Western Redcedar: What to Look For?

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Stray Feathers
Posts: 677
Joined: Sun Sep 08, 2013 11:39 pm
Location: Ladysmith, BC

Western Redcedar: What to Look For?

Post by Stray Feathers »

My brother-in-law gave me some cedar he salvaged from the beach on the west side of Vancouver Island. Some of it he has milled into one or two-inch planks. Some of the grain is extremely fine and straight, but I don't know about runout. I am thinking of splitting some body-length pieces down the middle to see if it splits straight. I hope that will give me a "true" surface to resaw from. If I do get any suitable pieces out of this exercise, what should I look for in tap tone or other factors to determine if I get anything guitar-worthy out of it? I had a Yamaki cedar top guitar once which was quite decent, but I have not been drawn to it now that I am building steel string guitars. I understand some builders like it for classicals? I don't have a planer, but do have a thickness sander, and my 14" bandsaw does have a riser block.
Danl8
Posts: 733
Joined: Mon Jul 28, 2014 7:50 am
Location: Chadds Ford, PA

Re: Western Redcedar: What to Look For?

Post by Danl8 »

WR Cedar can make excellent soundboards for classical and steel string guitars. Check Jim Olson's website for details on some of the cedar topped guitars he has made and check youtube for videos of James Taylor playing cedar-topped Olsons. Until hearing the Olson guitars, I never really thought of cedar as a steel string soundboard, but for classical guitars WRC is very common. Tap tones in cedar can be exquisite, but don't necessarily guarantee a great finished instrument. There are a lot of opinions on the Internet some of them are probably good.
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