Tonewood Spotlight: Spanish Cedar

You may have noticed something slightly different about our necks. Not only do they feature a comfortable satin finish and Andrew’s specific C-Shape, but they also include Spanish Cedar as their featured tonewood.

While Spanish Cedar is not unique to Andrew White Guitars, it’s still a question that comes up fairly often in discussion with customers–why Spanish Cedar and not Mahogany?

Firstly, Spanish Cedar is a tonewood that has been renowned for many years because of its stability when used as a neck wood. Not only that, but after years of building guitars and ordering large quantities of tonewoods, Andrew noticed that Spanish Cedar is a much more consistent wood in terms of density, weight, and tone coloration than Mahogany. It’s also just a bit lighter than mahogany in weight, contributing to a more balanced feel to our instruments.

This is by no means a dig on mahogany! It’s an absolutely stunningly beautiful wood. But, when we’re manufacturing guitars for consistency, it’s best to work with materials that we can depend upon for consistency. And hey, Spanish Cedar is awfully beautiful, too.