Problem Finding Good Cedar. Will Redwood Word Just As Well?

I live here in middle of the US. Any and all cedar is full of knots and will not word for building a strip canoe. That said I can get clear redwood in 16-18 foot lengths. Does anyone have any experience useing redwood?

 

It tends to be rather mono-chromatic and pick your grain runout carefully if a particular strip needs to twist a lot, but it works just fine.

 

Either go to a real lumber yard and look for Aye grade cedar, (Note, box stores are NOT lumber yards)
or
Do go to a box store and look for 2x stock in the largest sizes you can find.
The longer and wider sizes usually come from the best parts of the tree.
And then "high grade" it by cutting stock around the few knots that might be there.

You do not need full length stock.

Dan

"I live here in middle of the US. Any and all cedar is full of knots and will not word for building a strip canoe."

 

I did an internet search for “Western Red Cedar lumber Tennessee”.
There are many many suppliers in your state.