Wood for a saya?

Try a real lumber yard ( not a big-box or hardware store). They will often have alder, magnolia, holly, tupelo, dogwood. or other good choices. Other woods that will work are sugar pine, and hard bass wood. The carvers supply sources carry these. If you are just starting to learn and want practice wook, the poplar lumber from any lumber store (Home Depot) will work, but it is already S4S, so it won't give you much room to split it and make matches sides.

The best choice is to buy a rough cut plank of alder in 4/4. Have the lumber yard split it down the center ( unless you have a friend with a GOOD re-sawing setup). You will get many tsuka/saya from those matched pieces. I like 6-8"wide by 4/4 stock in 4' lengths, but sometimes you can find it in 4" . That will work fine unless you have extreme sori.
I recently bought an 8"X10'X4/4+ plank and had then cut it into three shorter planks and split those. IIRC, the plank was $25-30, and the shop charge for cutting and splitting the wood was $30. I figure that I will get over a dozen full size tsuka/saya from it, plus another dozen smaller saya for tanto and kitchen blades ... ends up at $3 or less for each tsuka/saya. Always mark the pieces so they stay together and are oriented the same. This can make nearly invisible glue lines when the saya is planed and sanded.
 
if you do not need to use the traditional wood (i think its called honoki ) many people use poplar from the local hardware store.
 
since you asked for thin wood, I'm assuming you mean saya wood for a kitchen knife. From Bell Forest Products, I get 1/8" thick stock for that. They have it in many varieties. Be aware though, that this really thin stuff can warp easily. Once it's in saya form, it's not an issue, but you will want to store stock in a stable environment. here's an example of one i did in cherry and maple. sorry, it doesn't show the edge, but the center section is maple. IMG_20170829_102211242.jpg
 
I missed the "thin".

If you are making small kitchen knife saya, Mark at Burl source often has it. It is listed as "saya wood".
Woodcraft sells all sorts of nice looking wood in thin slabs. They have 1/8", 1/4", and 1/2". It is perfect for three piece saya.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
I missed the "thin".

If you are making small kitchen knife saya, Mark at Burl source often has it. It is listed as "saya wood".
Woodcraft sells all sorts of nice looking wood in thin slabs. They have 1/8", 1/4", and 1/2". It is perfect for three piece saya.
Click to expand...
Pricing can cause a little bit of sticker shock on some thin planks at Woodcraft. Last week, my local branch had a couple of very nice 6 x 6 x 3 old growth cocobolo bowl blanks for $56 each. That would be good for what? 8 wa handle blanks minimum and maybe 10? A 3/8 x 24 x 3 board of the same stuff but not quite as attractive? Also $56 or about 4 times as much per board foot! I looked at their online catalog and you really don't get much of a break if any by going thinner. :eek: They had some nice paduak boards for like $18-19 which seems to be the best bang for the buck if you wanted to go exotic. You had the same premium pricing even for the common woods compared to bigger pieces. I guess sawing it costs a lot.
 
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