Cupressus Nootkatensis classical guitar?

[Simon Magennis]

I am just about to start a guitar with Victoria island cedar (a.k.a Cupressus Nootkatensis/Alaskan Yellow Cedar) for the back and sides. I have also been vaguely toying with the idea of doing the top from the same material as well.

Any thoughts on this?

The material is quite low density (by feel - haven't weight it) and generally gives a good impression. I build a guitar in the general direction of the Santos Hermandez in the Courtnall book but with somewhat deeper body and set-up as a classical not a flamenco. Sometimes I wander off in the direction of the Segovia Ramirez (GAL) and put in closing bars.

[Nicholas Blanton]

For something called cedar it's surprisingly heavy wood, the pieces I have handled were about as heavy as red maple, acer rubrum. My wood dealer says the Japanese love it for building things like tea houses. I can imagine it would work for back and sides, but for the top of a classical guitar I would think it would be a little too heavy and unresponsive, compared to spruce or western red cedar. The billets, that I have tapped with my knuckle, did not ring very well. Do you have some that do ring?

[Michael Lewis]

Les Stansell makes flamenco guitars (backs, sides, tops, necks) from port orford cedar, which is also a cypress like AK yellow cedar. If your wood is dry it should have decent acoustic qualities.

[Simon Magennis]

Thanks for the comments.
In the end I decided to go with a spruce top. So far the wood is very nice to work with. Planing and sanding are easy although the smell is very aromatic and strong. Currently I am waiting for a "weather window" to assemble the box. We have been having a week of dull grey damp weather so the humidity is too high for assembly. I was very impressed with how dry and light the wood came from the supplier. I suspect that the stock was in their storage for a long while. It was a combination of the lightness and the nice pattern on the first set I thickessed that got me to thinking about doing a top from it as well. In the end I decided that one experiment on the guitar was enough.

[Gilbert Fredrickson]

I owned an AYC flamenco guitar that had a nice dry sound.

[Matthew Lau]

Post pics when you're done!