We have several cedars breeds out here, Portorford and Incense are both white cedars, the predominate breed is Western Red Cedar. When milling reclaimed wood we come across some Alaska yellow, and in the coastal bogs, we find Western Cyprus .
Those planks will make good out door stair treads for sure, wide and thick is always good. The differences in the all the cedars sure is interesting. Not only the color variations, but the smells as well.
The mud saw is a poorly designed factory add on. It works but has a tendency to bind up as it is pushed ahead of the saw. The baker mills have one that is pulled rather then pushed down the log and dose a much better job of staying in contact with the log and not binding up. I replaced the slow electric motor that moves it in and out with a hydraulic cylinder and that helps get it out of the way faster which prevents some of the binding and when it dose bind up The hydraulics are strong enough to pull it out of the bind where the electric was not. They call it a debarker but I only use it on dirty logs.