What are your little tips and tricks that help you out with your dama? Can be trick tips or not, doesn't matter. I like to put a little bit of super glue on my spike every once in a while to help preserve them! Also, my roommate just added a bunch of hooks in our kitchen to hang damas since that's where we usually sesh and we've accumulated too many for the counters anymore.
Haha that's cool. If one of my Damas has a choppy bevel I get a quarter and twist it inside the bevel and it opens it up. But my friend was Telling me isn't a choppy bevel what makes a dama good at birds? So that really made me think. But on the cup where you stall birds is kinda what needs to be broken in or a bit choppy I think
I like the quarter idea, I'm going to try that on an old dama when I get home! I agree that you would want the outside to be broken in more for better birds and the inside doesn't affect the birdability but I'm definitely not the authority on the subject haha
I rinse my damas under running water and use hand soap when they get extra dirty. It really makes the grain pop more and freshens the dama up more for a longer life. I also use sandpaper when I want to smoothen out the cup rims for better cup tricks.
Rubbing your sweat into your natty tamas will give it more grip. This works especially well if it's a hardwood like birch or raw ash I'm always rubbing my hand sweat and sometimes forehead sweat into my raw ash tamas
@myhotCaffeine detailed a hack to keep sarados from getting loose by just using a small piece of paper.
Pencil sharpen flat spikes to a dull bullet shape, and use a nail file to shape to a nice rounded tip, @Zack Gallagher and @Nick Gallagher have done this I believe too in one of thier edits
I recently got a holster to help carry one everywhere I can take it. When I'm watching tv or doing some other activities where the clack can be distracting, I spin the ken around to practice gunslingers.
When my natty kendamas get really dry I will clean them with a mixture of apple cider vinegar, water and lemon juice to get all the dirt off. I will then let them dry out and rub A LITTLE hemp oil into the grain, then let that dry and add a little more. As long as you sun dry it and rub in a little hemp oil at a time you can seal in the kendama really nicely. Might be a tad bit greasy for a few days but after that the grain feels really soft to the touch. I also use a small piece of rubberized sports tape on my ken to keep the Sarado from slipping. It seems to work really well and it cushions the Sarado nicely.
Water and wood isn't always bad per se. If you submerge your ken in water then yeah you are probably asking for it but if you use apple cider vinegar and water together and just use it to clean the outside of the kendama you will be fine...as long as you use some type of wood oil like tung or hemp oil to seal in the kendama once it drys. Always use a food grade wood oil for your kendama though, the oil you use will transfer to your hand so make sure it's food grade.
You know when you open a fresh kusa string pack and the string is still crusty from sitting there for a long time? I just tie a Bunch of slip knots then pull them all out and it breaks in the string
I heard Jake Wiens say that you can rub the string a couple times across your pantaloons for the same effect
This stuff will seriously last you forever if used for kendamas http://www.houzz.com/photos/38289997/Hemp-Oil-Amber-8-Oz-traditional-stains-and-varnishes It will darken your ken up though