What is your most durable, or longest lived, kendama? By this, I mean the one that stayed in playable condition the longest. Don't care if it's painted or natty, or what kind of wood/other material it's made of. Asking because from experience, the average kendama "lifespan" is 3-6 months. Looking for a good, long-lasting option for hard jamming.
Doesn't really apply here but the first dama I ever got was a blue tribby and it's still hanging in there. Chips on all the cups tama is cracked and the spike is prolly half of what it started with. Not to mention the paint is pretty busted. But it's still playable if you really wanted to use it. Lol I feel density is key for a killer jammer. But only if you don't play over hard surfaces bc with density comes a brittle quality. At least with some woods. So my choice is purple heart. If you play it over carpet and don't leave it outside and junk you can spike it for quite a while. I've had mine for a year and some change and it's in nice condition still. But I don't play with it daily Any more. Hope this helps.
My keyaki ozora has lasted me ages and is still getting better. Also my maple ozora is still no where honed enough #nattynovember will do it though
I’ve been seshing my craft plus slim since June and it doesn’t have any chips. I’d recommend you get one if you’re fine with the bigger size.
I've beat the crap out of a few KUSA Kaizens (original, craft, and 2.0) recently, and they have all held up well. Just ordered another 2.0 Select (ash) cause I like freshies, but I will still be jamming the others for a while I'm sure.
Craft Maples are durable AF, and natty tk16s set you up. Also any ACTUAL keyaki, not elm and stuff other companies use is super durable and lasts forever.
word. the only keyaki i own still has a fresh spike, even though it has a couple years of slayage on it.
My craft plus slim maple has 0 chips and 0 damage to the cup rims. The only sense of ware is the tama, spike, and color. You can keep it prime forever if you like glue on the spike.
I don't know what the wood underneath is, but I have a Red Ozora year of the rabbit tama and that thing is seshed, but the paint still feels exactly like it did out of the box, it just has gnarly wood underneath it now. If I remember correctly it was my first purchase from kendama usa, and my second kendama ever. Truly one of my all-time favorite tama's but now my gold rabbit is starting to fade away!
Terra Skateply is undoubtedly the most durable kendama I've ever played. I jammed it hard, and took it out skating numerous times (because of course I'm going to take Skateply with me on the skate sesh) where it was subjected to countless concrete drops. I finally chipped it while I was in Minnesota for MKO, but that may have had something to do with the wood becoming more brittle in much colder weather than it was used to. Or maybe I just seshed it too hard and it finally reached its limit on concrete drops. Either way, it still has a lot of life left in it.
Year of the Rabbit, that would have been 2011 last time around. The Ozora tama on "specials" around that time were Maple IIRC. They switched to Cherry, like the standard Ozora, a couple of years later. I guess they wanted their line all used the same set up.
No worries. I have a green Galaxy Ozora from that period. When they changed I was bummed but honestly I can't really tell much difference since they're all painted anyway; just a mental thing.