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I have a quilted redwood top that I have joined and thickness sanded. Final thickness was .120 which was a little thinner than I was aiming for. The top does not feel stiff at all.

What is the typical thickness for a redwood top?
IS there anyway to tell if this is a useable top other than just bracing it up and seeing what it sounds like?

thanks
Richard

I have built two SJ and one OM with curly redwood. all three were sanded to .125" and final thicknessed at the the perimeters to .115". All three were braced with Sitka. They were not as stiff adn Spruce tops prior to bracing but were fine after bracing.

What Michael said - One curly RW SJ here that was .125 and thinned around the edges. I think that you will be fine at .120 and you can just brace stiffer if need be.

thanks for the input.
Just curious did you scallop your x braces or leave them unscalloped to add strength ?

thanks

Richard

I scalloped mine.

Yep back then I scallope as means of tuning the top. Now daus I don't scallop except if absolutly need to tune the top to where I want it.

I continue to be amazed that people will compromise structural integrity in favor of looks (putting tone aside), by using wood that maximizes runout.

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I've never used flamed redwood, but I built regular straight grained redwood and it behaved much as I would expect WRC. I used similar thickness (about .110) and bracing. Sounded quite nice, if a little bright. More of an issue with the bracing than the top, I think.

I've done it successfully myself and have seen it done many times but I must say there is some truth to this and I personally will never use figured redwood again. The one I built was a classical guitar so the stress is much less. 1/8th around the center tapered to the sides. The guitar is 10 years old now and still problem free. But I remember it was very difficult to work with. A slightly dull tool would rip a curl right out. I can't remember now but I probably braced it with sitka.

BTW it sounded very nice.

Well, are there that many guitars that actually collapsed because of too much runouts on the top wood? After all, it doesn't need the be as tough as possible, it just needs to be tough enough.

Even if we as guitar makers would like to think otherwise, people do hear with their eyes. If a guitar looks cool, the better the chances it will be appreciated by potential customers. That is a very important point when making a living out of making guitars (or trying to...).

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Alain Moisan
Former full time builder of Acoustics, Classicals and Flamencos.
(Now building just for fun!)

I have had people here say that redwood braces don't hold glue very well to sitka top.Wouldn't it be the same thing glueing a redwood top to sitka braces?

i have never had any issue with redwood holding glue.

So Michael, Do you think it would be ok to use for braceing? I milled a bunch of it up as braces and was told not to use it because it doesn't glue well and splits off easy.The stuff i have has real tight grain , probably 40 lines per inch.That's why i was going to use it. Plus it's about 40 years old.

i have a customer that reported back to me that his curly redwood pretty much exploded when he strung it up.
he did however resaw the wood himself and said the wood had the dark brown lines you sometimes get.
the top severly cracked allmost to complete destruction along the darker lines.
of course the short grain cuased by the curl may well have been a major contributing factor.
the top was write off and he had to re top it.
however i had some customers who really like it.

out of all the redwood i get (not much) at least 60% gets rejected as not suitable for acoustic guitars.
only a small proportion makes the grade for me and i must say i am still a little skepticle of of it as a top wood.

time will be the ultimate test, lets hope it holds up to years of use as well spruce or cedar does in the long run (i suspect we will see some faliures as time goes on) .

J.

No because its weight to strength ratio is far less that most spruce. But by no means take my word for it to some deflection testing for your self. you may find you have a more comprable weight to strength ratio than I did.

I ended up useing it for back braces.I put alot of pressure on those and they didn't break.They are perfectly quarter sawn.They are also very light in weight.

This runout rampant redwood top is going on 8 years old.
Some of these tops are very stiff and some are not. I save the floppy ones for double or drop tops.

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I have two redwood tops waiting to be used. One is sinker redwood and the other was called a buckskin redwood because of its color and the tree is came from. The sinker redwood seems much heavier and stiffer,i would guess heavier than the sitka spruce that I have used. Is this normal? The Buckskin seems more like I would expect cedar to be - very light. (Note: I have no experience with cedar, so I may be wrong. I would expect it to seem soft and light)

My uneducated guess is that the sinker redwood might be better for a steel string and the Buckskin better for a nylon, bit I may be over generalizing.

Greg

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Greg Hatcher
North Carolina

Filippo, Thanks for the explanation.

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Greg Hatcher
North Carolina