Journey of a new blade maker

cfagyal · Feb 25, 2018

Latest creation. 7 ply walnut Burl - mahogany - sassafras - kiri - sassafras - mahogany - walnut Burl. Handle is Makore, Curly Maple and Purpleheart. I think this one came out really nicely. 96.4g, 6.49mm

Closeup of edge of blade:

Fixed the resizing issue. Seems uploading from my iPad causes incredibly small thumbnail sized images.

bobpuls · Feb 25, 2018

i do not understand why you put so much energy into the blade and then take such weak pictures ... this way i can not see the beauty of the wood ,which i think is really nice .

cfagyal · Feb 25, 2018

bobpuls said:
i do not understand why you put so much energy into the blade and then take such weak pictures ... this way i can not see the beauty of the wood ,which i think is really nice .

Bob: what is wrong with the pictures? I’m confused by your post.

bobpuls · Feb 25, 2018

yes the size is to small ..
i found that ttd is resizing all pictures over some resolution. ... i found 1024 px is ok for ttd and still good for us.

Simas · Feb 26, 2018

cfagyal said:
Bob: what is wrong with the pictures? I’m confused by your post.

That's not that big of a deal, but try taking pictures on different background color that contrast with the wood. White should be ok.

Great job!

bobpuls · Feb 26, 2018

now it is nice and i can see properly . Great

itachidaily · Feb 26, 2018

wow, very good job..

cfagyal · Feb 26, 2018

itachidaily said:
wow, very good job..

Thank you!

I recently purchased some hand planes and a multitude of additional grits of sandpaper, and have taken to doing a lot more hand finishing on handles than my first several blades. This handle was almost entirely done by hand other than some initial roundover with a router bit (which since this Makore wasn't very figured was easy and had no tear-out concerns). However all of the shaping to get the thickness right on each side of the handle, the final rounding over of each side, the shaping of the taper at the end of the handle, etc was all done by hand with a hand planer. Once that planing was done, some final sanding was done with 220, 400 and then 600 grit sandpaper using an orbital sander. I'm very pleased with how the fit an finish of the handle comes out when doing it this way.

I think i'll certainly continue doing handles more by hand, especially on highly figured woods where router tearour is a serious concern. Last week I had a handle, literally moments from being done, and i was trying to get some final trimming done and was using my router ultimate flush spiral trim bit... it does a fabulous job of creating glass smooth finishes on wood, however I was doing it with a highly figured walnut burl, and literally on the last pass, doing just a tiny amount each time, it caught on some of the figuring, and ruined the handle.

GinjaNinja · Feb 26, 2018

cfagyal said:
Thank you!

I recently purchased some hand planes and a multitude of additional grits of sandpaper, and have taken to doing a lot more hand finishing on handles than my first several blades. This handle was almost entirely done by hand other than some initial roundover with a router bit (which since this Makore wasn't very figured was easy and had no tear-out concerns). However all of the shaping to get the thickness right on each side of the handle, the final rounding over of each side, the shaping of the taper at the end of the handle, etc was all done by hand with a hand planer. Once that planing was done, some final sanding was done with 220, 400 and then 600 grit sandpaper using an orbital sander. I'm very pleased with how the fit an finish of the handle comes out when doing it this way.

I think i'll certainly continue doing handles more by hand, especially on highly figured woods where router tearour is a serious concern. Last week I had a handle, literally moments from being done, and i was trying to get some final trimming done and was using my router ultimate flush spiral trim bit... it does a fabulous job of creating glass smooth finishes on wood, however I was doing it with a highly figured walnut burl, and literally on the last pass, doing just a tiny amount each time, it caught on some of the figuring, and ruined the handle.

The perils of being a blade maker! I've had the same thng got several times it's leaves you feeling sick to the stomach! I am sure even Ross Leidy has had similar moments.

cfagyal · Jul 2, 2018

Been a while since I completed a new blade, as i've been enjoying playing with the multiple blades I had finished, plus a blade from Ginja. I recently purchased a few different carbon fibers, and this is my first venture into the realm of composite blades.

This blade is a Chestnut Burl top play, then Lutz Spruce, followed by ZLC, and then a Western Red Cedar Core. It is 6.04mm thick, and has a weight of 93.28g. I haven't put rubbers on it yet, however it bare bounce tests faster than anything i've built to date. I've been keeping a spreadsheet with all of my finished blades, and included in that information I keep a recording of the spectrum analyzer reading I get when doing a bare bounce test. It has been pretty accurate in judging the speed of a blade. This blade tests at 1725Hz which is significantly faster than any of my 7ply or 5ply wood blades. My fastest 7ply wood tests at 1381. The Inner Textreme blade Ginja made for me with a Redwood outer ply tested in the 1325 range if I recall correctly. I was quite surprised at the test results for this inner ZLC blade. Just shows how two soft plies on top of ZLC above a stiff core results in a very springy fast blade.

The handle of the blade is made from Pomelle Sapele with a Makore End cap and a Curly Sycamore Maple strip near the top. The Makore and Sapele are separated by two strips of Oukume Veneer, and the Curly Sycamore Maple is surrounded by a single Douglas Fir veneer strip on either side.

The template for this blade is purposefully a little asymmetrical in that I intentionally have the flare out on the bottom of the blade head a bit wider where my finger would rest. I have found this gives me a little better feel, and everyone who has tried a blade made with this template has liked the different in feel versus a symmetrical shape.

Here is a picture of the blade. I'll try to take a closeup of the plies in a little while.

cfagyal · Jul 6, 2018

This is the latest blade in my journey. While working on the handles for the ZLC blade, I started making another, but this time from one of the other carbons I purchased.

The composition of this blade is: Mahogany - Hexcel Primetex 12K ST Carbon - Black Limba - Kiri - Black Limba - Hexcel Primetex 12K ST Carbon - Mahogany.

Handle is made from Curly Maple, with a center stripe of Ambonya, and some Pomelle Sapele for the end cap. I used Okoume and Mahogany veneer stripes on either side of the Ambonya to set it off from the Maple, and then Pine veneer strips to set the End cap off from the rest of the handle. I really like how it turned out... the little color variations on the pine veneer and the contrast of the okoume against the Ambonya and then the mahogany against the maple. It just came together really nicely I think.

The ply orientation is a bit interesting in this one as well. Mahogany at 0, Carbon (Not sure orientation matters here, as the pattern doesn't have a particular "direction" to it that I can tell), Limba at 0, Kiri core at 90 degrees... So the core will flex a lot, but the plies are stiff, with a stiff carbon fiber

I originally purchased 3 different carbons. A regular 2x2 twill ZLC carbon, a spread tow Textreme ZLC carbon, and then the carbon in this blade which I found rather interesting. It is called a 2x2 twill Hexcel PrimeTex 12K spread tow carbon fiber. What that means is the carbon fiber is arranged 2x2 twill pattern, it is weaved from thicker individual strands of carbon (spread tow), the yarn size is 12000 carbon filaments per "tow". 12K carbon fiber is quite heavy normally... The reason I chose this fiber was because, in a spread-tow, the weight actually becomes manageable (192gsm) and I wanted to give it a try. Generally the higher the weave count, also the stiffer the carbon fiber is as well.

This blade was an interesting journey and I ran into a few issues that I now know better how to solve. In particular spread tow carbon fibers are easy to malform, as the individual tows are literally just woven together...so you can easily pully a strand out of the weave without much effort at all. This was very apparent when applying resin. I was using a metal spreader that i'd used many times for spreading Polyurethane glue, and it works great. However it was no longer perfectly smooth, having a few tiny bits of glue left on it from a prior cleaning, and those caught on the carbon fiber tows and made spreading a very tricky task. I purchased a roller for future resin applications. Also, due to this difficulty I believe I applied way too much resin. This left me with a blade that was 79g+ before even adding handles. I was able to bake it down to 77.5g, but that still left a major challenge. I decided to take a millimeter or two off the top area of the blade (so instead of 150x157mm, its closer to 150x155-156mm, and then with handles that were 10-10.5g each, the weight of the blade after gluing the handles and applying finish ended up being 96.4g. A little heavy, but i've found during my blade creation journey that a well balanced 93-96g blade feels just as good to me as a 85-87g blade.

Simas · Jul 7, 2018

You wrote that they were wider at the bottom. Is the top of them also wider and not as rounded as standard blades are? From the pictures, it looks so

very beautiful blades.

GinjaNinja · Jul 7, 2018

cfagyal said:
View attachment 16809

This is the latest blade in my journey. While working on the handles for the ZLC blade, I started making another, but this time from one of the other carbons I purchased.

The composition of this blade is: Mahogany - Hexcel Primetex 12K ST Carbon - Black Limba - Kiri - Black Limba - Hexcel Primetex 12K ST Carbon - Mahogany.

Handle is made from Curly Maple, with a center stripe of Ambonya, and some Pomelle Sapele for the end cap. I used Okoume and Mahogany veneer stripes on either side of the Ambonya to set it off from the Maple, and then Pine veneer strips to set the End cap off from the rest of the handle. I really like how it turned out... the little color variations on the pine veneer and the contrast of the okoume against the Ambonya and then the mahogany against the maple. It just came together really nicely I think.

The ply orientation is a bit interesting in this one as well. Mahogany at 0, Carbon (Not sure orientation matters here, as the pattern doesn't have a particular "direction" to it that I can tell), Limba at 0, Kiri core at 90 degrees... So the core will flex a lot, but the plies are stiff, with a stiff carbon fiber

I originally purchased 3 different carbons. A regular 2x2 twill ZLC carbon, a spread tow Textreme ZLC carbon, and then the carbon in this blade which I found rather interesting. It is called a 2x2 twill Hexcel PrimeTex 12K spread tow carbon fiber. What that means is the carbon fiber is arranged 2x2 twill pattern, it is weaved from thicker individual strands of carbon (spread tow), the yarn size is 12000 carbon filaments per "tow". 12K carbon fiber is quite heavy normally... The reason I chose this fiber was because, in a spread-tow, the weight actually becomes manageable (192gsm) and I wanted to give it a try. Generally the higher the weave count, also the stiffer the carbon fiber is as well.

This blade was an interesting journey and I ran into a few issues that I now know better how to solve. In particular spread tow carbon fibers are easy to malform, as the individual tows are literally just woven together...so you can easily pully a strand out of the weave without much effort at all. This was very apparent when applying resin. I was using a metal spreader that i'd used many times for spreading Polyurethane glue, and it works great. However it was no longer perfectly smooth, having a few tiny bits of glue left on it from a prior cleaning, and those caught on the carbon fiber tows and made spreading a very tricky task. I purchased a roller for future resin applications. Also, due to this difficulty I believe I applied way too much resin. This left me with a blade that was 79g+ before even adding handles. I was able to bake it down to 77.5g, but that still left a major challenge. I decided to take a millimeter or two off the top area of the blade (so instead of 150x157mm, its closer to 150x155-156mm, and then with handles that were 10-10.5g each, the weight of the blade after gluing the handles and applying finish ended up being 96.4g. A little heavy, but i've found during my blade creation journey that a well balanced 93-96g blade feels just as good to me as a 85-87g blade.

Beautiful handle! Really nice choice of woods. You are right Chris, some of those woven fibres can be disturbed very easily.

cfagyal · Jul 7, 2018

Simas said:
You wrote that they were wider at the bottom. Is the top of them also wider and not as rounded as standard blades are? From the pictures, it looks so

very beautiful blades.

yes the pattern is wider at the top and bottom and not so rounded/curved. I think this gives a little better margin for error if you are slightly off center, at the expense of a little added weight. It is one of my templates I’ve used for my last two blades that are flared handle blades. I have a similar template for straight handles and it got rave reviews from the feel perspective, so I tried it in flared. One of the beauties of custom blade making is you have the option to experiment and be a little unique or innovative.

cfagyal · Jul 7, 2018

In case anyone is interested, this is a picture of the carbon fiber that I described in the pictured blade above. I just taped and cut two more sheets of it for a future blade that I'm about to set in progress.

cfagyal · Jul 11, 2018

So i've had two play sessions and a training session with the Hexcel Primetex carbon blade. It has taken some getting used to. The first time I used it, during training, it seemed very controllable but with a very high top end. It was definitely stiff, but less stiff than I expected given the composition, and the stiffness of the carbon being used. During play sessions I found there was a bigger learning curve required than when I was doing multi-ball training with my coach. I found the blade has a little lower throw than the all-wood blades i'd been using as well as the Inner Textreme blade that @GinjaNinja built for me. So I was consistently missing fairly easy loops on both wings into the top of the net. Yesterday I found that I was starting to adjust to this, and my gameplay improved considerably. I have another blade in the press currently that should be similarly interesting and is using the same carbon, but with different plies. I intend to work on the handles for that blade this weekend and hopefully be able to report back with more information soon.

The freedom to be able to experiment with different carbons and cores is definitely a very addicting part of blade making. I can test something, see how it plays, learn from it, and build from that knowledge in future creations.

cfagyal · Sep 17, 2018

Haven't posted an update here in a few months, but thought people would like to see what i've been up to.

This is the latest blade I made. It is using the Kiso and Kumamoto Hinoki I recently bought from Japan. The construction is as follows:

Kiso Hinoki - Kumamoto Hinoki - Hexcel Primetex Carbon, Kiri, Hexcel Primetex Carbon, Kumamoto Hinoki - Kiso Hinoki.

The blade weighs 90.6g and is 5.9mm thick. I have yet to put any rubber on it as a friend at my club saw it and went "wow that's gorgeous, I may want to buy it", so i'm waiting for his decision.

Blade tested at 1443Hz on a bare blade bounce test which puts it upper OFF to close to OFF+. Had a very even peak structure as well (Rather than a large peak and significant fall-off on either side) -- I know this has some meaning, but I can't recall off the top of my head what the different spectrum analyzer structures equated to.

Below are some pictures, and for anyone interested I also posted a short video of me routing the handle. I use either a Whiteside Compression Ultimate Flush Trim Bit or a Freud Helix Downshear Flush trim bit to route the handle and the blade, depending on the wood to try to reduce tearout possibilities, and then a 5/8" Freud Quadra-cut roundover bit to round the handles before final sanding and finishing to shape. I've attached a video of the rounding over of the handle if anyone is curious about my setup.

shinshiro · Sep 17, 2018

cfagyal said:
Blade tested at 1443Hz on a bare blade bounce test which puts it upper OFF to close to OFF+. Had a very even peak structure as well (Rather than a large peak and significant fall-off on either side) -- I know this has some meaning, but I can't recall off the top of my head what the different spectrum analyzer structures equated to.

If I recall correctly, someone on mytt said that the measure you get (1443Hz in your case) is related to stiffiness, and the "even peak" means top ply softness. I'm not sure how reliable is that statement but seems to make sense to me, since one ply hinoki are very thick (so very stiff), measuring very high Hz (more than 2000Hz), and also has that "even peak", due to the softness of hinoki wood.

GinjaNinja · Sep 19, 2018

Well done chris, best looking blade yet! It's always interesting to see how people work, we all seem to do it slightly different. In the end I think we find the methods that work best for us. I'm quite jealous of your router table too!

cfagyal · Sep 19, 2018

GinjaNinja said:
Well done chris, best looking blade yet! It's always interesting to see how people work, we all seem to do it slightly different. In the end I think we find the methods that work best for us. I'm quite jealous of your router table too!

Thanks! I quite like my router table too

The lift for the router is nice, it allows me to do what I did in the video very easily. I set the flush trim bit so that it barely takes any off the handle on the first pass, and then i do a quarter turn each pass, so i'm lifting by a very small amount, and this helps me take off material and avoid tearout even on highly figured woods.

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