Redwood — Lutherie Encyclopedia

RedwoodType: tonewoodA rare and visually striking soundboard wood offering cedar-like warmth with improved clarity and a distinctive reddish hue, sourced primarily from salvaged old-growth timber.## Botanical Description Coast redwood (*Sequoia sempervirens*) is the tallest tree species on Earth, reaching heights above 100 meters in its native range along the foggy northern California and southern Oregon coastline. The heartwood is a rich reddish-brown with fine, straight grain and a silky texture. Redwood is extremely lightweight for its stiffness, giving it an outstanding stiffness-to-weight ratio that rivals the best spruces. Tonewood-grade redwood is almost exclusively sourced from salvaged old-growth logs, fallen trees, stumps, and reclaimed timber, as living old-growth redwoods are protected. ## Tonal Properties Redwood as a soundboard wood occupies a tonal space between cedar and spruce. It shares cedar's warmth and responsiveness, with a lush, immediate tone that requires little break-in time. However, redwood offers more clarity and definition in the treble register than cedar, with a sparkle that keeps individual notes distinct in fingerpicked passages. The bass is full and round, the midrange is slightly more present than cedar, and the overall dynamic range is broader. Some builders describe redwood as having the warmth of cedar with the articulation of spruce. Like cedar, it is better suited to fingerstyle and moderate-volume playing than heavy flatpicking. ## Use in Lutherie Redwood has a devoted following among boutique builders, particularly those in northern California. It appears on both steel-string and classical guitars, as well as ukuleles. The v…