Your wood is fine. Don't get too picky on making it perfect. You will want to modify it after you start paddling anyway. There is no "perfect for you" plan out there. Anything goes except blade width needs to be comfortable for extended paddle work. People have a tendency to make the blades too big on their first paddles. 1/4" is a lot of extra width.

: I'm starting my first Greenland paddle tonight, and after looking around at
: wood options it got a bit confusing. I ended up picking up a quartersawn
: stud grade 2x4x8' that was totally clear, figuring if I got the wrong
: thing I'm out all of $1.95.

: Can somebody provide a brief description of what constitutes good and bad
: wood? I assume knots are bad (but not how bad), and I know the relative
: differences between pine, WRC, etc. from reading here, but that doesn't
: translate well to identifying "good" versus "bad"
: individual pieces of wood.

: Thanks!