I don't have a decent resource locally for hardwoods, so i'm stuck to online shopping. I've bought from Rocklers, Woodcraft etc. Where do you guys buy your materials from?
ALL: some of the members were just talking about this over on the woodworking 101 thread and the link is in my sig line. i'll put the link for this thread over on the 101 thread in case some of those members might need some of the links posted already.
They are located outside of Philadelphia, PA. They have a minimum order amount but it is for the entire order not for just one species. Whats nice is that they have pictures of the actual piece you can purchase.
However you need to look at all of the pictures to get an idea of what it will look like. For example a large natural edge slab of olive wood once dry oxidizes.
It is hard to tell from the picture what the grain will look like once finished so when they originally cut it they added some alcohol and took a picture. This should give you an idea of what to expect.