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Has anyone tried making a neck out of redwood for an ukulele. I have some dry clear 4x4 deck post I cut into 2x3/4 strips and the wood looks pretty good and has not warped over the last month after cutting. It seems like it may be too soft for a neck but not much softer than Honduran Mahogany. I build only Spanish style necks now.

If you use a strip of carbon fiber to strengthen, which many builders do, it should work fine.

Ed

A carbon fiber strip wold be insurance, but I think it would work on a uke without. I just built a guitar with an Alaskan Yellow Cedar guitar with an AYC neck with carbon fiber and after 4 months it still looks fine.

Ed

I once built an entire Western Red Cedar soprano uke, just to see if I could. The neck has held up nicely (5 or 6 years now), no neck reinforcement. Maybe a tenor might benefit from reinforcement as insurance, though my test is how stiff the wood is, not what species it is.

BUT, softwood necks (except yew) are horrible to carve (I've used pine also) because it's so easy to crush the wood rather than cut it. And easy to dent as you work it.

I'd take one corner of that billet and attempt to carve a curve, to see how it behaved. I'd also press my fingernail in to see how easily it dented. If it passed both those tests, I'd happily use it.

Well I tried it and you were right profchris. When it came to carving it was horrible, and i would not recommend it unless your wood has very tight growth rings, but that is not the nature of how Redwood trees grow because they are very fast growing trees.

I did a few awhile back without re-enforcing the neck.....would definitely re-enforce with carbon....one cracked under the nut after a few months....added re=enforcing splines on 'em under the nut. Caveat; I build thinner necks..