Koa Wood: 3 Reasons I Hate Hawaiian Koa Lumber 🌳

#koa #woodcarving #woodworking

2 Minute Tonewoods: Episode #1

Koa: 3 Reasons I Hate Hawaiian Koa Lumber 🌳

Koa wood is one of the most revered tropical exotic hardwoods. Unlike many woodworkers, woodturners, woodcarving makers and luthiers, I am not a fan of this tonewood.

In this video I share 3 reasons why I do not love Hawaiian Koa lumber.

However...I do like the look of the finished wood. It takes an oil finish like no other wood.

We supply Koa wood as a raw material. Accordingly, we see the good (beautiful figured koa wood with chatoyancy) and the bad (koa boards with rot, wane, punky voids, etc). Unfortunately, all of it is expensive.

The first reason I do not like this wood is that it has been branded better than any other hardwood. It has a Pacific Island mystic about it. The idea of Acacia Koa makes people think of ukuleles and palm trees. That is great except for the fact that this Hawaiian wood comes from a very limited number of producers. Their Koa stashes are distributed in a controlled way, reminiscent of how the Debeers company distributes diamonds. Similarly, even though it is an Acacia wood, try substituting another Acacia wood for Koa. It's like trying to convince your wife that cubic zirconia is a real diamond! Basically, it's a very supplier controlled market.

The second reason I do not like this wood is that it is extremely expensive per board foot. On it's surface, this seems like a good thing. However, when people buy expensive woods, they often assume the high price correlates with a clear grade. Low grade Koa may have splits, cracks, checks, rot, and knots. However, it is still very expensive and often difficult to avoid.

This leads me to my third point. Koa production and grading is not good. There is no NHLA grading of Koa wood. Producers receive it, process it and sell it. If there is a particularly figured log, effort is spent to evaluate the grade. However, that's not the case when the grade would negatively impact the board foot price. In other words, there is a high price floor but no ceiling.

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Check out this KHON2 News channel news clip for some footage of a Grand koa tree:

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[michealgrier]

Maybe the worst video I have ever watched. No wonder your suppliers are sick of you. Please take this off line.

[annesand]

2:04 I have my parents old Koa furniture with the Anthurium carving. This furniture is older than my oldest sibling. My parents bought it in 1946. Koa wood furniture last a long time. I wouldn’t trade it for any of the modern junk they sell in furniture stores today.

[hauikanamu]

Great leave the Koa for us Hawaiians. Less people wanting koa is perfect for us. 🤙🏽

[Hitswing]

90% of koa is exported out of the hawaiian islands which leave little for the local Community. I wish the state would treat koa as a natural resource so we could benefit from that as a source of income instead of relying solely on tourism

[nbarca]

The two pieces you shown in the video brought two things to mind. First, that koa most often grows with lots of crooked branches and bends, which might account partly for those angles ... especially if someone is trying to salvage every inch. Straight trunks are out there and not all too uncommon but winding branches are more the norm for growth. Second, it's not too often that healthy live koa are logged and so it is often old koa which have fallen down which get salvaged. Hence, they may often have some rot associated with them.

[Incnerate]

My grandfather worked a lot with Koa wood when he lived in Hawaii, and he still has a $700, 000 full Koa giant canoe in his garage

[dougfitch]

I have several koa instruments (weissenborns, ‘ukulele, guitar). I live in Hawai’i and the primary reason I have these is for their beauty, their historic significance. I play them and they indeed sound as beautiful as they look. However, there are many so-so koa instruments out there and the prices are really absurd. Koa is prized for many reasons here, primarily because it is specific to HI so there’s that sense of pride. It is used to make paddles and old-style furniture, rocking chairs are valued especially. All this falls into the real of “Hawai’iana”, objet d’art evocative of an era gone by. It’s a source of cultural pride and identity at some level. Just as some Harley-Davidson owners get bent when a bike goes toa foreign land, there are some who feel the same when koa leaves the islands.

[sphlouge]

I live in Hawaii. I’m a high end furniture maker, I have a lot if koa, I’ve built many projects from koa. Many chairs. I like koa, but not overly fond of it. I only use high curl koa, mainly instrument grade. That type of koa, if you can find it, runs about $170 per. Board ft. You. Can get it for less, just takes a lot of hunting. It’s almost impossible to do a large project from that type of koa. I finished an entertainment center fro koa about a year ago. Materials were about $12, 000 minus labor. Poor yield, so I had about 40% waist factor. I’ve been a furniture maker for 54 years. I usually only work in exotic woods. Koa is a hard sell unless the client is hell bent on the species and has very deep pockets.

[ianr]

Living on the big island I am always blown away by how few people can identify live koa trees or dead pices and how much rots on the ground. Driving a car and owning a hand saw I onley ever pick up small pices of road slash and wind fall. The rotting logs do grow nice edeble moshrooms I pick.

[heidiondich]

I didn’t know wood could cause such strong opinions

[hapaart]

Koa is a different wood which is why it's Koa.

[douglasward]

Koa is garbage. Guanacaste rocks....but.... Use inserts to screw

[jwukulele]

"Almost like the soup Nazi in Seinfeld. You should just approach with your head bowed down, accept what you're given & then be thankful that you've got it." LOL.

[Sachrial]

You don't hate koa. You hate its price and attitude of suppliers. But not koa itself. So... Your title is clickbait. Isn't it? ;)

[IrishChippy]

Steve. Over here you cannot cut down acacia or pretty much any hardwood tree. You can however get a permit to prune some limbs. During typhoon Yolanda many very large trees fell down. The dealers in Hawaii state that Koa Acacia can only grows in Hawaii, and that there is Narra being sold as Koa from here. Not true. I think they mean Acasia Melanoxylon (blackwood) or Samanea saman. Narra is very difficult to obtain, and expensive, and somebody like you would love some pieces of ‎Narra Amboyna (burl). Bottom line is that Koa can grow here, and in many Pacific Islands.

[ronitsingh]

My first taste of KOA wood was at an estate sale that was jam packed with vintage tools, vises, lathe, drill presses, anvils, blacksmith tools, axes and saws. In a crate under the house, in the crawl space there were 3 pieces of KOA wood, 8" x 36" x 2" thick. I had no idea what this wood was and would have left all 3 pieces if I had not read on the side of the crate. It basically said KOA wood and it was shipped from Hawaii with the gentleman's address on it. I scooped up all 3 pieces and got them next to nothing with the pile of other stuff I had collected. afterwards I googled it and found out how expensive these are and why. Plan to make a small axe handle with some of the wood.

[ianuaikaonohiokalanikoholu]

You just need a better supplier with more precise selection. The boards you showed were ok but not that great probably a very low grade based on figuring, age of tree, etc. I live on the Big Island and have many Koa trees growing on my property and will mill one or two every so often. I get good results. The more tight curls and Birdseye fetch the highest prices while the straight grain is quite affordable. The straight grain are usually way better for structural applications. The higher dollar more figured prices go for accents, instruments, and even jewelry. In my personal experience the yield of high dollar boardfeet off a average tree is very low. However with a good eye one might be able to see higher quality and make better choice when logging to save the mill the guesswork. Anyhow it is rare. It does have to be shipped for a month to reach California. Then it has to be shipped wherever in the continental US. So a lot of factors contribute to the price.
Might I add that Koa colors and figuring vary from district to district. Hawaii has every climate the world has to offer with the exception of glaciers. As you can imagine that produces variations that are for a lot of people just fascinating. From blondes to reds, chocolates, peaches and blacks. Some with streaking of all variations of color. Beautiful stuff.

[Jordanwoodworking]

I have to agree with Koa and other hardwoods. So I tend to build rustic and mostly and use pine and repurposed material👍

[charlesschuster]

Okay, if ya don't like it, you don't like your suppliers, the quality they produce, and all that... go out and grow some of your own. In the '70s I worked in a sawmill cutting koa - this was in Hilo - and we threw away anything shorter than 2 feet. I cockroached some to make surfboard fins, but knowing little about seasoning and drying, I soon found that the fins I made would warp overnight. I had to fiberglass them the same day I cut them. Well that worked for a while.

[Phoenixhunter]

I’m not a woodworker but I buy a lot of wood products like banjos, guitars, mandolins, autoharps, spinning wheels, drop spindles, etc. and I love when I can get these things in koa. I now find myself pissed off at koa wood after watching this, 😂🤬