I bought my Bocote on sale from West Penn Hardwoods some time ago but Bocote is not a particularly difficult wood to source. As far as general pricing and availability go, Bocote, while generally available, tends to be priced in the mid to high range for an exotic imported hardwood.
In this blog, I always recommend a range of vendors with whom I have done considerable business and in whom I have great confidence. These vendors are: West Penn Hardwoods, Bell Forest Products, NC Wood, Got Wood, WoodTurningz, Woodturningblanks4U, Amazon Exotic Hardwoods, Exotic Woods USA, and Griffin Exotic Wood.
At this time, oddly, West Penn Hardwoods only sells some limited spindle stock as well as dimensional lumber in Bocote. I am guessing that when I bought mine on sale they were in the process of eliminating it from their stocks. I find that odd and not sure why they would have chosen to do so.
Bell Forest Products, on the other hand, stocks Bocote from pen blank sizes up to 8″x8″x3″ bowl blanks, with the largest blanks costing $46, which isn’t too bad for a blank that size in an exotic wood. The 6″x6″x3″ Bocote at Bell Forest Products sells for for $25
NCWood is selling mostly spindle sizes, but includes on up to 3′ long, as well as one bowl blank size, 6″x6″x3″ for $29.
WoodTurningz sells the 6″x6″x3″ bowl blank in Bocote for $24.95.
Amazon Exotic Hardwoods sells Bocote in a range of spindle sizes as well as bowl blanks in three sizes, with the 6″x6″x3″ going for $24, and the 8″x8″x3″ for $42.50.
Exotic Woods USA also sells a Bocote 6″x6″x3″ bowl blank for $22.60.
If you want a really BIG Bocote bowl blank, I can recommend Tropical Exotic Hardwoods, shipping out of San Diego, so great for West Coast folks, but shipping is punitive for East Coast folks. They have several huge Bocote blanks with the biggest, a whopping 9.5″ x 9.5″x 5.25″ for a price of $115. But, if you really want it, you’ll pay for it.
Vendors not specifically mentioned are not offering Bocote, and this could be because the vendor specializes in only domestic woods (Got Wood and WoodTurningblanks4U bot fit this category) or because they specialize in spindle pieces (Griffin Exotic Woods).
So, the question is, how to choose a vendor for Bocote given that so many vendors are selling it? Price has to be one consideration, certainly, especially since all of it will be imported, waxed and processed elsewhere first. I would expect all of these vendors to offer a nice product, so I would compare shipping estimates based on where you need the material shipped to and I would look through their other offerings to see if there were any other woods you might want in addition to the Bocote because combined shipping on multiple pieces will always cost you less than ordering from separate vendors.
Woodfinder is an excellent website that is dedicated to advertising wood dealers. In your search for Bocote, this can be an invaluable resource provided you use multiple search terms to capture all the possible listings. I can’t speak to the quality of any of the listed dealers, but Woodfinder does have the advantage of allowing searches to be performed based on location which might allow an interested buyer to visit a listed wood dealer in person to hand pick pieces at a comfortable price.
A significant problem with using Woodfinder is that many vendors are listed for woods that, upon further investigation, they do not offer. I don’t know if perhaps once they did and they didn’t update their listings or if some vendors use a standardized list of woods that include most everything conceivable with the idea that once you land on their page you will find something you want to buy even if you didn’t know it beforehand. It happens to me all the time!