Hey guys thanks for the help, just to confirm this turned out to be a plank of cedar, a friend of mine who is ripping some oak down into scale sizes took one look at it and said it was cedar.

He ripped it down for me just out of curiosity and it's almost as flimsy as balsa wood in 4 - 5 mm thicknesses, so whilst it would be a good project for me to try and make scales from , with the whole hardening process etc I'm not the most advanced person at making scales yet so figured I would stick with oak for the time being