I always hesitate to post something like this, but this group is all about sharing experiences, either good or bad. Silver Hill Co used to have someone else doing their machine shaping for them, a good stock man of many years experience. They had a falling out, and they now have their own in house machinery and a young man I would call a trainee doing the work. They quoted me a good price on machining my wood for me a couple years ago, I sent my nice blank to them, but when the stock got back to me the wood had been switched. I know all about wood losing some characteristics when cutting into it or looking a bit different after yuo cut into it, that's not what happened. I have before and after photos still of the stock and blank, they very clearly swapped out my very highly fiddleback figured piece of claro for an inferior piece of black. Also, the stock they sent me still had the "jig" pieces of glued on wood on both ends, they didn't even bother to remove them and continue the front end inletting down into the area between the two cheeks of the stock. They denied switching my wood, of course. I have not been back, and will not, so I cannot say how they might be now. They had come well recommended to me by someone who had done checkering for me in the past. Maybe they straightened up, I don't know, but they still took a gorgeous piece of highly figured fiddleback claro that wasn't theirs. I dislike dealing with crooks. When I dealt with them, that's precisely what they were, crooks.
