I recently got a Craft Slim Plus in Maple. I love it and it is amazing in every way. People were telling me to pair it up with my ash slaydog tama. But, the stalls on it sucked. My maple tama is already better than my 5 month old salydog tama for stalls after a week or two. Any tips for breaking in ash?
Place a quarter in the bevel, and kinda use it to grind and even the bevel out. Can't seem to find the video on it though. @goenKendama, might you have a video on it?
Max Norcross shows you the coining technique in one of his Vlogs! Check it out, it's like 6:25 of this video:
Natty's will be better for stalls in my experience. My ash dawg tama isn't that good for stalls on my GT-KA either. But yeah coining the bevel will help along with the sweat. Also, just shred the bevel more so that it gets more beat because more beat = better stalls.
Ash needs to be played quite a bit. The grain structure allows it to get rough around the bevel. This creates "bite". As with painted tamas, the more you play the more you "clear" away the paint to give it a natty exposure. You can then proceed to lick the bevel when necessary.
I've been partial to putting a wood finishing wax on natties lately. One is called Bee Kind you probably could get similar effects from @amagad's Dama Butter or Kenditioner too and it's not as gnarly sounding as "soaking it in sweat" and is better for the wood.
keep playing the dama until u kinda notice a change in the wood and thats when it will start to break in I think. Also look for the vid on kusas youtube for breaking in ash damas.