Where do you get your ebony? it is a pretty rare wood, and can't find anywhere to buy it for a reasonable price...
Have you ever used Ambrosia Maple? Learned about it at a craft fair. Super light but, how about Balsa?
My supplier is an old guy in Edmonton that runs a wood distro warehouse, he's super knowledgeable and well-connected, so he has a stock of some truly rare and incredible stuff. If you want ebony, DONT buy anything reasonably priced. That probably means its fresh cut and isn't dry/stable, I've seen some people buy ebony online for some deals, and then end up with wood that is cracking apart on them. Good quality ebony is expensive af, I paid a LOT for those boards lol. If you want to make a high quality product, you have to start with high quality materials. Here is such an example: a couple of people were bugging me for full ebony kendamas back in 2012, but my supplier only had boards up to 2" thick (fatter than that is VERY rare for ebony... the trees themselves just dont get that big, plus there are import laws that restrict how thick boards can be to help protect against invasive bugs and such). So I found a 3" piece of ebony online, and ordered it. The sticker price was maybe a little cheaper than what my guy would usually charge, but after shipping it was probably more in the end. Problem was, the piece of wood was only maybe 40-60% dry, so after turning I noticed some very small cracks forming at the top of the tama, as the wood released water. NOT GOOD for any dama, ESPECIALLY not good for a really expensive ebony kendama. In the end I baby'd the tamas and kept them under climate-control for a couple weeks, and they turned out well. Kinda lucky though, could have been worse. I disclosed the situation in full to both people buying the kendamas (@Grandpa Sandz was one of them), so I actually have a photo I can show you of this: note the very small cracks forming up top! Luckily they closed up once the inside of the tama dried out, and it didn't warp into an egg. (sidenote, I've seen one or two of the ebony mugens in person, and one of them was super egged out!) @MJ Brother I have used ambrosia maple a little bit, it comes from Maple that has been infected by a beetle-borne-fungus. Mostly I've stuck to curly maple though for figured stuff, I think that (or birdseye maple) looks nicer.
Perfect example of a simple white string on a natty vs color fade on a natty That looks really nice and smooth! Great work!
@htimSxelA just wanted to say thanks for all the super useful information you've provided about lathing and wood stability!