just saw your question - been chasing grand kids - the blank is not wood it is a synthetic metal called M3 if you go to penturners.org and look at the group purchases you can get a link to the anufacturers site. Pretty looking and pricy about $25.00 makes very nice pens need VERY sharp tools and and they will only stay sharp for about 1 pass. I have made and sold pens from each type of mix the damascus steel sells well. they just introduced a new mix with this buy that looks great. I have given up on these blanks because of the wear and tear on my tools and the time it takes to turn. If you had a metal lathe or a steady rest for metal type tooling (like valenite) things would go better. IMNSHO.
