Warren in Lancaster, PA
I used to heat glue in a double boiler. When I first bought a glue pot in 1987, one of my friends told me to make a wooden lid with a hole for a brush. He said when the lid warps just turn it upside down until it warps the other way. After a number of cycles the wood ceases to warp and you can use it either way. (It warps because the humidity inside the pot is much greater than the outside.) My piece was kiln dried, but this phenomenon is exhibited with both air dried and kiln dried: aging, going through a lot of cycles, makes the wood more stable.

When the Heckel bassoon factory burned during WWII, they lost a forty year supply of timber. At present they age the wood in excess of twelve years. Violin wood is also air dried and aged, sometimes for decades. They don't do this because of tradition. They do it for quality.