For anyone thats owned a grip, Is that colorful stuff like a rubber? just a basic apoxy? is it raised or flush with the rest of the wood?
Ronin was a decent company if you couldn't afford a GT or if you wanted to see what a purpleheart GT-1 would play like (because GT uses locally grown woods from the US only IIRC). Right now, one of my main jammers is a beech Ronin v2 katana x 2015 KWC Bobber tama, and it's amazing at lunars. Definitely want to see a comeback from them if it's even possible at this point.
Side 7 Studio (@DPatten) is more or less retired for now but there were some crazy innovative things coming out from him.
Both those tamas look like a crazy amount of work. But those kens are on another level. Were they done kind of poly urethane base? Or 3d printed? Are any of them out in the wild?
Here's a thread about them. The ken is SLS (selective laser sintering) Nylon 3D printed. He used to have some videos up on his site about the tama construction which were really cool. I need to see if they're still out there somewhere. Out in the wild, yes I was fortunate to get my hands on a Ironman-like holder and a purple ken. The Tora-tama escaped me however.
Very nice. How does the ken play? Yea both those tamas look incredible although I couldn't get to the links that were on that thread. Oh well.
Sadly he closed down his site and has semi-retired (I'm hopeful for a comeback). The ken is pretty light and I was looking for a decent match. The texture is pretty interesting though. It's a heavy matte finish and I think it's dyed rather than printed with color. If you look up SLS on Youtube you can see some pretty neat videos.
I had followed his works a lot when I saw the unique kens , I just never was able to catch when he had any drops as they seemed spread out . Wanted one for my dama collection and just missed out . Also , those helmet tama covers were pretty pricey as I would've bought one for my son in a heartbeat . All good , maybe he will make the come back ! Thanks for the info !
I tried out one of the new KendamaISR setups that have the swoop on it during MKO (well, at the airport before our flight left for Minnesota) and it was very similar to Ronins. When I got my KendamaISR ash tetrah (without the swoop) from Sweets, I expected a similar shape to Sol standard sizes (first gen Vibes, OG Pastels) but the ISR ken was really skinny in comparison. Sadly I gifted my Ronin ken to a buddy who was really into them but kept my Neo Tokyo tama (the Henshin-A-Go-Go tama)
SAM !! I just went through my collection and found another Kaya custom ..... and it's a Poke Ball ! Might you have any interest ??
Any interest in some fresh Girr Kendamas ? I have a friend that had an entire box of fresh Girr --> Watermelon, The Premiere , and The Encode Kendamas .. He said they sold for $54 each and he would sell them for $25 shipped to any state. I'll post these up on The Exchange