To be fair, I do understand why wood breaks along the grain. It’s like separating two pieces of wood glued together — except the wood is joined together by lignin (a natural joiner) as opposed to synthetic glues. The grain is just like the weak point between two pieces of wood glued together. This also explains why it is allegedly very easy to fix blades broken along the grain — the wood worker would just replace the natural joiner with glue and the cut would be very clean.
What I am fundamentally interested in is:
1. The playing characteristics of the blade, specifically stiffness — I have had trouble with a very stiff hinoki carbon blade (it was much too fast, low arcing and uncomfortable for topspin), but people describe the looping with single ply hinoki blades as very easy, high arcing and comfortable. People also say looping blades are high arcing, slower flexible and hitting blades are low arcing, faster and stiff. So I don’t really understand how single ply, chunky Off+ hinoki blades work in that respect.
2. Will the blade break if I drop it? — I can get fairly easily get a strong steel case like you suggested earlier in the thread to prevent the blade from bending, but I can’t guarantee that I won’t drop it. If I’m going to blow £100+ on a blade that will break very easily if dropped then it would be a bad plan to buy it.
I know very little about Design and Technology or Physics, so thank you, I appreciate your wisdom
Good explanation of what you are trying to understand. Thank you.
So, what you are looking for is the qualities of Hinoki as a wood. I can assure you that the Hinoki/Carbon blade you tried which was very stiff, was not stiff because of the Hinoki. Hinoki is a kind of unique. It is soft and springy. It has more gears than most woods. Like, you could have a blade that is all Hinoki that is slow on touch shots, a moderate pace on moderate power shots and a rocket launcher when you spin the hell out of the ball (Note, I did not say "when you smash"). Also, when Hinoki is paired with Carbon, for some reason, it usually ends up feeling wildly faster than I would have thought. When you spin the ball, Hinoki seems to grab the ball harder than any other wood I have tried. But to me, it does not seem that well suited to direct contact (except when you have one of those 10mm thick blades).
As a result, Hinoki is the kind of wood that people usually EITHER Love or Hate.
For what you are looking at, I would think about finding a 5 or 7 ply Hinoki blade to test for 5-15 min so you can see if you are in the Love or Not Love category with Hinoki. If you do that, I would test with a blade that is ALL Hinoki (all plies in the blade are Hinoki rather than mixed with other woods).
As far as Hinoki in thinner blades it is decently flexible. When something is 10mm thick, it is hard for me to imagine that it would be flexible. But Hinoki is still soft and grabs the ball like nothing else.....so, those things, soft and grabbing the ball, make it great for looping, even in one of those 10mm thick One Ply blades.
By the way, it is worth noting that there are several people on TTDaily who own ONE Ply Hinoki blades for years without ever having the blade break. So, it is not that they all break. Many don't break. But because the blade is a One Ply, you have to do your best to be extra careful with it and someone not knowing this, and spending several hundred dollars (Euros....Pounds....or what ever currency) without knowing that and having the blade break after a few weeks or months would be terrible. So, it is not that they will break. It is that you may WANT to think of a One Ply Hinoki blade as different than a blade made of multiple plies. That a One Ply Hinoki blade is an investment, a work of art, and a blade to care for as if it were delicate, so that, it CAN last you a lifetime of enjoyment as you play with it.