Instead of worrying about that, what do you guys think of just buying a stick and then replacing the blade with a plastic one once the wood blade breaks? I've been using a plastic blade for a decent length of time now and it works fairly well, it's hard to get a nice curve on it but it gets there over time. You basically go out and by the lightest wood stick you can find (or more durable if you prefer) and just screw the plastic blade to the bottom, it's fairly sturdy. Have seen a lot of problems with sticks that are glued to the composite one piece which also tends to be more expensive and the blade is gonna break unlike the plastic one.