Making your own bokken - How to pick the wood

April 29, 2009

(3 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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Rich Myers is the owner and operator of Rei-Mon Buki specializing in weapons, striking, and training, specifically cutting Bokken. In this first part of a four -part series, Rich will show us how to pick a piece of wood for a Bokken.

You can actually make a Bokken out of any piece of hard wood. In the 16 years that Rich is making Bokken, he prefers to use American Hickory because it is resilient, strong and not too heavy but has a nice heft. For Bokken, it has almost everything you need.

Rich classifies the wood into two grades, the A-grade and the B-grade; anything lower than B grade is really not suitable for Bokken, it will just break down easily. What he is trying to make is something that will last long.

A-grade kind of wood has nice clear grain and specifically has a vertical grain line at the end. This kind of wood is very strong because you’re hitting multiple levels of growth rings at a time. Unlike that with a horizontal grain line at the end where you hit one growth ring at a time - it will easily break.

B-grade kind of wood also has a nice clear grain but instead of a vertical line at the end, it has a 45 degree angle. It is not really bad for a Bokken but it doesn’t have the perfect grain as the A-grade.

With the Hickory B-grade wood, you can see the line between the sapwood and the hardwood, while in the A-grade you can find wood that is made-up of all hard wood. It is a little bit denser and a little bit heavier.

In closing Rich says: “No training weapon becomes an old friend like the one you cut yourself.”

One Response to “Making your own bokken - How to pick the wood”

Nick Says:
October 7th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
Hi Rich,

I’ve been thinking about making a Bokken myself. I was hoping to get your input on woods that I can’t find mentioned elsewhere. What can you tell me about the suitability of arbutus wood or black walnut. A friend has some fairly thick windfall arbutus branches. And I might be able to source a small amount of black walnut. Fingers crossed.

Cheers,
Nick