Rosewood top for arcthops?

[Sam b]

Anyone had any experience with REDWOOD topped archtops? I've seen a couple of them on the web but never in person.
I thought maybe a REDWOOD with a walnut back and sides would be really cool.

[Jimmy blue note]

Anyone had any experience with Rosewood topped archtops? I've seen a couple of them on the web but never in person.

I thought maybe a rosewood with a walnut back and sides would be really cool.

Very difficult and expensive wood to work with. To make an archtop, you must begin with enough wood to maybe make 4 or more sets of backs and sides on a flat top or classical. The cost differential alone on an instrument that would have to have a VERY hefty pricetag, in a very rarified market would dissuade most luthiers.
Rosewood is very different from spruce as a tone wood. The luthier would need completely different arching patterns and graduations, thicknesses and tuning relationships to assure an even frequency response.
Rosewood also rings, like many of those woods like padouk or osage. That can translate to very quick attack but not a pleasing decay envelope the way a wood with a greater strength to weigh ratio like spruce, cedar or even pine. You could very well wind up with something that rings like a bell but is not easy to control if that's not the sound you want.
Add to that the fact that rosewood is VERY hard on tools and WAY more time consuming to work, needing constant sharpening of chisels, gouges and scrapers to remove material even before final graduations.
It's a very oily wood. It can be problematic to get a clean solid and reliable glue join down the middle of a book match where thicknesses get into fractional mm ranges after graduating. Yes you can run a centre strip down the middle as is necessary when joining rosewood flattop backs but it's not acoustically accepted as a practice in archtop or violin building.
Rosewood is also what's known as an open pore wood. That means a lot of prep to fill pores before you're even ready to apply initial base coats of finish. That's time (filler coats shrink over time so a smooth level surface starts to show grain holes as it cures over time).

I can go on. But in peripheral answer to your question, there are other woods that have been used as archtop tonewood. Mahogany is much more workable and comes within that range of hardness, oak has also been used as it can have a similar density and Q to rosewood. Maple solid top is also a great alternative to rosewood, plentiful and easier to carve. Still, you don't see many solid maple tops... you might ask yourself why.

Any luthier who builds archtops with rosewood is swimming in deep uncharted territory and extremely time consuming labour of love with a not inconsiderable amount of risk, not only in acoustic success but in the sale of the beast.

Maybe this is why it's not big on the radar of lutherie?

[Sam b]

OMG, I'm such an idiot! I meant redwood!!! So sorry especially after your erudite answer, Jimmy.

[Jimmy blue note]

OMG, I'm such an idiot! I meant redwood!!! So sorry especially after your erudite answer, Jimmy.

Ha ha, oops, but good information since it's posted anyway. Redwood? Excellent wood. It's got a great strength to weight ratio, it's SO easy to work but sometimes TOO easy? I mean it's soft. It sounds great, it's light. It is acoustically a dream to tune...but it's soft as a cloud. Even with a good protective multi layered lacquer finish, a fingernail can deeply mar redwood. That's a turn off for a lot of owners.
Redwood that I've worked with is also tending to be vulnerable to end check cracks for some reason. The trees are felled and the ends must be sealed IMMEDIATELY before the air finds the space between the grain rings. Redwood is brittle, it's light and in my experience not the most durable for a number of reasons. Still I love building with it. Put a pickup onto a redwood top with screws, a pickup ring and the mass of magnets and steel, and redwood can be radically changed and seriously in danger of splits. But here's the biggest obstacle: It's not a prestige wood. Nobody has wet dreams saving for decades to buy an archtop guitar WITH A REDWOOD TOP. There's just no caché to it. It's not traditional. Gibson didn't build with it. Stromberg never touched it. D'Angelico was a solid Spruce champion his whole life. Jimmy D'Aquisto, even in his most experimental searches for ultimate never strayed from spruce. That is a damning vote of no confidence no matter what the unexplored truths might turn up to the contrary.

So yeah, it's a good, excellent wood. I have a redwood/walnut archtop I love in many incarnations (literally) but I lent it to a friend. He sent it back to me in a gig bag via a friend who was moving. She put it beneath a pile of book boxes. It is now a masterclass lesson in splicing and patching. But yeah. I love it to pieces.

[Sam b]

Ah, thanks again, Jimmy. Such good information.
Yeah, I had heard that it was soft but you really relay how soft it is and its seeming precariousness. Certainly wouldn't want a guitar that was prone to splitting. I've seen some sinker redwood tops online. Wonder if they would be less susceptible?
I guess it's the balance of choosing between the benefits of its tone and the dangers of its integrity.
The cache/prestige thing for me personally is not an issue, but I totally understand the market forces at work there.
Cool you have/made a redwood/walnut guitar. Do you have any pics?

Here's a cool video of Michael Lewis talking about one of his Redwood/Walnut guitar with just a little bit of Scott Nygaard playing it.

[Jimmy blue note]

In all honesty, I build for acoustic optimum, that means light. Certainly it can be build with heavier graduations and that would certainly lessen the risk. I'd love to see more builders working with it, it's got such a great sound. Quick and crisp on the attack and resonant and clear on the decay. Yes, I'd love to see luthiers embrace this wood, find out just what can be done with it.
Flat top guitars use it.
Sometimes redwood and cedar are used interchangeably. Explore that in your searches.

[Jim Soloway]

Anyone had any experience with REDWOOD topped archtops? I've seen a couple of them on the web but never in person.
I thought maybe a REDWOOD with a walnut back and sides would be really cool.

We did a lot of redwood tops on our guitars. Not archtops but the Single 15 with it's large, mostly hollow body came reasonably close. We also used a number of walnut tops, again not a perfect match but enough to make a couple of comments.

Both woods tended to be a bit mid heavy but redwood also had a nice sparkle in the high end so they might work well together. Redwood is very soft and because it's been over logged, it's difficult to find the really tight straight grain that archtop builders seem to like. That would be a challenge but for the right price you might find some but do be prepared for it to be expensive. With a wider grain it is much more reasonably priced and can have a stunning figure.

[Gitfiddler]

As stated, Redwood is a relatively soft wood, but still can be a great sounding tonewood. I've never seen an archtop or hollowbody guitar made from it. However a few builders have made solid or semi-hollow guitars from it as noted by Jim Soloway above.

I've seen a few basses made with Redwood as the main tonewood.

Here's a shot of my old Peavey Cirrus neck-through as an example. It has a Redwood/Maple center with Pupleheart stringers and Alder back wings. (Sounds good enough to eat!).

Best of all, sounds amazing.

[Sam b]

That's a very cool looking guitar, Jim, thanks for posting it. I hadn't thought that redwood would be a more expensive option. Having done some reading, sounds like some people prefer non-sinker redwood because the sinker stuff has some inconsistencies in tone.

[Sam b]

That's a beaut of a bass!

[RJVB]

Ben Wilborn builds many of his Comma series flat-tops with "Tunnel 14" redwood tops. Granted, they're not archtops but he alone may be changing the notion that it's not a premium wood...

Since the OP title still pulls in people interested in rosewood tops: it's used for flat-tops too. Cordoba even builds crossover nylon instruments with it, which I wouldn't have believed could work. I think at least one member here owns one, and likes it (I found the sound way too dark).

I'm guessing you could take such a rosewood flat top and either "solid-form" it or use pre-formed bracing to turn it into an arched top.

[Jimmy blue note]

Since the OP title still pulls in people interested in rosewood tops: it's used for flat-tops too. Cordoba even builds crossover nylon instruments with it, which I wouldn't have believed could work. I think at least one member here owns one, and likes it (I found the sound way too dark).

.

Cordoba rosewood top, laminate. More for show than for sound, and for a nylon, unh unh, the opposite of what you need when you're driving a top with the low energy of a nylon string. I'll bet it's intended to be plugged in, so a pretty veneer serves the purpose and sells the guitar. Says nothing about the merits of that top as a sound producing tonewood.