Would you make a stock out of this ??

[B. Dudley]

I would be more concerned about what the rest of the blank looks like. All that crotch figure is ok in the butt. But the head and wrist should be straight grained.

As for the checks in the wood. The one side has a lot of fine checks and the obvious larger ones. Cracks like that are not all that uncommon in blanks with that type of figure. They can be filled. The thing to check is how deep those bigger ones are. They may work out to be smaller when shaping. Or they can get bigger.

[Tom]

Thanks Brian
The checks were actually bigger, I planned it down to try to get rid of them. But I'm about as far as I want to get with the planer and like you say I don't know how deep they are. I am kind of worried about shaping it down and relieving stress in the wood and causing it to check worse.
The grain in the wrist would be real nice straight with no checks.
Not sure what to do. Don't want to waist a bunch of time and have the butt crack up in six months.

Thanks for the help, Tom