A friend of a friend approached me about making a couple duck whistles from the wood from one of the large beams from his family farm's barn. He mailed me a small hunk of the wood, unsure of what species it is. I'm thinking it is fir. I cut it into blanks and sent them to Mel at Wood Dynamics to be stabilized, just to be safe. As old and weathered as the beam was, the inside of it looks like I just went to Home Depot and cut it from a 2x4...Aside from the very tight growth rings.
I had the family's last name on the call as well as a simple line drawing of the barn laser engraved on them. I'd like to fill the engraving with black, but am 100% sure that it would bleed into the light colored wood. My customer is downright giddy over the results.