Most people that feel their first real hickory bo or jo staff didn't know what they had been missing buying a mass produced product, commonly a white oak staff. So why are hickory staffs not more common?
First, why are most staffs white oak? (Which I do not use anymore. But for more information on White Oak you may read one of my FAQ pages https://www.scrapwoodmartialarts.com/pages/buying-guide-for-choosing-martial-arts-wood) But in a manufacturing setting, first white oak is often very straight grained. In a batch of wood, maybe 80% is good to use for staffs. (Although I have still seen staffs from huge manufacturers of karate equipment with sections of wavy grain that isn't even close to anything acceptable that I could pass, so I think they use 100% of whatever they get without any inspection. Also for further note, I have seen these white oak dojo staffs break right at that a wavy grain section) But in general, white oak at a lumber yard is not hard to find straight grain. Is the wood good? I won't say its not decent. It's acceptable. Barely. To me... its the least acceptable wood possible. It's right at the edge. Which means it has to be perfect. It needs to be heavier than normal, and it needs to be straight grained. In other words, when you buy from a major retailer, it is a crap shoot. But white oak is easy to work in a woodworker way. It is flexible and does not chip easily.
Which brings us to the next point. If white oak is barely ok, (And believe me Red oak is not ok at all) then you really need someone going over and discarding the wood that is not ok. Which in my experience and others, is not done at all. Some white oak is quite light, and some as I said, is of course not straight grained. Meaning it can break easily.
Now on to hickory. Hickory, in terms of grain straightness of grain is TERRIBLE. (Bear with me the staffs you will get are the opposite) But 90% if not more of all hickory wood is COMPLETELY not satisfactory for martial arts use. It is full of knots, and Hickory is not a straight grained tree. So this means, for a company that is selling massed produced items, hickory is out the window. Because it requires something that is the opposite of being massed produced. Someone carefully selecting only the appropriate wood, and taking a lot of time to do it right.
Next, hickory is VERY hard. One of the hardest woods in North America. And it is VERY hard to work. It destroys machinery. And it chips easily, especially if it is not straight. That means it can not be mass produced. 80% at least of the bad grained hickory would chip and crack in the machines and be unusable.
So now... onto the good hickory staffs. What needs to be done is have someone inspect the lumber and pick the good stuff. This goes by weight and straight grain, and having no knots. The second thing is... the way it is run using the machinery and tools. Hickory needs to be run very carefully and it can not be machined too fast or in a normal way or it will become chipped and unusable. This goes beyond even keeping the machines and tools sharp. The entire setup takes a lot of time and care, and thought. And for many companies is not feasible to do.
So basically, hickory is something that must be interacted with at every step of the process. It has to be inspected at every point. They have to be created in a way that prevents chipping, and then if it does chip in a minor way, every staff has to be hand sanded to get rid of and mask any chip in the wood, and this fix can't be feel-able to a user's hands. In other words, hickory staffs must be done with care
So the end result is a far superior product where each staff is a staff for life.
-Adam
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