RED ALERT

Salvaged old-growth redwood finds new life in Grez Guitars models like this Mendocino DC.

- ART THOMPSON

CRAFTING FINE ACOUSTIC and electric guitars with redwood tops is a specialty of Grez Guitars. But while the company is located in Petaluma, California, on the cusp of wine country and sustainably managed redwood forests, Grez has a different source for this tonewood. From the 1800s and well into the 20th century, countless stands of centuries-old trees were wantonly clear-cut for lumber. As a result, old-growth timber is now a prized commodity that has to be salvaged from old structures, such as a decommissioned bridge built in the 1920s, which provided redwood timber for Grez's Smugglers Bridge Folsom guitar.

The company recently sent us a special Mendocino semi-hollow guitar that features an old-growth redwood top (not from said bridge, however) mated to a one-piece Honduran mahogany body and a one-piece mahogany set neck, both finished in matte nitro lacquer. The DC - for double cutaway - differs from the standard Mendocino by having a slightly wider body-14 inches versus 13.25 inches - as well as an f-hole, to give it a slightly more pronounced acoustic voice. It's available without the f-hole if a looser low-end is preferred.

Founder Barry Grez has good reasons for designing his guitars this way. "The Mendocino is the end result of what I've learned building other instruments," he says. "I started out building acoustic guitars, and then larger semi-hollow and archtop guitars. As I started making my semi-hollow instruments smaller, I realized that, while laminated tops and backs are fine for larger instruments, they are too stiff for small bodies. So I used solid acoustic guitar-grade wood, and it brought a little more life back into the instruments. Basically, as the body gets smaller, it wants to resonate less, so I use more resonant materials to compensate.