Redwood can be a very musical tonewood

Redwood can be a very musical tonewood. But it is rarely used in commercially available guitars since it dents , scratches, splits, and cracks relatively easily. It takes much more care when building  with it.  However, it can reward the builder with a great sounding guitar (similar to in tone to well-played, 75-year-old guitars). This species of wood must be very carefully selected since redwood does vary from hard to very soft. Consequently, only a very small percent of this wood is appropriate for musical instruments.

All wood seems to become more musical as time goes by. The wood from the bottom of the wine aging tanks at Charles Krug is over 125 years old. It has not become too brittle or dried out since it spent most of its time holding wine. This is what I used for the top, or soundboard, of some of my new instruments.

The soundboard or face of a guitar is the primary source of the volume and essential tone of the instrument. It must vibrate and so is required to be flexible, strong, and light (or low in mass). Spruce is the first choice for instruments since its strength to weight ratio is highest of all the woods. Redwood can approach the spruce ratio with careful selection.

Spruce or redwood are not used on the back and sides because these are subject to the most abuse and they dent, crack, and split much more easily than a harder wood such as rosewood. The back couples to the front acoustically and it absorbs, reflects, and distributes the musical vibrations. It functions as a sort of tone control. Rosewood is the first choice for guitars because of its beauty, resistance to damage and abuse, and most of all for how it complements and evens the tone of the soundboard. (The rosewood used on this guitar is plantation grown in India; it is not forest harvested). Redwood has a darker tone and rosewood tends to accentuate a brighter sound. These two woods complement each other for a even tonal match.

This  guitar is built with a redwood top sourced from the bottom of the 125-year-old aging tanks at the Charles Krug winery in Napa, Californina. It has exceeded my expectations. It has a familiar yet darker tone that is very much like guitars from the 1930s—very nice for jazz, Brazilian music, finger-style guitar, and not too bad for blues. And it smells wonderful!