SDC Handmade Blades

[SDC]

A quick and ignorant question. For the 2 Cybershape-esque blades, are the lighter and darker regions of the top ply due to springwood and summerwood or 2 separate veneers being spliced together?

Not ignorant at all. It's the wood, I veeeery rarely do joint top plies, actually I think I've only did it once.

 

[Julzig]

I don't think I would be able to name them all correctly if I saw this photo, there's some tricky ones! 😅

Was looking into this shortly because I had the sudden urge to build some rackets myself. (Wont really happen with my tools currently)
So the yellow once are mostly Aramid just with different weave patterns mixed with carbon. Blue good ol Arylate carbon.
Some pure carbon weaves and was the white one spectra? Quite the complex topic if you look deep into it.
Actually learned a lot through your website. Quite the gem.

I also have some questions. So my blade continues to worry me, a couple months ago it made some cracking sounds. Those seem to be gone but I realised one of the the top plys is starting to come of slightly on the side, rn it is just a cm long and a few mm wide where it is not attached. Do you think this will be a big problem?
Also I cant seem to find what ALC Xiom used on my Blade, they call it Axylium (same as HAL) but here it is white, not orange, do you know more? just dye?
Or a similar substitude perhaps?

 

[SDC]

Was looking into this shortly because I had the sudden urge to build some rackets myself. (Wont really happen with my tools currently)
So the yellow once are mostly Aramid just with different weave patterns mixed with carbon. Blue good ol Arylate carbon.
Some pure carbon weaves and was the white one spectra? Quite the complex topic if you look deep into it.
Actually learned a lot through your website. Quite the gem.

I also have some questions. So my blade continues to worry me, a couple months ago it made some cracking sounds. Those seem to be gone but I realised one of the the top plys is starting to come of slightly on the side, rn it is just a cm long and a few mm wide where it is not attached. Do you think this will be a big problem?
Also I cant seem to find what ALC Xiom used on my Blade, they call it Axylium (same as HAL) but here it is white, not orange, do you know more? just dye?
Or a similar substitude perhaps?

Top row: 60g/m2 Kevlar / soft-carbon / 200 g/m2 Glassfiber / 160 g/m2 Carbon / 120 g/m2 Kevlar / 1K Carbon / AC-I
Bottom row: ALC / AC / Vectran-Carbon / ZLC / Izanas-Carbon / Ay-C / S-AC / S-AyC

Without pictures I cannot help with your problem...
Axylium is just their name for a Aramid fabric. Kevlar and Vectran are both aramid fabrics for example, they are very similar and can be dyed in different colors.

 

[SDC]

#1298 - 5ply - ALL+

Not all experiments go as expected, but there is always a lesson to be learned... I wanted to make the core as stiff as possible, and see its effect on the blade. It does not get more "inner carbon" than this, the carbon in this blade is literally in the core, to achieve this I reinforced the core with multiple vertical carbon layers. The goal was to have a thick core, which would have maximized the its influence on the performance of the blade, but due to some manufacturing difficulties, I only managed to make a 3mm core. So, how does it perform? Basically, very similarly to what it would, if the core wasn't reinforced. It's still a nice blade in its speed range, but there is nothing exceptional about it. If I were to say risk it, I would say it has a bit more kick and stability than if the core wasn't reinforced, but it's very subtle. It pains me to sell this blade as a simple 5 ply, it was one of the hardest blades I've ever built in terms of composition, but unfortunately the outcome did not match the effort.

Available FS.

- Koto / Ayous / Kiri core
- 86.7g
- 6.0mm
- 150x157mm
- ST (100x22.0x28.6mm)
- Balance: 3.5cm (Med)

 

[Ninja26Go]

prices for each blade? Great work btw.

 

[SDC]

prices for each blade? Great work btw.

Thanks!

The blades I have for immediate sale are on my website (everything gone at the moment). My regular work is commissioned, you can check my prices on the website as well.

 

[golden_son]

#1298 - 5ply - ALL+

Not all experiments go as expected, but there is always a lesson to be learned... I wanted to make the core as stiff as possible, and see its effect on the blade. It does not get more "inner carbon" than this, the carbon in this blade is literally in the core, to achieve this I reinforced the core with multiple vertical carbon layers. The goal was to have a thick core, which would have maximized the its influence on the performance of the blade, but due to some manufacturing difficulties, I only managed to make a 3mm core. So, how does it perform? Basically, very similarly to what it would, if the core wasn't reinforced. It's still a nice blade in its speed range, but there is nothing exceptional about it. If I were to say risk it, I would say it has a bit more kick and stability than if the core wasn't reinforced, but it's very subtle. It pains me to sell this blade as a simple 5 ply, it was one of the hardest blades I've ever built in terms of composition, but unfortunately the outcome did not match the effort.

Available FS.

- Koto / Ayous / Kiri core
- 86.7g
- 6.0mm
- 150x157mm
- ST (100x22.0x28.6mm)
- Balance: 3.5cm (Med)

I'm neither a physicist nor a materials expert but perhaps the carbon is just too soft to add stiffness in that direction. It definitely looks cool, though. I thought it was a thick spruce core at first!

Here's a wacky idea: could you wrap the edge of the core ply in carbon or some other tensioning material to reduce flexion without affecting hardness? Like a trampoline, where the tension of the springs changes the "stiffness" of the fabric, only in this case the "springs" are carbon (maybe) or some kind of springy wood bonded to the outer edge like permanent side tape. I suppose one good bang on the table and your tension wrap is useless, though, if it worked to begin with.

Out of curiosity, have you ever tried setting carbon as the literal core? I.e. a sheet sandwiched between two ~1.5-2mm plies of ayous or kiri, then your medial and outer plies? So you end up with a 7-ply. (Or a 5-ply of normal outer/thick inner/carbon/thick inner/outer...).

 

[Julzig]

Top row: 60g/m2 Kevlar / soft-carbon / 200 g/m2 Glassfiber / 160 g/m2 Carbon / 120 g/m2 Kevlar / 1K Carbon / AC-I
Bottom row: ALC / AC / Vectran-Carbon / ZLC / Izanas-Carbon / Ay-C / S-AC / S-AyC

Without pictures I cannot help with your problem...
Axylium is just their name for a Aramid fabric. Kevlar and Vectran are both aramid fabrics for example, they are very similar and can be dyed in different colors.

Good to see your work again firstly.

This little peel thingy hasn't changed since then I just stopped worrying alltogether. If it breaks it breaks and I can finally switch blades.
Oh okay I expected something like that, thank you!

 

[SDC]

I'm neither a physicist nor a materials expert but perhaps the carbon is just too soft to add stiffness in that direction. It definitely looks cool, though. I thought it was a thick spruce core at first!

Here's a wacky idea: could you wrap the edge of the core ply in carbon or some other tensioning material to reduce flexion without affecting hardness? Like a trampoline, where the tension of the springs changes the "stiffness" of the fabric, only in this case the "springs" are carbon (maybe) or some kind of springy wood bonded to the outer edge like permanent side tape. I suppose one good bang on the table and your tension wrap is useless, though, if it worked to begin with.

Out of curiosity, have you ever tried setting carbon as the literal core? I.e. a sheet sandwiched between two ~1.5-2mm plies of ayous or kiri, then your medial and outer plies? So you end up with a 7-ply. (Or a 5-ply of normal outer/thick inner/carbon/thick inner/outer...).

Ok, there are two separate situations here. The premise was to make the core as stiff as possible, which was achieved. The other situation was to see the influence of said core on the speed and feeling of the blade. It's not that it failed, it is what it is, it's just that my expectation was that the influence would be greater. The core is indeed much stiffer than a regular Kiri core, and I was able to prove it before I glued the plies, as the resistance to bending was far higher with this core. However, that didn't necessarily translate to a much faster blade, which makes total sense. Stiffness is generated by having material far from the neutral axis, and in this case the core wasn't thick enough to create that stiffness. If the core had been 4mm like I originally intended, the influence would have been much greater. I want to try that, but I'm so traumatized from building this one, that I don't think I will do it anytime soon 😂.

I did try that, mostly because customers asked me to do it, but that's a really ineffective way of using a composite layers. As I explained earlier, in that situation the composite layer is right in the neutral axis, so the influence on stiffness is almost negligible. It still impacts vibration, hardness and feeling, so it does affect performance, just not stiffness.

Truly a wacky idea, I have no idea how to accomplish that 😅.

 

[SDC]

#1340 - Inner AxC - OFF+

"Aren't inner blades supposed to be slower?" Well, not always 😅.

I wanted to make something stiff and fast but with a soft touch, without the use of Hinoki wood.

Available FS.

- Ayous / Spruce / AxC / Kiri core
- 88.3g
- 7.4mm
- 154x148mm
- FL (100x23.0mm)
- Balance: 3.1cm (Med)

 

[SDC]

#1353 - 5 ply - OFF-

Another experiment, this time with tension. Tension in a blade is usually a big no no, if the structure isn't fully symmetrical, a small force imbalance is enough to make the blade warp. As such, this is a very delicate process and it would be totally impossible to implement in an asymmetric build, or we would end up with a spoon! The process itself I'm not going to disclose, but in essence it consists of stretching the wood plies before gluing them. I was a little afraid of the warping menace, so I wasn't very aggressive with it, I could, and I will attempt to do it more in the future.

But, after all this talk, did it work?! Well, my dumb self forgot to make a "normal" one with the same structure to serve as reference, so I'm not sure 😂. I would say it feels a bit more dynamic, more responsive when you put some effort into it, but I'm not sure if that's due to the tension or the structure itself. Anyway, it's still a nice blade in the lower OFF- range, soft and with a nice feeling, maybe a step up from a Virtuoso-.

Available FS.

- Limba / Koto / Ayous core
- 89.6g
- 5.7mm
- 158x152mm
- FL (102x25.5-22.5mm)
- Balance: 3.1cm (Med)

 

[SDC]

#1359 - Asymmetric Inner/Inner - OFF-/ALL

This is an asymmetric blade, made with a specific playtstyle in mind: chop blocking with SP on the BH to create an opening, then finalizing the point with the Fh. The Fh side was designed more for smashing/driving, rather than looping, so I used a dense carbon layer below the hardish Koto outer. On the Bh side we have a less dense Koto outer layer, which I used because of its properties, but also the color. Many player use OX pips, and if they are red, they will look like black if the wood underneath is dark, so to avoid this problem I use a light colored wood. On the Bh we also have the "super diolen-carbon" fabric, that has been very successful in this type of blade. The fabric, along with a specific lamination process, helps us to slow down the pips side while retaining the speed of the Fh side, achieving a true speed difference that you can feel just by bouncing a ball on it.

Available FS.

- Koto / SC / Ayous / Kiri / S-DC / Ayous / Koto
- 85.7g
- 5.8mm
- 157x150mm
- ST (101x23.0x28.7mm)
- Balance: 2.8cm (Low)

 

[SDC]

#1367 - Asymmetric Inner/Outer - OFF/ALL+

No, it's not the same blade as the previous one, but we can consider it its big brother. The philosophy and structure are very similar to #1359, but I wanted to make it slightly more offensive. As I always say to my customer, we cannot fully isolate the sides, and if you mess with one, it will affect the other. In this case I increased the reaction of the Fh side, by adjusting the Bh. The concept is very simple, we just need to increase the stiffness, and that was accomplished by moving the fabric to the "outside" on the Bh. Of course that normally this would greatly impact the Bh side too, so this could not have been done without the use of the "super diolen-carbon". I did make another change to compensate for the increase and swapped the Ayous medial for Balsa, which is softer and more dampening. So yes, this is a more offensive version of #1359, the Bh side is also a little faster, but the increase on the Fh side was greater, so you can feel a bigger speed difference between sides with this one.

Available FS.

- Koto / SC / Ayous / Kiri / Balsa / S-DC / Koto
- 85.1g
- 6.0mm
- 157x150mm
- ST (101x23.0x28.7mm)
- Balance: 2.7cm (Low)

 

[SDC]

#1366 - Asymmetric Inner/Inner - OFF-

Another asymmetric blade but this time with a more offensive pedigree. The Bh side is based on a Rossi emotion, it has a slightly harder feeling but at the same time a bit slower. The Fh side is softer, but it has more speed potential, so you get more power on harder shots. It's a blade that will fit a Fh oriented player well, that mostly uses his Bh for the short game and blocking, and finishes the point with powerful forehands. The head shape is not something I usually do, because it was taken directly from a Rossi Emotion as well.

Available FS.

- Limba / Ayous / S-AxC / Ayous core / Carbon / Koto / Cypress
- 86.2g
- 5.8mm
- 156x152mm
- FL (100x25.0-22.6mm)
- Balance: 2.9cm (Low/Med)

 

[Vrael]

#1366 - Asymmetric Inner/Inner - OFF-

what frequency does it have ? You make so many blades that I am not sure if remember, but if You remember is it faster than mine inner-inner that I have order last time ?

 

[SDC]

what frequency does it have ? You make so many blades that I am not sure if remember, but if You remember is it faster than mine inner-inner that I have order last time ?

1335Hz. If I do recall correctly, yes it is faster.

 

[Vrael]

hope someone buys it fast, cause it is very tempting and I am already on waiting list

 

[SDC]

hope someone buys it fast, cause it is very tempting and I am already on waiting list

Someone heard you, it's gone 😅

 

[Vrael]

great, my wallet is safe and new year resolution to EJ less is still safe

 

[Robo]

What number is currently being called from the waiting list?