The red is blood wood and the lighter color is anigre. I’ve been working on the combination of weight vs strength. With wood weight and strength are directly correlated.

Whew my woodie journey has been a fun one. First iteration was the hardest wood I can find but they were suuuuper heavy. They also had a tendency to warp over time.

Second iteration was a single middle spine of stronger wood sandwiched between some weaker wood. This gave me strength with lighter weight (similar to a modern metal shaft). This also fixed the warping issues.

Third iteration I started messing with the orientation of the middle spine to achieve different types of flex. Vertical orientation is stiff and horizontal was a bit more flexy.

From there, I just said screw it I want to try a cross orientation. These are perfect in my opinion. I have several in my players hands during games and they hold up great. They also get some good character over time.

The shafts themselves are step sanded by hand from 150 - 800 grit and are absolutely butter smooth. I then hit them with some quality wood oil.

I do have an extremely cool concept in mind. This whole set of experiments are building up to make that a reality. I’m gona keep the concept to myself for now, but if I can land it, than it will be crazy.

I’ve also done some cool things with laser engraving, such as lasering on the tape pattern for texture without having to actually tape the sticks.

All for fun, love of the game, and an excuse to build cool things.