If you tell the yard what you are doing, they usually are really good about letting you pick.

Your buddy has a flat-sawn board, where the grain runs paralel to the 4" face. These make a nice pattern on the paddle, but they are a little more flexible and a little weaker than quartersawn. Personally, I like that flex.

: Yo Pete

: I am buddy building a greenland paddle right now (a buddy and I are making
: one each and repeating the same mistakes . When I bought my prime piece
: of western red cedar I took a copy of Chuck Holsts greenland paddle
: "recipe" (first 5 reads it looks way complicated, but is
: brilliant when you actually do it see http://ross.secant.com/kayak/ )
: with me. I showed it to the lumberyard guy and said I want to make one of
: these and need a piece of 4 x 2 with really straight grain.

: We must have snooped and hunted down the best piece we could find because the
: piece I have is absolutely prime. The grain runs straight as a die in both
: planes (4" face and 2" face). It will be a joy to plane/whittle
: away.

: In contrast my buddy's first piece of wrc 4 x 2 had knots and all sorts
: running along the 2" face. I showed him mine and he went back and
: exchanged it, His new piece has parralel grain running lengthwise on the
: 2" face, But the 4" face has intersting grain patterns on it. I
: think we can work with that and the interesting grain patterns will be a
: nice feature of his paddle when it is finished.

: Moral of the story: Not all lumber is created equal. Since you are paying top
: dollar make sure you get top quality. Snooping is ok!

: Cheers Pete