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Not redwood, but red wood. I am building a late 20's Gibson L-1 shape out of all-Alaskan Yellow Cedar. It has no finish and the neck still has hard corners. It was sitting on a window seat when the sun went down behind it:

Well that sure is pretty cool isn't it.

I was cutting up some beets for dinner last night and my hands looked like that color But seriously I was wondering if beet root could be used as a stain. Looked the saem as that color in the light.

Certainly would stain. The question is how it would hold up over time. Might as well make a test piece, and if you're still curious about it a few years from now, you'll have the answer Actually, make two test pieces, and expose one of them to sunlight to see how that affects it too.

Looks like the pink part of Pink Ivory.

I love a 13 fret neck!

Thanks for noticing the 13 frets - I built a Nick Lucas Special with a 12 fret neck and wondered what the top would sound like with the lower bridge

Ed

Many years ago I made several based on the L-1 pattern. It was a Goldilocks series of builds: 14 -> 12 -> 13 fret. Ah... just right.


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My Goldilocks sisters - but unfortunately they don't have the same magic red glow!

Makes me wonder - the body on this guitar is Alaskan Yellow Cedar, a softwood. Do tops of all guitars have that nice glow when the sun hits them, but we never see it because we aren't inside the guitar?

Ed

My mother in law used to do natural dying of wool. She dismissed all of the things like beet and berry stains; they just fade to ugly grey or brown. She got some nice colors from walnut shavings I gave her, though. A couple of years ago I made a pernambuco guitar, and saved some of the shavings and sawdust. My mother in law is long gone, but I took those shavings to a local craft store that caters to weavers, spinners, knitter and dyers, and they were pleased. Pernambuco is 'Brazil wood'; the stuff they named the country for. It was used as a red dye before they realized it was a good wood for violin bows. Red was always a hard color to get, and expensive.

There is a local craftsman, Peter Bloch, who turns lamp shades from popar logs. Big ones, sometimes. When they're taken down to 1/4" thick or less they transmit a fair amount of light, and produce a lovely warm cast. Some of his shades are 3' long and over a foot in diameter, and only 1/4" thick. I bet he blew up a few in the learning process....!

I think it depends on the thickness of the top? I've had some in my shop you can see through if you hold a bright flashlight over them with a mirror inside. Some do this and others don't.