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Posts: 1714
Joined: Jan. 29 2012
From: Seattle, Washington, USA
First cedar soundboard
"Luthier and organologist MARIO GRIMALDI from Crotone (Italy) in his book dedicated to Pietro Gallinotti (1885-1979) reports that this luthier from Solero, as far back as 1952, had built a guitar with a soundboard made from Thuja Plicata, a wood also known as Western Red Cedar. This guitar was awarded a prize in a lutherie competition in Torino that same year. This guitar pre-dates by at least ten years the famous instruments from the Jose Ramirez III shop in Madrid, which has traditionally been credited as the first to use this material for the soundboard." https://www.guitarsalon.com/blog/?p=31971
I think at this time in history the cedar cost was near to nothing, as I can remember. However the spruce was abundantly available at very reasonable cost.
I think it was the progressive availability of spruce and cedar that helped Ramirez switch to the cedar for a lot of his guitars. The cost of cedar still remained low.
I can remember hunting for cedar at the lumber yard and finding some real good boards to work with. But now-a-days I just ask LMII to send me the best they have.
Don't forget the Fleta Bros.
I think that these two makers are referenced to be the major proponents of the cedar tops.
Also, a relatively unknown maker in Dallas Texas built a redwood top for some if his creations in the early 50's that Pepe Romero fell in love with.
It’s just what you call a western red cedar top or cedar top. Probably the majority of guitars today are made with cedar top while redwood or sequoia top are rarely used. Ramirez III claimed to have been the first one discovering how good this wood can be in guitar making and in fact almost all the Ramirez guitars from 1965 on are cedar topped. Fleta followed the path shortly after but Ramirez for sure made this wood famous. Manuel Bellido also claimed to be the first one having made a guitar with such a wood. Eventually Gallinotti anticipated the two of them of 10 years. Gallinotti is not very well known outside of Italy and yet he is probably one of the greatest Italian luthiers ever. Segovia, just to name one, used to have great consideration of the man but he was an humble man who never made great money. to many Gallinotti is in the same league of Hauser.
Please read this thread. https://www.classicalguitardelcamp.com/viewtopic.php?t=98820 Gerhard Oldiges (gjo) is a guitar-maker and guitar historian and guitar-maker Scott Tremblay is an expert in historical instruments. Their comments are very convincing about the Germans being the first to use cedar for soundboards.
"Thuja plicata, commonly called western red cedar[2] or Pacific red cedar,[3] giant arborvitae or western arborvitae,[3] giant cedar,[3] or shinglewood,[3] is a species of Thuja, an evergreen coniferous tree in the cypress family Cupressaceae native to western North America. It is not a true cedar of the genus Cedrus."
There are a great number of common or commercial names for timbers that go against the scientific name of the species. I certainly wouldn't use the word "cypress" when buying a cedar guitar top, but maybe a taxonomist would use the word when discussing the species.
It’s good to know but it’s not that relevant. I mean, in all honesty, that it’s important just for statistics if an unknown maker used a cedar top for the first time for an unknown Viennese guitar in 1900. I think that Gallinotti deserves praise for his intuition (He used different woods for the top at the time) as much as Ramirez deserves the merit to have spread first rate cedar topped guitars all around the world.
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