I was thinking about seeing if I could have a standard size (JKA-ish) custom kendama turned and I wanted to bring the material to the maker myself to make life easier. What sizes should I be looking for so there's enough to work with but not so much that they have to be cut down too much? Sarado = LxWxH Ken = LxWxH Tama = XXmm cubed
It kinda depends on how they're being made. At minimum (and without any mishaps) you'll about 2" x 2" x 12", but if their lathe has deep jaws or something that length could be extended to 16"+ easily for one. And for a tama, maybe 2.5" x 2.5" x 4"? It is material dependant as well, you could bring a piece of wood that has a hidden, critical void right in the middle of it. There is always waste due to natural defects with wood.
Yea, generally you'd find some larger-sized stock for the tama, otherwise if you use material thick enough to make a tama to also make the ken and sarado you'll have a lot of waste.
I probably use about 2x2 for the ken and 3x3 for the sarado because the cups are usually bigger than 2x2, unless you want small cups.
3x3 for the cups is excessive, unless you're making something that is fairly 'jumbo' in size. JKA cup specs are about 1.75" at their widest, while a more modern shape will be closer to ~1.85" or maybe 1.9". I mean, if you're just buying enough to make one ken, then whatever. But a 2x2 cross section is 4 sq inches, while 3x3 is 9 sq inches. That is over double the material cost, and the extra is all going to waste. If you were buying enough to make 10 kendamas, suddenly that difference is going to be very noticeable when you start calculating costs. Depending on your methods of turning, 1.9" might be cutting it close for starting with 2" stock, but lumber uses nominal measurements, so if you're pushing it that close you should be measuring up the board you're buying to find a 'heavy' one anyways (thats the lingo my wood-guy uses to describe boards that are fatter than 2", even though they're sold as 8/4 lumber. He is a serious guru, so I assume the word 'heavy' is used in the wood industry like this, at least in some places? Or maybe its just his own lingo? ). Likewise, some 8/4 lumber will actually measure as thin as ~1.85" in my experience. This was actually a big problem for me when we were buying wood to make the last batch of LBBs! I had to take callipers with me to the wood supplier, and personally check every board to make sure we wouldn't end up too skinny for sarados.
It was some of the stuff made in the same batch as the Olive Skateply damas, I remember all of the purpheart I was finding at local shops was too skinny.