Hi David and welcome. You can post pictures as long as they are stored in your hard drive by using the Advanced Reply option or when you start a thread. I recommend you start a new thread about it because we have a sub forum dedicated to questions about wood species. Posting there makes it easy for someone else to find the information. You can go there with this link: https://www.routerforums.com/wood-species/
I never see redwood for sale up here but that may be because we have so much western red cedar which is a near relative of redwood. The light colored wood should be along one edge or on one face and it should be sapwood (if it's like red cedar). In cedar the sapwood is not nearly as weather and insect resistant as the darker heart wood and I would expect that redwood would follow the same rule. Redwood's primary use was in situations where the board needed to be rot and insect resistant. It doesn't have great structural strength. Even down there I don't know how much of it is available anymore as a lot of the redwood forests are protected now. I met a guy who was doing wood carving when I lived in Oregon 45 years ago and he said it carved like a dream. Maybe the US members would have an idea of it's value.
You say that the pictures you've seen have white mixed in. If it's not where I said it should be then it sounds more like juniper or what some call aromatic cedar. It tends to be more purplish that the dull red color of redwood.
I never see redwood for sale up here but that may be because we have so much western red cedar which is a near relative of redwood. The light colored wood should be along one edge or on one face and it should be sapwood (if it's like red cedar). In cedar the sapwood is not nearly as weather and insect resistant as the darker heart wood and I would expect that redwood would follow the same rule. Redwood's primary use was in situations where the board needed to be rot and insect resistant. It doesn't have great structural strength. Even down there I don't know how much of it is available anymore as a lot of the redwood forests are protected now. I met a guy who was doing wood carving when I lived in Oregon 45 years ago and he said it carved like a dream. Maybe the US members would have an idea of it's value.
You say that the pictures you've seen have white mixed in. If it's not where I said it should be then it sounds more like juniper or what some call aromatic cedar. It tends to be more purplish that the dull red color of redwood.