Here is a typical poi pounder a beginner can make with just a rock, a grinder, and belt sander. And a few hours to goof off.
I still tend to just buy poi. Much easier. (The tricky parts of pounding poi are finding a good source for taro corms to pound, making a good board to pound on, and learning how to pound the poi.) If you just buy the poi, it is easy. Just add a little water, smoosh the bag around, add more, etc. To serve easier if you cut the top of the bag off.)
The first one on the left is made of cement. Since this is the most unusual, let's do it first. (The middle one is blue rock, the right one is soft weathered rock.) (There are other places to learn the more traditional way to make pounders, like Bishop just had one: http://www.bishopmuseum.org/exhibits/greenwell/schedule.html Here is an article with more authentic shapes, etc.: http://rkealag.com/reports/poster.pdf )
Here is the set up. (Also need a clear plastic bag, like the 1 gal food storage one, without zip. Or a grocery bag, or wax paper would probably work.)
Here is the label from the Quick-Setting cement. It is about twice as strong as regular cement. This 50# bag was $22, but you could also get a smaller 10# bucket for $14. (This is a good general cement, mixed just as is like for mortar, patching holes in rotten wood, or 1 part to 3 parts dirt for adobe to fix trail washouts. You need to use it up pretty quickly in our moist climate.) The most useful quality is that it sets up fast.
A good use for any extra cement is patching rotten wood. This old board was already half gone when I used it for a "temporary" bridge a few years ago. To patch a rotten spot, dig it out a little, then splotch the cement in (foreground). About a half hour later come back and scrape it flush, then scrub brush a little (in the background at end of board I am finished). It doesn't look great, but it does slow the rotting way down, and can be painted over to be fairly credible.
These are the fibers, made by cutting up plastic cord into ~1/4" pieces. Then add a little glue, then the cement, and water. The mix should be pretty stiff, able to stand up on its own.
Once you mix the cement the clock is ticking. Here the cement has been poured into a bag, then shaped by hand into about the right shape. The bottom is up here. The next step is to just hold still for about 5 minutes. Standing with the pounder on a workbench is fairly comfy. You'll feel the mix get warm, but not hot.
After the mix has set fairly well, peel away the tricky part, what will be the handle. At this stage the mix is extremely fragile, but the plastic can be carefully pulled out (and I assume easier now than once it is set up hard). No need to pull the rest, better not to move it more than necessary. Then wrap the bag around it so it can cure without drying out. Leave at least overnight.
After 16 hours it is fairly hard and strong enough to handle and shape. Here is pulling the bag off, which is easy as long as it is not too embeded.
Shaping is easy - the cement is stiff, but you can scrape it with a putty knife and coarse (I used 50 grit) sandpaper.
But be careful, don't put any strain on the handle especially. This one broke while shaping. (It was made using some year old cement, kinda lumpy, not nearly as strong as the fresh stuff.)
Here is a closeup to show you the fibers. Don't sweat these now.
After shaping wrap the pounder back up so it can finish curing without drying. Let it sit ... at least a week or so. Longer better.
I waited 11 days, which was fine. By now the cement is fairly dry and hard, but still sandable. I used 60 grit. To get rid of the fibers a quick torching will burn them off. After sanding and torching, I called it done. I will wait a full month before pounding.
The sweetest part about a cement pounder is how it fits your hand. It is a much more complex shape, and I doubt I could ever do it in stone.
If I make another ... I think I would test just pouring it into a glass beaker from surplus store, then break off glass about 20 hours later and try to shape. (I've only tried to pound once, and when I whacked the piece of taro it zinged across the room. Watching Danny's video from Mike V on taro-and-ti http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=bryvmMonphM - I note he does a few gentle presses before wailing. He also uses a flat bottom style pounder, and that is what I would try to shape next. Or if I don't find a beaker, just set the bottom on a flat surface while the cement is setting up.)
Traditional poi pounders from a book Mike V posted on Taro and Ti. Note the flatter or flat bottoms.
You can darken the cement color. This stuff is ~$8, maybe a Tbsp or less plenty for color. Under the pounder is a step made with the darkened cement (on a lava rock, in a place that shows), vs the pounder with light gray cement as is. The dye will be fairly permanent, but it will eventually fade, more so in light and water. The dye weakens the cement a wee bit.
OK, now let's look at making a poi pounder from blue rock. These rocks are out of a stream bed. The 2 on the left are very solid heavy rock.
The main trick with making poi pounders with a grinder is to cut the handle long ways, and with a series of small cuts. I assume that if you cut the other way, going around the handle, that you would "score" the rock and it would break (like cutting tile or brick).
One difference between the solid blue rock and the soft puka rock is that the scars from cutting are much harder to smooth out. At this stage I have just tried a rotary sander at 50 grit, and you can still see the grinder cuts below. Overall the belt sander worked best.
The finished pounders. The blue rock on the left took a lot longer than the puka rock.
Next a few pix on choosing rocks. Here is the source of blue rock. It is a "vent", where lava was coming up to the surface, but stopped flowing and hardened before ever bubbling and boiling. There are no gas bubbles. On the left is regular lava which is much softer.
Just a broken rock to show what we call "blue". The outside of this rock is weathered, but the inside looks like it has never seen water.
The source of puka rock is regular lava. Here you can see some boulders that are resisting the weathering that is turning the rest of the lava into soil.
More boulders, some are breaking free.
As the rest of the lava turns to soil and erodes away, the boulders gather at the heads of valleys and eventually end up in the stream beds, landslides, etc.
Here is a classic use of weathered puka rocks, a "dry stack" wall. Big rocks are placed on the outside, then the core is filled with little rocks. This makes a flat spot that another big rock can be set upon.
And a bag of poi. Making the poi pounders is fun, but so far I still need the taro growers and poi factories to get all the poi we like to eat. It is funny how once you try to make it yourself how much you appreciate the convenience of just toodling down to the store to get a bag.
Now let's go to buying taro corms and attempting to make poi. (I failed at the last part ....) At many grocery stores you can find corms, but they are not poi types. And a little pricey.
If you go to Chinatown, you can save money, but still 99% of the corms will be bun long. These (I am told) are fine for many things, but not poi.
Here is the inside of a big bun long corm. Note the purple fibers, which is the easiest way to recognize it. (Most of the merchants will be glad to cut a little piece off so you can see the inside.) This one I baked for 2 hours at 460F, starting from a cold oven. Very good to just slice and eat, not dry as some are. I did not try making poi.
One day I got lucky and found some corms that I think are kai kea. Note the white ("kea") inside. The whole bin sold out by the time I walked by a few minutes later. Kai kea is a classic poi taro.
When baked (455F, 1 hr 40 min from cold start) the inside turns sorta grayish. This was the most delicious taro I had all year. Great just as it was. (Michael P on Taro and Ti raves about both the corm and the leaf of kai kea.) Long ago there were two kinds of poi sold in Hawaii grocery stores. There was the purplish "red" poi that became most popular, and some ghasty looking gray stuff that actually tasted better. I think that was kai kea poi. Long gone now.
Here is my set up for my first attempt to make poi. I dug a few pieces of cooked corm out, put them on the board, and wailed. What a goof. I hit too hard, and the angle on the pounder was too much. The taro pieces flew across the room. You will have much more success if you try to do what Danny does ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&hl=en-GB&v=bryvmMonphM ). Note the shapes of his poi board and pounder, and the smooth early pounds. Thanks for visiting. If you want to go to my taro growing page it is at http://raygrogan2-ivil.tripod.com/tarogrowcookeat/ .
