Official Luthiers Forum!

Anyone using cedar tops for steel string? If so, what do you do different than a Sitka top?
Thicker? Bracing differences?

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John Ressler

Thicker top, tall and narrow bracing. Cedar is great for SS.

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http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

What you do differently when working with Cedar as opposed to Sitka is be way more careful handling it throughout the build. It's a lot softer and more prone to dings. Depending on the stiffness, you may not want the top to be much thicker, but generally, thicker.

And what Tony said. Can be great for SS.

Cedar and mahogany or sapele makes one heck of a sweet sounding guitar. I just make the top a little thicker. Sort of in the .120-.125 range where as my Sitka tops are generally around .105-.110.

Also +1 on the handling it carefully. After I get the top on and bound I cover it with paper. It helps some.

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

Ugh...dents dents dents! Shouldn't be a problem for a pro like you though
I followed the usual advice for ~1.20 thickness and it sounded great

I love cedar-topped guitars -- they come right out of the gate sounding open and played-in. All the cedar Lowdens I've played sound great, and yes, they're a lot thicker -- at least .125". Just don't combine it with a pinless bridge -- the cedar is likely to eventually fail catastrophically. We had one in the shop pop loose the other day, just hanging on the wall. Sounded like somebody took a baseball bat to it. The bridge had a nice even layer of cedar fibers on it.


Ken Jones
Mountain Song Guitars

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Mountain Song Guitars www.mountainsongguitars.com

I have one customer who prefers cedar on his steel strings.

Cedar generally has lower density than spruce (not always!). Since the Young's modulus (a measure of potential stiffness) of softwoods pretty well tracks the density you usually need to leave cedar tops thicker than spruce (but not always!). I measure this stuff, but if you don't a decent rule of thumb is to leave cedar about 10% thicker than you would spruce, or 15% if it's really light.

Cedar is softer than most spruce; hence the dings. Be really careful. Check constantly, and, when you see a ding, wet it immediately. The longer it stays dinged, the harder it will be to swell out.

Cedar (and redwood) tend to split more easily than spruce. They can suffer from peeling bridges. Making the bridge wider (by, say, 3-5mm (1/8"to 3/16"+) reduces the peeling stress along the back edge. If you want to keep the weight of the larger bridge down, make it from something like walnut. Add a little more width so that you can move the saddle slot back a bit from the leading edge, to help protect against split out with the somewhat softer wood.

Thanks for the replies.

I have fallen in love with Walnut / Cedar

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John Ressler

I really like cedar/rosewood for a fingerpicking guitar. Thickness according to material properties; i.e. leave it thicker (generally) than you would spruce.

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

I thought the same thing Filippo. Looks like Koa. Pretty.

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jw ( o)===:::

The bridge, rosette and binding are figured Australian blackwood, an acacia very similar to Koa.

More pics of this sort of thing here, for those interested. Please pardon the humour!

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

Thanks for the link Trevor and I loved the humour!

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jw ( o)===:::