Hi, Alex,
I have done some carving with locust, but I've never done a fingerboard, so please understand this is only my hunch...okay?
I think you will probably be happier if you re-orient your wood into vertical grain. I say that for this reason: All wood--no matter how dry--moves, as we know. Vertical grain wood, no matter what the species, tends to get thicker and thinner. Flat sawn wood tends to get wider and narrower. These are generalizations, but they are general because they tend to hold true across all species.
Thus, on something like a fingerboard, I think you might be happier with wood that moves microscopically up and down with relation to the strings, rather than wood which might tend to get microscopically wider and narrower with regard to your neck width at the playing surface. A fingerboard which gets wider and narrower might expose sharp fret ends during dry, shrinkage periods. It might even cause the frets to push binding off the fingerboard. (Those frets aren't going to move with the wood). On the other hand, a fingerboard which gets thicker and thinner might conceivably cause a fret buzz during certain times of the year. This would depend on your set up, string height, your winter heating system, etc. It's wood. No matter what the species, it's gonna move, and occasionally it will demonstrate its movement by causing us some little problems. We can deal with these little problems, but it's easier if we try to head most of them off at the pass.
I have re-read this three times. I'm not sure I expressed it correctly, but I sure hope so.
Bottom line: Go ahead and re-orient your wood into vertical grain. In the long run, I think you'll be glad you did. There's much less risk that way. This is just my opinion, but it's definitely the way I would do it.
Patrick
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. I'll make some blanks and see how they react. Maybe I'll come up with a plan B, just in case.