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I've always seen it associated more with finger style, however, I've a client that wants a sinker redwood strummer? Oxymoron?

Ed,
I think it is fine for strumming. In fact, I feel that the lusher sounding tops tend to work especially well for rhythm strumming if you are using a capo. I think all guitars can be versatile with the exception of maybe cedar/rosewood for jazz or sitka/maple for slow melodic finger style -- and even those combinations might be made to work well in those genres with a little creativity. The bottom line is whether the sound will appeal to your customer rather than will it be suitable for strumming. More than likely, they are going for the sinker redwood because of the way it looks. I personally feel that almost 90% of the guitar playing populace will always vastly prefer Spruce/Rosewood or something very much along those lines in terms of tonal complexity. As long as they understand it won't have quite the same headroom as Spruce and will sound very similar to Cedar but with a bit more shimmer in the trebles, then they should be pleased.

Personally, I find that Redwood/Walnut or Mahogany is a great wood combination and very versatile.

I made a 12-fret J-45 variant with sinker redwood over walnut that can handle aggressive strumming quite readily.

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George :-)

The GA I made a few years ago in sinker redwood/black acacia is in the hands of a strummer and he drives pretty hard. I went with 25.6 scale to add a bit greater tension to the top so it doesn't flop from his aggressive style. Yet I was able to keep the bracing relatively light so it wasn't a tank.


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Another plus 1 for sinker redwood. I've built several from it and all of them are used as strummers and finger style depending on the material the artist is performing.

My impression of it is very positive, much like Adi but with a tad less projection but a tad more over tones. YMMV

Be careful flexing it though, sinker and regular redwood both like to split with little warning.....

It sounds better too when all the water has been out of it for a goodly amount of time....

In general, I find that 'headroom' seems to relate most strongly to the density of the top: less dense woods, like WRC ad Engelmann, are the ones that tend to lack headroom, while the denser woods like Sitka and Red spruce tend to have the reputation for more. A lot of the redwood I've gotten has been fairly high in density, and if the 'sinker' stuff you've got is like that it should work well in that respect.

I have never used "sinker" redwood, but I did see a whole slew of guitars made from redwood reclaimed from a 19th century water tower. Beautiful wood. There was more variation in tone between them than compared to a bunch of spruce guitars made at the same time by other students. I'm sure the different wood colored the tone, but the effect was so subtle to be drowned out but other more typical factors like bracing, mass of the neck, bridge weight, etc. If you'd have picked up 5 redwood and 5 spruce guitars in a blind test, I don't think I could have told you which was which.


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Interesting...