Its pretty easy to pick up the tele and call Cecil Fredi if you want a very nice blank at a reasonable price, air dried in the Las Vegas desert. Having said that, I can certainly see some satisfaction from a blank derived from a tree from your own property. I had several white oak trees that had been hit by lightning sawed into lumber about 15 or so years ago which I stacked in a barn, and slatted to air dry. My neighbor is a wood worker and he recently made shutters for my house out of that oak. You would not believe how much lumber he went through to make 12 shutters. Much of that wood developed cracks over time. Im wondering if being struck by lightning had something to do with lots of the cracks? Anyway, the shutters are fabulous, and Im guessing they will last much longer than the poplar shutters they replaced.....and I think its kind of neat they came from trees off my farm.
