Official Luthiers Forum!

Agreed. That's where innovation comes in handy. That neck...it might could have been good with some CF in there. That's "finding a way where none was before". You're spot on about the data, I just think that a person with enough drive and enough brains just might be able to blaze a new path, even though others have tried and failed in the past.

The truth is, there's a big market for guitar-bling, and if a person has the smarts to find a way to make unstable bling into something no longer unstable, and yet have great sound characteristics, I think we'd all agree that's a good thing to know about. But that person will have to be prepared for failures along the way. It comes with the territory. As you know, innovation often comes with a price.

_________________
"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

I agree with every thing that has been said here on both sides.
I built an electric guitar neck recently out of a lovely peice of curly
honduras mahogany.
after i had fitted the neck i had an accident and the guitar fell off my
bench.
normaly i may have had a dent to steem out or maybey a nasty crack but
on this occasion the head stock snapped clean off at the nut and you
could see the where the grain had split with curl.
This was an extreme case of curl but it taught me that i should not use
curly mahogany for necks.
I had to make that mistake to learn even though i new it before i tried.

Its the same thing with curly redwood.
We see top makers like patric james eggle making his high end guitars
with curly redwood and of course we want to try this beautyful wood.

The chances are that my guitar may explode into peices when i string it
up and then i will know not to build with it again.
but i may get a stunning guitar from it either way i have learned and as its
not at the cost of a customer on this one then what harm has been done.

I dont think i willl be using curly redwood as regular thing but i may offer
it to customers as option but with a disclaimer and a warning that it may
not be the best choice as a top wood.

As they say the customer is allways right.

Joel.

And let me get this straight once again...

The choice is because it's stunning, right?

I guess sound just isn't the most important thing with guitar making anymore...

rick i agree with you and bow to your knowlege but please we all have to
make our own mistakes to progress as builders.

the fact is that most musicians will be drawn to a curly redwood topped
guitar before a streight grained spruce guitar and sometimes that can be
a real asset.

So even though sound is 100 % important we sometimes have to break
from our intuition to create interest in our product and make it stand out
from the crowd so that our better built and sounding instruments may be
heard.

After this thread i dont think i will ever use redwood again but that does
not mean that there isnt someone out there who will learn new
construction techniques etc that will make it viable to use crw in the best
sounding guitars.

Joel

Joel, I'm very thankful that I don't have to repeat every mistake made by a luthier in the past...

And, not to beat this dead horse, but that is one of the reasons I'm so thankful to have spent so many years doing guitar repair work.   I got to see a lot of the past mistakes; I got to analyze them; and I got to come up with fixes for them.   

Really what I am advocating is simply taking an honest and objective look at the qualities that make up superior guitar parts.   The visual should not be at the top of the list unless your goal is to make flash GLO's...Guitar-Like-Objects...that like shiny beads or fools' gold blind the customer to true value. I regard guitars as the tools of the guitarist's trade.   OK, sometimes those tools are mere props, but I really want to make instruments that will be valued for tone two hundred years from now. I personally don't believe that applies to curly redwood topped guitars.   They'll do nicely in glass cases in museums...great visuals...poor performers.

I have been reluctant to post in this thread not wishing to ruffle any feathers but I see things a bit differently, and hear them a bit differently too.

My curly redwood topped guitar is two now, holding up fine, has great tone, projection, and a nice mix of complexity and fundamentals.  It was played and scrutinized by well over 20 OLFers now and they all liked it.  It was also an early build for me with none of the refinements or advanced things that I have learned since.

And I get lots of favorable comments on it frequently from my web site including offers to purchase it.  In short it is a great sounding guitar and holding up fine.  It was used to perform in front of hundreds of people but I hesitate to say where because it is political.

And as Joel mentioned people are attracted to guitars often just as much by the bling factor as the tone.  If they weren't everyone would be playing D-18s.

Lance has had a great deal of success with his redwood/coco guitars so much so that I believe that he has built 6 of them now.

To my ear redwood, or at least my guitar, has some of the qualities of Adi but to a slightly lesser degree.

I do hear ya buddy on the dangers of curly tops but Redwood is a unique species that is currently supporting a 363 foot tall tree, the tallest on the planet. located not far from you and it's exact location is a closely held secret by the park rangers to keep humans from impacting it.

In as much as this wood is supporting the tallest trees on earth I think that be it curly or not it needs to be judged individually and differently from other curly woods.

In summery I disagree that redwood, curly or straight grain is not a good sounding tonewood.  I also believe that a talented luthier can brace nearly any top accordingly to match the unique qualities of the wood.

And, to each their own, I love the way redwood looks both curly and straight grained.

I understand you have seen what some examples of this wood can do over time but I also understand that you have not seen what every example might do - who could.

If I can find more quality, beautiful curly redwood that is stiff in both directions and I want to use it for a project I will not hesitate to do so. 

But I appreciate your years of experience, sharing, and very respected opinions.

Thanks.

Hesh, I'll say it again. I hate warranty work. I've had a lot of curly redwood through my resaw, through my hands, and I've used it on non-acoustic instruments. That it supports a tall tree is irrelevant to this discussion. It's gorgeous stuff, and I just hope your curly redwood topped guitars never take the kinds of hits I've seen some of my guitars take being used on stage every night. If they did, they'd explode. I'm sure you're making visual masterpieces.   I'm also sure you're not making guitars to be road worthy for the kind of night after night use that many of my guitars get. I'm mostly not building for living room player/collectors; I'm building for road dogs and studio musicians. Looks are important, but sound and roadworthyness are more so.

Rick thanks for the reply and again I greatly respect your perspective and vast years of experience.

It could be, and this might make an interesting new thread, that there is a natural disconnect between the concerns of repair people and many or some builders.

For example, a guitar built to sound open and full right off the bench may be a repair person's nightmare in time or even in not very much time.

I will add that my first 20 guitars were never intended to be sold - they are my education or should I say the beginning of my guitar building education since learning never ends........  I am using proven designs, tweaking more with each one, finding my own path/sound, and at no risk to anyone since I rarely sell or will sell a guitar.

Anyway thanks for the reply - I hear ya buddy and I even agree with the caution that needs to be applied to using curly redwood.  But there are no absolutes in much of anything and again I think that a highly skilled luthier, and I am not speaking of me here, far from it, could compensate for the unique and even less than desirable quirks of CRW.

Thanks again for the sharing and caring Rick - it's greatly appreciated!

Rather than defend or support the use of curly redwood, if we asked
whether it had greater potential to fail than any of the other usual
suspects for soundboards, would anyone say no?

I don't think I need comment!

Well, other than to say, "What would a blind guitarist say?"

Rick you are right i have the oppeetunity here to take in the experience
and avoid the mistakes of others. but at the same time nothing ever
teaches a lesson better than hands on experience.

I toaly agree with negative factors and structualy and tonally crw not the
be the best options. but a guitar that one person thinks sounds like its
topped with orenge peel another guitarist may think is the holy grail in
"tone"

i bow to your expreince in this and agree that we should realy look at its
suitability as a soudboard materiel.

I would however like to find out what a blind guitarist thinks and maybe i
will ask one when my current build is finished,

Joel.

Rick, the only people here who are completely objective are you and me . . . and I have some doubts about you.

_________________
Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

Howard, you, Mario, and I should just start a Curmudgeonly Luthiers' Club. We each get the classic caveman's club...in Brazilian rosewood...as symbols of our malevolence.

Respectfully - do I have permission to use Photoshop to superimpose your three faces on the three stooges?  I believe they did a film in caveman skins.....

And yes Howard your BRW club would be dovetailed, Rick's would have impeccable fret work, and Mario's would have the secret tone enhancer/bar.

Go for it, Hesh!

Howard's would have dovetails all over it from all the doves he's smashed.   Mine would have graduated sized frets made of unobtanium, and Mario's would have one of the passive listening devices invented by Lev Termin...aka Leon Theremin...that he put into a carving of the "Great Seal of the United States" that went into the then-new US Embassy in Moscow. Termin was working for the KGB after having been kidnapped in New York in the 1930s and hustled back to Russia. True and fascinating story there.

http://www.nexistepas.com/enthuse/index.php/2007/07/23/leon- theremin/..

  Thanks Rick - the Theremin was a device that produced a moog like sound right?  I did not know the rest of the story about him - wow!!!

Hesh - here is your Theremin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6bSRcRAhnc

"Just a little song I wrote....."

_________________
Steve Walden
Aspiring Builder,
Bartlesville, OK

Rick - here is the link you gave:

http://www.nexistepas.com/enthuse/index.php/2007/07/23/leon- theremin/

_________________
Steve Walden
Aspiring Builder,
Bartlesville, OK

Well, you should say that Moog produced a sound like Theremin who is credited with creating the first "modern" electronic synthsizer in 1919 (as opposed to electro-mechanical synths which go back even further).   Moog got his start building Theremins when he was a teenager, and then in the last few years of his life, went back to making Theremins.   

Interesting he chose loco-Weed as the intro?

_________________
"It's a Tone Faerie thing"
"Da goal is to sharpen ur wit as well as ye Sgian Dubh"
"Sippin Loch Dhu @Black lake" ,Kirby O...