmer of overtones.

Rod - great tip about shellac at the early stages... thanks! I'd heard that before, and then forgotten about it

Dan - yes, another note I need to write down... cedar and walnut! There are some clips on Youtube of people playing McIlroy guitars, a couple of models of which are cedar/walnut... they have a very nice sound! Of course, a lot of that is due to the builder too

Good recommendations all! Thanks - Ken (I'm going to WRITE THEM DOWN this time)

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Ken Mitchell
Durham, NC

Ken,

I actually own a McIlroy cedar/walnut and had the privilege of playing several of his guitars all in one sitting. I played the mini-jumbo cedar/walnut and the sitka/rosewood as well as a jumbo cedar/walnut and his very first dread which was sitka/rosewood. First of all, there was not a bad guitar in the bunch and they were all phenomenal in their own way, but I have to say as a fingerstyle player, I fell in love with the warmth of the mini-jumbo cedar/walnut. It is so warm and clear and you just feel it in your gut. My brother, who plays bluegrass, was in awe over the sitka/rosewood guitars. All in all, it was a pretty fabulous day

Dan

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Dan