Special "Exemplar" Dulcimer Hammers
The heads are butternut. The lower head is all heartwood, the upper is a combination of heartwood (darker) and sapwood (lighter). The handles are cherry, the upper sapwood (lighter), the lower heartwood (darker). Note, although our hammers are always a matched pair with regard to both weight and flex, some folk still take to marking one hammer for the righthand and the other for the left hand. With these "exemplar" sets, no need to do that!
I also have a pair where the heads are both the same (like the head labeled "sapwood" above) and only the handles illustrate the sapwood/heartwood concept.