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Just wondering what the pros and cons are of using Spanish cedar for steel string necks. I typically inlay graphite rods on either side of the truss rod to stiffen the neck and raise the resonant frequency. With decent mahogany becoming more and more difficult to find at a reasonable price, I'm thinking it might be time to explore other options. Thanks

You'll find Spanish cedar diminishing in supply as well.

It is lighter and softer than mahogany but the taste of the dust in your mouth is acrid and bitter and will spoil your meals. But I love it.

PO cedar, Khaya, and walnut are suitable, as is cherry.

Pros- works great, finishes great, smells beautiful
Cons- dust is nasty. Wear mask when sanding. Cites listed (but what isn't these days?)

All things being equal, has anyone noticed SC being not as strong as HM on SS guitars? Such as more relief at string up?

I've only used it for a soprano Uke and it was plenty robust! LOL

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Pat

I had the same question on another forum and was told that Martin has used it and still does on certain guitars.

I've used it lots and lots with no issues beyond the bad taste in my mouth, which is only from the resins. It is definitely strong enough. It's certainly easier to carve than Khaya and most mahogany.

Ed, are you sourcing your Spanish Cedar from a luthier supply, or from a lumber yard?

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

I use Spanish Cedar but mainly build classicals. The option of adding the extra carbon fiber rods that Pete mentioned at the start should eliminate any concerns, I would think. SC is a dream to carve compared to almost anything else, and I'd try to keep using it even if my building drifted to SS.

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

Both, either or.

Yes, I'm building my first SS now, after 5 classicals, and I'm using SC both for the low weight, and the ease of carving. Plus, I actually like the smell!
Mike

I don't think anybody dislikes the smell, it's the taste that's terrible!

As with all woods, cedro varies a lot in density and stiffness. Some of the denser stuff can be as hard and stiff as a lot of Honduras mahogany. The lighter stuff is more like balsa.

There are lots of alternatives. I am going more with domestics these days, and find that butternut makes a decent substitute for cedro. It does tend to be stringy, so it's a little harder to carve, but not much. Some of the lighter samples of walnut can be a pleasure to carve, and compare well with medium cedro. Cherry is a good substitute in general for mahogany. Soft maple works well, and if you get curly wood and laminate two book matched pieces down the center line it's pretty showy.

So true about density (and I assume stiffness, but I"m better calibrated for weight) For this steel string I went through my cedro stash and picked one of the heavier blanks remembering what you had said about the spruces being similar stiffness once you adjusted for density.

I was repairing a Martin Dred a while back and the repair required me to remove the neck. When I got the neck off I was surprised to find that it was SC. I'd never heard of Martin using SC, but apparently they do or did at one point. I don't have any experience using it personally on SS guitars, but as others have said it should work fine, especially if you are reinforcing it. It is generally softer than Mahogany and can easily be dented when you're working with it.

For any builders in Canada looking for SC I currently have a good stock of 1-piece necks as we as 1" stock with separate heal block.

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Josh House

Canadian Luthier Supply
http://www.canadianluthiersupply.com
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House Guitars - Custom Built Acoustic Instruments.
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Martin used Spanish cedar on their early stuff (which was mostly gut strung) but later switched to mahogany. If they are again building with cedar is it because of the lack of availability of mahogany?
I've used cedro for SS guitars, but it was a bit too bendy for my taste. With extra reinforcement or the right truss rod it might work fine. It is easy to work and smells nice in small doses, but when milling large quantities sometimes gives nose bleeds.
I'll use it for nylon strung instruments but for SS I'll use something stronger.

I LOVE Spanish Cedar. I use it everywhere I can. However, it's too soft. Too light. Not going to use in steel strings. Maybe classical ok. Always reach for hog in necks.

Sadly, the rule about stiffness and desity only really applies to softwoods. They all have a very similar structure microscopically, so they tend to be quite similar in that respect. Hardwoods are more complex, and differ more. If you plot Young's modulus along the grain versus density for softwoods the points all tend to fall on the same line. With hardwoods, even of the same species, there's much more scatter.