For those who turn their own kendamas (@htimSxelA in particular) how much do blank chunks of wood go for? (Am also very curious how much koa wood blanks cost)
Probably not the answer you want to hear, but: It depends entirely on the piece of wood, and the local availability. In general: Lumber is commonly sold by the 'boardfoot' (1 boardfoot = 144 cubic inches). Some really high end or highly figured stuff might be priced per piece, or by weight, rather than by the boardfoot. For what its worth, beware buying wood online. In my experience, the prices may look great, but thats probably because the wood hasn't been fully dried, and letting it dry can take years. I have two and half boxes full of purpleheart 3"x3"x12"s, that have been sitting in the workshop for 4.5 years now. They are only just now about dry enough to work with... any past attempts ended with egged or cracked tamas. Not a good thing for damas. Anyways, as examples, on the cheaper end, something like white ash is fairly inexpensive around here, enough wood to make a kendama might be around $6-8. On the flip-side, I have a small amount of desert ironwood, enough of that to make a kendama is literally a couple hundred dollars (its one of the most rare species in the world). Reeeally beautiful stuff though Koa can probably vary a lot. If you're in Hawaii and find some cheap cuts, its probably not too expensive (not too cheap either, though). But at the same time, if a piece of wood is extremely figured, usually the person selling it will know they can charge way more. So a really nice piece of koa might cost a lot. I paid a couple hundred for a reeally nice figured piece when I was visiting Hawaii a couple years ago. Expensive, but worth it for something beautiful! Once you're outside of Hawaii (and especially outside the US) you're likely looking at some very high prices for figured koa, if you can find it at all. (note! if you're travelling and planning to bring wood home, don't be an idiot: make sure you declare it on your customs form. Otherwise you could end up with huge fines, and a lifetime black mark on your passport that says 'fully search this person every time they cross the border'. Usually the customs guy will just give you the thumbs up and let you roll through, its really not a big deal to declare it) With handturned kendamas, in most cases the majority of the cost is going to be the labour/expertise of the person making it, rather than the wood itself.
Alex dropping wealths of knowledge yet again. "Figured" would refer primarily to a piece with unique or interesting grain correct?
Yea, different types of figuring can have different names. For examples, try searching for: maple, curly maple (aka tiger maple, flamed maple..), birdseye maple, quilter maple, spalted maple... and there are maple burls too (but thats a little bit different). Each one is a natural phenomenon (eg, spalting is caused by fungus, usually implanted by wood-eating beetles afaik), that gives the wood a certain look. Funny enough, in some cases, extremely figured pieces of wood don't make the best kendamas. This is because really straight, consistent grain is usually the strongest.. but in most cases a nice looking piece of wood doesn't hurt! Sometimes you'll find little bits of figuring in otherwise normal pieces of lumber, but when the people that mill the wood find entire logs/boards that have nice figuring, they'll pull it aside and sell it for more. In the past I've seen curly maple sell for 2-2.5x the price of regular maple, and really nice birdseye maple can go for 3x+. Quilted maple... maybe more, its a lot more rare. Often, highly figured stuff will be milled down to thinner pieces (eg, veneers for cabinets, guitar/instrument backs, etc), because that gets the person milling it the most bang for their buck. Why sell a nice thick piece for $100, when you could split it into 30 sheets of veneer and sell them for $10 each cause they're beautiful? That sorta thing. In some cases, super figured pieces of wood will be just sold 'by the piece'. I remember my supplier had this epic piece of quilted maple in his workshop... but he wanted a LOT for it, and told me he was only going to sell it to someone who would make an end table out of it, no exceptions. Ha!
This page has a few examples of the types of figuring I mentioned: https://munistrings.com/types-figured-maple-used-violin-makers/ I reeally like quilted maple, I want to find some for a dama one day... (Rod has a couple pieces in the workshop, he got them from a friend a couple years ago. Very temped to use them! lol he'd probably be pissed, but he made a dama out of one of my nicest pieces of ebony a while ago... so maybe thats just payback! )