There are many places you can look. The best places to search are local dealers, mills, and what have you. Hand selection is always best and if you can avoid shipping that is another big plus. Often there is a lot of searching involved in finding those treasures, but it is a lot of fun (I look at resawing as a hobby in and of itself).
It is a good idea to get familiar with costs, based on how dry wood is, what level of milling has been done and so forth before you buy too much. Wood that is not dry for instance will cost you time, increase your drying risks, and so forth. You need to get into a wood buying mindset, not a "set" counting mindset. If you pay for wood based on your estimated yeild(and retail values) your going to find out the hard way there are variables that can make that wood very expensive, especially because most of the retail values are based on sourcing, tool expenses, your labor, and finally advertising, stocking, sales, and packaging. Some woods are VERY hard to source, unless you are willing to deal with larger quantity, dealing with importers or overseas mills(which becomes a whole can of worms). EIR for instance, is a wood I would not deal with re-sawing. You would do better just buying in quantity. Most Rosewood is becoming very difficult to source, and if you can source it your quality is hit and miss, or prices are right up there with retail pre-cut prices. On these woods, you are almost forced to either chase large quantity, and hope you can do ok or just buy pre-cut (latter being much less risky). I would also say the same about some ebony.
Softwoods, you have to find a good source(your tree or theirs). You will never know for sure what you have until it is cut, as even great looking wood can vary in stiffness. It does generally take a large volume to get a few very high grade sets. If your interest is only in master grade sets, just buy them. If you are more concerned about well cut wood, and good stiff sets over looks, and enjoy having consistency in several sets(cutting several sets from a single billet offers more predictability) then re-sawing can be good. Also it helps if you are willing to look at some sets as being better suited to different size guitars. You may saw a billet of a given species(you will quickly realise, not all wood of a given species will have the same properties
, although oddly enough you will be charged mostely based on species
), that is moderate in stiffness for that species and possibly well suited to smaller bodies. It also helps if you are enjoy hanging on to a good stock of wood for many years, as sets will vary, and they will need to wait for the right project. If your building a specific project, want a specific visual grade, have a specific species in mind, are looking for only the stiffest set you can get your hands on for that species, do not have time to wait for wood to dry properly, then you are better off buying it pre- cut and graded.
One thing that can be handy is to keep in touch with other like minded re-sawers. Since many woods are easier to get ahold of in certain areas. You can pool resources when you run across good finds, and share the wealth. As long as shipping doesn't get in the way(cost), Trading wood is an outstanding way to go
.
Rich