The ideal wood for the DIY slate? I am planning to create a DIY slate/clapperboard. What would be the ideal wood for the clapper? I believe that the main qualities of the ideal wood would include, but not limited to, the following:


Toughness : the ability to withstand lots and lots of clapping.
Sound : it should make the snappiest and loudest sound compared to other woods; although, I am not sure whether there is a major difference among the types of woods.
Budget : Of course, we should always try to keep our costs as low as possible.


What type of wood I should be looking for?
I'm not really sure there is an ideal wood.  In fact, it really doesn't even need to be wood.

The entire point of a clapper is simply to make an audible sound that comes from an easily visible source.

As long as the sound is loud, short and crisp you are fine.  If you wanted, you could have your three year old be the clapper instead and just give him two pots to bang together.

The convention of a clapper is simply because it is a convenient device that also allows for indicating other meta data about the shot.  The clapper part is just included so that you can also capture the audio sync data without needing another device.