: After looking around it appears I legitimately can't get A grade
: cedar without driving for a couple hours (each way), and given
: the business hours of specialty wood places this means missing
: work as well. Before I take that step, I wanted to ask you guys
: about my options.

: a. Ordering wood from a place like CLC and being done with it.
: Shipping to Chicago would not be cheap, but neither is gas.
: b. Going to local lumber yards and getting "run of the
: mill" lumber, and just skipping the parts with knots.
: c. A local place has C grade lumber. Supposed to be pretty clear,
: with the occasional knot. A little wood waste but much cheaper
: than gas.
: d. Driving to Rockford or South Bend and getting the clear marine
: grade stuff.

: I'm trying to make an informed decision, so I wanted to make sure
: of a few things.

: 1. I know grain orientation is important for paddles, does it
: matter for strips? The local C grade stuff I would be buying
: sight unseen (they don't let customers pick over the stacks,
: though they're willing to grab boards of color you may want),
: and in terms of color "light" is good enough since I'm
: dying strips.
: 2. A lot of the standard cedar I see, even in huge places, is
: mostly 2x stuff. Is this appropriate to rip down? Part of this
: goes back to Q1, does grain orientation matter.
: 3. Anything else I should be considering?

: Thanks. The local hardwood store has incredible selection of woods,
: but you can't get clear cedar around here for some reason.

The first load of cedar I got was from Menards and I had to order it and accept what I got. Out of a huge pile of 1x6's I didn't get one full length strip there were so many knots. Anymore if I can't select it myself I don't want it. I did get a pile of short lengths that ended up as trim on a number of boats, but it was very expensive trim, the grand majority of the wood was junk.

Still, Menards in the midwest usually has a decent supply of 1" or slightly thicker decking stock, though the selection is better in the spring/summer when decks are being built and if you don't make a real mess of their piles will let you sort thru to find the pieces you want. You can also cut the strips out of 2" stock, just takes an extra step, or 4" for that matter if you have a big enough saw to cut it.

Bill H.