Our Mission

Manufacture Hawaiian and exotic tonewoods, veneers and lumber that show the beauty of God's creation around the world.

Our Core Values

Integrity, Honesty, Hard working & Disciplined, Family, Efficiency

Our mission is to provide commercial benefit of the forest to the beneficial landowners while maintaining and enhancing all the forest values using a scientific and ecological approach to achieve the landowner's objectives while protecting the native plants, animals and water.

History of our Hawaiian Koa Business

We Supply Koa Wood as Koa Tonewood, Koa Veneer, and Koa Lumber
Koa Guitar Wood & Koa Ukulele Wood

LATE 1800's

Our first experience with sawmilling and wood supply started generations ago in Northern California.

EARLY 1970-2000's

The first Winklers relocated to Hawaii for forestry industry work.

Jorma Winkler began marketing Hawaiian lumber species worldwide.

MAY 2002

Winkler Woods LLC formed to supply Hawaiian Koa to the instrument makers worldwide in lumber, re-sawn sets, and fancy wood veneers.

JUNE 2003

Winkler Woods LLC chosen over many other companies by the State of Hawaii, Department of Hawaiian Homelands to harvest, market, and reforest over 100 acres of Koa forested land on the slopes of Mauna Kea 6,000′ elevation.

OCTOBER 2006

Honolulu, Hawaii branch office for sales and distribution started.

A new line of Koa ukulele sets was formed by Jorma Winkler to make use of small pieces of Hawaiian Koa that can be used in ukuleles. World famous line of UKULELES named Big Island Ukulele Co.

JULY 2010

Office and warehouse moved to more central Honolulu location; now within walking distance to major shopping areas (Ward and Ala Moana); kiln drying and secondary processing done here.

2011

Moved from unit 104 to unit 108 twice the size to add a full millwork shop.

2014

Winkler Woods (Jorma Winkler) named Hawaii State Small Business Administration Exporter of the Year and presented award by Hawaii Congress Members in both the House and Senates.

2016

Winkler Woods' furniture and cabinetry business offers custom product to the booming development in Kaka’ako. A few key projects: the new International Marketplace Burial Room Wall exterior (custom-made Shou Sugi Ban), the interior wall at the Waiea Nobu in Kaka’ako, again Shou Sugi Ban. Also made Hawaiian Mango and Sugi dining tables for the extremely popular sushi restaurant, Sushi Murayama in the 808 Center. Restaurant Nobu’s wall paneling was another Sho Sugi Ban project completed by us.

2019

Winkler Woods gives up Kaka’ako Waimanu St location as of Dec 31, 2018 and reorganizes the business completely to focus more on Hawaiian Koa wood procurement and sales while working with local, Hawaiian contractors for the millwork portion of the process. Jorma hand selects the best Koa wood, Mango wood and cants for production then guides the entire process and controls the grading meticulously. The business is much more streamlined, yet at the same time not able to accommodate the retail market as well. Sorry, I cannot do it all…

Milling logistics and wood veneer distribution is done in Wahiawa. This allows Jorma to travel to and from the Big Island to make sure the flow of Hawaiian Koa wood is steady, and also to Japan to process, grade and ship the wood veneers.

About Us

Hawaiian Koa & Exotic Woods

Hawaiian Koa is the largest of the native trees of Hawaii. This beautiful tree has been used by Native Hawaiians for many uses, such as canoes, paddles, housing timbers, and carved figures. The Koa wood is now enjoyed by many in flooring, bowl turnings, picture frames, gun stocks, musical instruments, cabinets and a number of other gift items.

Winkler Woods LLC was formed in 2002 by the fourth generation wood-industry leader Jorma Winkler to supply Hawaiian Koa wood to customers worldwide. The Winklers have been a major distributor of Hawaiian tropical hardwoods for the past few decades. We specialize in supplying your unique wholesale Hawaiian hardwood needs in the musical instrument market for ukuleles and guitars, wood veneers and hardwood lumber for furniture making (cabinetry, panelling, flooring, carved figures). We keep supply of other exotic woods such as Mango, Ohia, Kamani, Milo, Cuban Mahogany, Lychee, Silky Oak, Toon, Bloodwood and Sugi (Japanese Cedar).

Koa Tonewood & Exotic Tonewoods - Koa Guitar Wood & Koa UKULELE WOOD

For Koa tonewood products, we sell them by set namely "Koa ukulele sets", "Koa acoustic guitar sets" and "Koa electric guitar sets". We are a wholesale and retail tonewood supplier capable to supply both bulk and small quantity orders, customers who'd like to order in bulk will have to inquire by email or contact form, then we'll discuss the pricing and prepare the custom order in advance. Our tonewood products are categorized by ukulele sizes, guitar sets and instrument billets. We have soprano, concert and tenor for ukulele sizes, as for acoustic guitar and electric guitar sets, we have guitar tops, sides and backs.

Currently these are the wood species we sell for tonewood category: figured curly Hawaiian Koa, spalted Hawaiian Mango, Indian Rosewood, Brazilian Rosewood, Cocobolo, Monkey Pod, Cuban Mahogany, Spruce Sitka, Spruce Engelmann and Spruce Adirondack. We're in the process of putting all these tonewood sets online but they are coming soon! We might have what you're after, you can inquire through email at info@winklerwoods.com and we'll get back to you shortly.

Koa Veneer, Koa Lumber & other Exotic Hardwoods

Jorma Winkler has been slicing Hawaiian Koa and other exotic Hawaiian hardwoods since 2003 to manufacture wood veneer and hardwood lumber for furniture making (cabinetry, panelling, flooring, carved figures). Our sourcing of super curly Koa or figured Koa veneers came from Big Island of Hawaii. We're able to salvage stripy, colorful and curly Hawaiian Koa from the summits of Mauna Loa, then processed them as paper back veneer and fleece back veneer. We also harvest wood specie such as Hawaiian Mango, Mimosa, Silky Oak, Monkey Pod, Makassar Ebony, Zebra Wood, Kamani and Chocolate Heart Albizia as paper back and fleece back veneer.

Figured curly Koa veneer, Mango veneer and Albizia veneer are now available for online purchase. Regarding hardwood lumber products, we have down-sized a lot due to global pandemic and don’t keep a lot of stock on hand, please send an email for your inquiries. Mostly we keep a bit of figured curly Koa lumber, spalted Mango lumber and beautiful Monkey Pod lumber on stock in our storehouse in Kapolei, Hawaii. Once we have enough stock of hardwood lumber and slabs, we'll put them for online purchase as well.

Company Information

Company Name: Winkler Woods LLC
Koa Harvesting: Hawaii Island
Established: May 2002
Business Activities: Koa manufacturing and distribution; cultural relations between Japan and Hawaii

Certifications & Awards

• Member: American Chamber of Commerce, Japan
• Board Member: Hawaii Forestry Industry Association
• Board Member: Hawaii Pacific Export Council
(HPEC), appointed by the US Secretary of Commerce.
• Hawaii State Exporter of the Year Award Winner 2017
National Associations of Music Manufacturers (NAMM)
• Member: Better Business Bureau Hawaii

Send us an email for your inquiries at