Not really knowing what I had to work with,I found out once at the planer,the 2x8 was fir,as I suspected.The 1x12's turned out to be cedar.
I planed down the 2x8 ,jointed it and glued it up.I ended up with a blank just over 1" thick.The one cedar board was in pretty good shape and it was actually rough cut to 1 1/4".I took a piece and ripped it,bookmatched it and ended up with just under 1/2".The rest or the wood was pretty bad,I could not book match.I ended up with a 0.20" set,which I used for the back.It worked out that combined total was just under the 1.75",1.71" to be exact.Good enough.
I didn't really know at this time what the outcome would be,and being in a major hurry,didn't take much for pics of the glue up,or routing.
I have to say though,it all worked out pretty good.Here is the result
