: what you don't want is wood that has
: dried-out from sitting around your garage for years on end.

The wood I used for my first boat, and parts of my second, were 5/8"
WRC tongue-and-groove board which had been used as a ceiling. The wood
had clearly not been dried sufficiently when used for that purpose, as
the centrally-heated house dried it out and caused considerable warping.
After the ceiling had been removed (15-20 years after being built) it
then lay around in our barn for several more years before I found this
use for it. It is very noticeable that if I take one of these boards
and put it in my workshop near the heater, it bends one way (maybe
45 degrees of bend from one end to the other) as it dries, but then
straightens out as the other side dries too.

Despite this, I had no difficulty cutting the ten foot boards into strips
on my bandsaw, nor using them to build my boats. WRC really is pretty easy
stuff to work with. I'm not convinced other woods would have survived the
same "pretreatment" and been as easy to cut.

Andy