Hi Brian;

> If you started with 1" did you plane to size,
> rip and then a second rip or just go with the 1".

All the boards I started with were finished 2 or 4 sides, and all were almost exactly 3/4". I couldn't find any cedar locally either, until I stumbled onto a local yard that had 1x12x10' red cedar boards for 13.95 apiece. I think I really lucked out. cedar $57 + spruce $10 + black walnut $20 = $87 total!

Thanks for the nice comments,

Best Regards, Spidey