KUSA is on a roll lately, lots of new styles of Kaizen 2.0 just released online! These are the 2.0 shape, various wood species, various colours of silk paint. There is even bamboo, and a glossed spectra triple stripe option! Click the image to check out the new stuff in their shop:
Craft = Made in USA Not Craft = China Shape will be the same, place of manufacture and QC will be different though. Sorta like how the Focus kens eventually became the HG shape. I actually don't even have my hands on any of these yet... currently in the mail en route to me. KUSA just got them in and moved quick to get em live for the holidays!
Really considerate of KUSA to make the Kaizen 2.0 shape with their Chinese manufacturer and still keep the affordable price. I was expecting at least a couple dollars of increase due to R&D, new process in machining, etc. When you mean by different QC is it like the tolerance of the ken shape and cup sizes? Really interested in hearing about the difference in manufacturing if you know any of the information!
This is great news! I am really curious to why the designs are specific to the wood types though, like 70/30 for beech half splits for maple and tri-color for ash. or is it purely aesthetic?
It would either be each one is unique colour (as they are now), or there are just a few colour options that they're all available in. Making every single one of these colours in each wood type would be a LOT of styles to produce! This way gets the best range of options, while keeping it reasonable for a company like KUSA to produce.
I haven't seen a lot of bamboo in recent "newer" kendamas. Can someone speak to how bamboo plays compared to beech or maple? How does a natty bamboo tama break in?
Speaking from personal experiences, yes, the woods play noticeably differently. With a maple ken, I am less gentle/careful when playing with it because it has always been more durable than ash for me. Instas and any lighthouse trick that slaps on doesn't worry me as much as it does if I were to have an ash ken. Ash kens will make stall tricks like birds feel super nice though, the wood has a nice grip to it. Personally, I don't like ash kens, only ash tamas. Maple kens are awesome though, and the new 2.0 shape is a ken that is good for lunars and slingers so it's a nice mixture of both
Yeap, they do! Of course, if you're just starting out it won't really make a difference, but once you develop a feel for dama, different wood species will feel quite different. Some are a larger difference than others, like maple and Ebony will feel VERY different, maple and birch are different still, but definitely less so. Everyone slowly figures out their favourites
@Ben Lowe, I was gifted a red tribute bamboo ken over the summer by TJ Kolesnik. In terms of weight, I feel that it is lighter than beech, however I am not quiet sure if that goes for all bamboo kendamas out there. Also, I feel that the stalls got much better on it than a normal beech ken. This is just based off that one ken I have though, so that's all I can say.
honestly I'm mostly stoked on the bamboo one, probably cop that, one of my first few kendamas i owned was a green translucent bamboo Tribute and i loved that thing
Yeap, understand that it is an economic choice and definitely a good one too- i guess I am just feeling abit salty cause I like the 70/30 designs but my favorite choice of wood is maple- ohhh KUSA i'll just have to buy 2 of them then if I want that set up *cries*