The stripper I paddle most often has a mostly redwod deck, and is going on 7 years old with no problems. I used standard Elmers carpenters glue on flat edge strips and normal epoxy etc. Many people have used redwood for strippers with no problems. There are no bad woods other than rare oily speciality woods like rosewood, teak etc. I wouldn't worry the least about using redwood. The only thing with redwood it's a bit more brittle than cedar. If you snap a strip in half, the redwood will fissure with shrouds whereas the cedar will snap clean. I had a lot more slivers working with it than cedar. I consider it one of the best two for stripping because of weight, color etc.