Homemade table tennis blade

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Thanks for the kind words Spinking, I'll add some ratings on those blades.

Here's a picture of your blade, I meant to post this a while ago but I've been busy at work, apologies.
This is one of my favourite compositions, ayous core, douglas fir, limba, 5.7mm thick and made with hide glue.. Off- , would you say?
Zebrano, yew and basswood handle.

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Yes, I would agree off- to maybe even off.
 
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I’m the lucky owner of the above blade, it’s a work of art and an amazing tool for my table tennis.
The ‘touch’ is impressive and has improved my close game significantly. I would be lost without it and I am about to order a duplicate for my spare blade and to try some new rubbers out.
Garry
 
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I’m the lucky owner of the above blade, it’s a work of art and an amazing tool for my table tennis.
The ‘touch’ is impressive and has improved my close game significantly. I would be lost without it and I am about to order a duplicate for my spare blade and to try some new rubbers out.
Garry
Thanks Garry, I've e-mailed you. I've made a lot of blades with this composition, people seem to really like it.
For anyone who's interested, Garry's blade is the second one on post 246. It's balsa - twarron carbon - ayous - mahogany.
 
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Where do you guys get the blade template from. Thanks

The easiest way is to remove the handle of an old blade and then use that. Use a flush cut saw to do it and then copy it using a router. You can make a template without removing the handle but that's a bit harder.Alternatively see Ross Leidy's thread on another forum! I also know some people have had them 3D printed or laser cut.
 
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For all of my templates, I took images of blades from the web, traced them using Inkscape, made sure the dimensions were precisely right for every part of the tracing, and then had them lasercut at Ponoko.com. There was some trial-and-error involved here and my first templates were definitely not as good as my second ones. Things like making sure the template is about 0.3-0.5mm larger than you want because the laser takes about that much material when it cuts, etc are important to consider. I took a variety of different blades from different manufacturers and traced each of them to give me a variety of different designs, both straight and flared handles of different sizes etc.
 
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This is the first blade I've made for a year or so. I made the handles a while ago and never got around to using them so I thought I'd do something with them whilst waiting for the glue to dry on another project. The composition is ayous - poplar - ash, 90g and 5.5mm thick. Feels like it will be all plus with plenty of flex. Finished with teak oil as I don't have any PU varnish at the moment.

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There is often a lot of discussion on this forum about the positives and negatives of varnishing/sealing blades. The main positive being that it protects the blade from splintering. Another one, certainly, from the point of view of a blade maker is the difference in appearance as the colour and the grain of the wood is brought out. This is a blade I made a week or so ago (whilst in self-isolation), look at the difference between the blade 'in the white' and the one after a coat of thinned PU varnish. It's always exciting to see how that blade will look as the first coat goes on. I've also included a picture of the blade after the varnish had fully dried. I only use a thinned blend of pu varnish and BLO.

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The blade is a hide glue western red cedar - alder - cherry. 83g and 6.0mm, all plus probably. Another thread has suggested WRC is slower than ayous and I'd fully agree. This blade has 3.6mm WRC core and if it was ayous it would be far quicker. The handle is maple burr, spruce and purple heart.
 
Further to the elm blade PU/Epoxy test, I thought I'd try changing the outer ply. I've been looking for some high quality rosewood for a while but have been struggling to find veneers that are wide enough. This is an ayous - ayous - rosewood (PU glue) composition, 5.9mm thick and 94g. The handle is rosewood and a couple of burr woods thrown in.
I'll feedback on the differences when I've had chance to make some comparisons. My goal here is to review the effect of changing the top ply. I choose rosewood as it's is significantly harder and heavier than elm. Already I know it's a few grams heavier, which is to be expected, the pitch is also higher. More details to follow.
The tang (finger rest) is also different on this blade as it's a cove shape rather than chamfer. I'm not sure if you can see this fully in the picture, I've been wanted to try this for a while but never quite got to it until now.
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what is the head size of the blade?
 
Hey Yogi-bear, 160mm x 151mm, handle is 100mm

No wonder it is 94 grams. Maybe try the 157 x 150mm standard head size. It will reduce the weight unless you are trying to have an oversized blade.
 
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No wonder it is 94 grams. Maybe try the 157 x 150mm standard head size. It will reduce the weight unless you are trying to have an oversized blade.[/

hi Yogi, it was made that way deliberately, I like blades around 92g and slightly larger head sizes. I haven’t weighed it since I made it but I bet it’s lost a couple of grams from then. My first real offensive blade was tibhar stratus powerwood at 96g and loved using it for years, I think this is why is like larger and heavier blades. I use a smaller head size when I want a lighter blade or when using carbon. Having said that the WRC and cherry blade above has the same larger headsize yet is only 83g.
 
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I have also tried to make ping pong paddle in home but i failed paddle is little heavy and bigger in size i don't think this is suitable for playing ping pong.
 
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How cool it looks. I really like it. Although I'm so lazy that I can't even install a shelf, let alone make a table tennis blade.
 
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