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I'm so hesitant to bring this up after searching the forum and reading some previous conversations about this, but here it goes anyway. Ive got, you guessed it, some curly redwood to use as tops. I am a beginner working on my third guitar currently and would like to use these tops. I read some posts from Steve Saville during the building of the one he did a few years ago. Wondered how that turned out. Was also wondering if others have found a quality way to do this. I may be opening a can of worms here but I was hoping to get some more info on this topic. No I won't be selling this instrument. It will be for me. So if the top cracks after I'm done or the tone isn't a great quality not a big loss.

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Kyle

I doubt your redwood top will crack at all. In fact IMO figured redwood is a perfect candidate for a double top. I've only build one double top and while it does sound differently then a regular top it's not like the mind blowing, incredible, stupendous etc... difference that I was led to believe. But then, it was only my first. But the nomex once bonded up is incredible stiff stuff. The top I made was so stiff it felt like it didn't even need bracing. I made the fan bracing very very light.

It's not terrible difficult to do but a bit more time consuming. I'm not sure I would be able to do it without the precision of a drum sander either. You need to get the wood insanely thin across the whole board. I say go for it.

So, just how thin is "insanely thin?"

Also, I have no idea how these are made, do you make a sandwich wtih wood on both outer surfaces? And what glue do you use?

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Phil

http://www.oleninstruments.com

"Those who tilt at windmills are only considered insane by those who can't see the dragon."

I have made 2 of these figured redwood guitars. I would never use figured redwood without making a double top. Some do and get great results, so it can be done, all I am saying is that I will not do that.
I laminate the redwood to some very stiff Lutz spruce using West System 105 epoxy. I build to a stiffness rather than a thickness. These 2 baritone guitars ended up at about 0.085" thick. They were not too stiff and they felt a lot like a regular spruce top. I applied just enough epoxy to each side to wet them (to keep weight down) and left a little extra epoxy under the bridge.

I got the idea when I was looking at an older Washburn dread that I had. It had something that looked like thin Formica sheet laminated to spruce and the darn thin sounded pretty good. I figured if the could do that good with that combination, that I could do better using good wood and modern bracing/voicing.

Yes - not as fancy as using a honey come space age material or some fabrication of a hallow matrix of balsa, but it did work well. I think they sound pretty goodtoo - but you be the judge -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwXAm_cUh4g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pf3al9R_Nlk

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"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." G. K. Chesterton.

Thanks for the replies. Steve that guitar is beautiful and sounds great. I will be starting this in the next couple of months so I may be contacting you with further questions if you don't mind. I look forward to using these tops and appreciate the info you've provided.

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Kyle

Kyle,
I'd be happy to help. PM - email - or call.
The 2 YouTubes links are of 2 different guitars. I guess that story talks to the sound quality of my double redwood top methodology. I got a call from 2 guys that played the first one saying they wanted one exactly like that.

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"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." G. K. Chesterton.

LMI's website has a link to Robbie O'Brien's videos which walks through how to make them. (www.lmii.com - bottom right corner called "Over 60 Online Video Tips"). Should answer general questions for you!

Hope it helps,

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Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.

I used cedar sheets and got them down to about 0.040" thick. I didn't quite use the method linked to above but rather took a thick piece of Cedar and routed in two cavities in the lower bout to take the Nomex. Then thicknessed that appropriately before laminating that to another sheet of cedar and thicknessing that. I also used epoxy.

I have been thinking about laminating two full sheets with Nomex and just cutting the top out from that. One big sandwich. I'm not sure what benefits having a wood frame laminated with the Nomex inside really has but that seems to be the accepted method in various forms anyway.