Hearne Hardwoods of Pennsylvania is a very reputable dealer in lumber, including Koa, but they do not sell turning blanks.
Two additional vendors that I was able to locate, although I know nothing about them, both located on the island of Hawai’i itself, are Aloha Woods on the Kona side and Koa Wood Hawai’i on the Hilo side. However, neither of these vendors sells turning blanks at this time, although I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to ask if they can be made available in the future.
Woodfinder is an excellent website that is dedicated to advertising wood dealers. In your search for Koa, 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!
Koa Bottom
Uses
Not surprisingly, Koa finds uses similar to those found for other rare and expensive hardwoods. Koa is commonly available as a veneer, for example, and those veneers may be used in furniture, although if one’s pockets are deep enough solid Koa furniture and cabinets do exist.
Koa is quite famous as a tone wood and is used especially in the manufacture of very high-end musical instruments, especially guitars and ukuleles. Taylor Swift, for example, is famous for playing a guitar made with highly figured golden Koa.
Koa is also used in other applications common to exotic and rare woods, including, but not limited to: gunstocks, carvings, bowls, and other turned or specialty wood objects.
In times past, the leaves and ashes were used medicinally and a red dye was extracted from the bark of the Koa as well. These uses are today either extinct or quite rare.
Sustainability
Koa is not listed as being in any way threatened or endangered by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) Appendices nor does it appear on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.
Koa is not subject to special restrictions by any United States government agency, however, local and state rules govern the harvesting of Koa trees. No mature trees may be felled for timber, even on private property, unless specific permission to do so is obtained. Such permission is generally only granted when Koa trees are dead or dying and present a danger of falling onto existing structures. Trees that are removed because they pose a threat of some sort may then be cut and sold for various uses. These restrictions are a major reason why Koa is in such limited supply but without these restrictions it is highly possible that the remaining mature Koa trees would quickly be logged out.
While mature Koa trees are rare this isn’t because the tree is difficult to grow. In fact, in its native environment Koa seedlings grow quite readily and are common. The problem is cattle ranching. It might surprise some who think that the entire economy of the State of Hawai’i is based on tourism, and make no mistake tourism is vital, but Hawai’i also produces a large amount of beef and vast tracts of land, especially on the islands of Hawai’i and Moloka’i have been cleared for pasture land. Koa seedlings will readily repopulate these cleared areas but cattle routinely graze the seedlings and prevent the growth of mature trees. In addition, the root zone of the Koa tree is very delicate, even at the surface, and as cattle congregate under Koa trees for shade, the damage to the roots from the weight and the hoofs of the cattle can kill even mature trees.
