Custom Made Blade DAB Studios

Overseer Kevin · Mar 28, 2018

GinjaNinja said:
At the risk of disagreeing with fellow blade makers, some with greater experience than me, I think this could possibly work. I'm not sure it would be a blade I'd like but that's irrelevant. That looks like yellow aramid cloth to me rather than glass fibre carbon, it also looks pretty thick and heavy. Although I'd be concerned over what looks like a very thin ayous core, the thick aramid may compensate to some extent. If it is aramid, and it's 200gpsm or more then it will need plenty of laminating epoxy therefore helping the rigidity and strength. I wouldn't be too worried about the 90 degree veneer sheet as the aramid weave will help spread the vibrations and will support it's strength - i don't always lay the medial at 90 degrees for carbon blades, i find it essential for all wood though. I'd be interested to know the thickness of the layers too.
Having said all that, I'd be very nervous making this blade. Only time will tell. I am sure when the first person who suggested using carbon received several raised eyebrows and questions. It will be fascinating to hear the feedback on how it plays. I love the fact you have the courage to follow what you believe will work. Good luck!

YES!!!! I got one possible agree. Lol

There is a thin line between courage and crazy. Lol The blade is under 6mm with a relatively thin core but slightly thicker medial layer. The medial layer of balsa was added to in order to take more advantage of balsa properties (light weight, soft, yet lively). But not so much balsa that it performs like a 7-9mm balsa blade.

This was my idea. I wanted the woody feel reinforced with carbon deeper in the blade. The blade had to be light weight as I don't really enjoy heavier blades. So 85-87 grams is the highest I want my blade to weigh. The limba out ply is what I'm accustomed to. Koto is a bit to rigid and direct. But limba I believe is more versatile (jmo). Plus I needed something on the outer layer to absorb a bit of that spring from the balsa.

Overseer Kevin · Mar 28, 2018

bobpuls said:
Are you joking or what ?
This will be really crappy blade.... because in first ... there is no cross bound ply of the wood (even when the balsa will be used as cross bound (which does not realy looks like it from the picture) it will last maximum one week and then breaks)...and second there is no gf carbon on that picture ...
sorry ..

Crappy? Hmm....tell me how you really feel. Please don't hold back any. Lol But your point is well taken.

How do you know the balsa will break so quickly? Have you experienced that before or know someone who has.

What composite material do you see in the picture? How are you so sure it's not GF?

To me the idea of customizing a blade is to experiment with combinations not found on the commercial market. At the same time have a little fun with the experiment.

bobpuls · Mar 28, 2018

Overseer Kevin said:
There is a thin line between courage and crazy. Lol The blade is under 6mm with a relatively thin core but slightly thicker medial layer. The medial layer of balsa was added to in order to take more advantage of balsa properties (light weight, soft, yet lively). But not so much balsa that it performs like a 7-9mm balsa blade.

This was my idea. I wanted the woody feel reinforced with carbon deeper in the blade. The blade had to be light weight as I don't really enjoy heavier blades. So 85-87 grams is the highest I want my blade to weigh. The limba out ply is what I'm accustomed to. Koto is a bit to rigid and direct. But limba I believe is more versatile (jmo). Plus I needed something on the outer layer to absorb a bit of that spring from the balsa.

OK so i suggest for you to turn core in 90 degrees to reinforce the whole setup ....
And yes maybe it is aramid (hard to say from this picture) but it is not carbon ... Aramid can be also ok when you wish so .. ...
In my opinion it will be slow blade.... if there is carbon then it can do some core rebound , but this way aramid with balsa will not do the rebound membrane stiff enough. And in my experience if balsa glued with resin used in flexi blade (where this will be definitely flexi blade) the balsa will be tear a part on minimal effort (slight hit on the table or drop to flor) .
So i`m really exciting how it will perform .
Btw this is why i do not allow my customer to chose what ever they want ;-)
anyway give us review then ...

bobpuls · Mar 28, 2018

what is GF ?
and why did you remove carbon from the sentence ?
And yes i have some experience
https://www.tabletennisdaily.com/forum/showthread.php?11808-Create-your-own-blade

Overseer Kevin · Mar 28, 2018

I had to take a second look. It's GF. For some reason it looks yellow when i transferred the picture from my email to the post. But it's whiter in my email picture.

You're right. GF is a bit brittle. I wanted to try GF first because that's what I'm accustomed to playing with. I agree that gf carbon would add stiffness. This is the first run for this blade and I'll probably be changing some things based upon how it plays.

cfagyal · Mar 28, 2018

BTW abbrebiating Glass Fibre (GF) it would have probably have been best to specify what the abbreviation meant

I knew from your prior post that you were probably referring to Glass Fibre. That may have been part of the confusion.

Part of getting a custom blade is definitely about customization and trying new things. That's entirely why I got into making blades through working with a custom blade maker and following the work of makers like Ross Leidy and Bobpuls...I just found it fascinating and now i'm completely hooked with thousands of my own dollars invested into equipment and wood

Overseer Kevin · Mar 28, 2018

WHAT? You mean the customer isn't always right Bobpuls. Even when they have no clue what they are doing. I've never heard such a thing in my life. Lol

We discussed crossing the layers to add stiffness. But decided not to. At least for this test run. As for damage from dropping or table hits. I have a friend at the club that applies a poxy around the edge of the blade that's very hard. It's protected several of my blades from major bangs on the table. Not a splinter of wood out of place.

Overseer Kevin · Mar 28, 2018

cfagyal said:
BTW abbrebiating Glass Fibre (GF) it would have probably have been best to specify what the abbreviation meant I knew from your prior post that you were probably referring to Glass Fibre. That may have been part of the confusion.

Part of getting a custom blade is definitely about customization and trying new things. That's entirely why I got into making blades through working with a custom blade maker and following the work of makers like Ross Leidy and Bobpuls...I just found it fascinating and now i'm completely hooked with thousands of my own dollars invested into equipment and wood

Thousands of dollars? Well, at least i know what I'm in for. I actually have another idea already. Lol This is going to be so much fun.

bobpuls · Mar 28, 2018

Overseer Kevin said:
WHAT? You mean the customer isn't always right Bobpuls. Even when they have no clue what they are doing. I've never heard such a thing in my life. Lol

We discussed crossing the layers to add stiffness. But decided not to. At least for this test run. As for damage from dropping or table hits. I have a friend at the club that applies a poxy around the edge of the blade that's very hard. It's protected several of my blades from major bangs on the table. Not a splinter of wood out of place.

It is not my primary job, so yes customer who wants to try crazy types of experiment have to go to next door (like in your case i try to push him in some direction first i do not have so much time to do 6 or more test blades where none from the customers is willing to pay for such of amount of work but they want to try and customize )... but still i do custom but with some reasonable design (but i do not make copy of other brands)
The resin on side could help ... interesting idea..... Thanks

Overseer Kevin · Mar 28, 2018

You guys are awesome! Critical yet kind. Excellent advice and analytics. But, I can't wait to see me and my blade crushing all of you nay sayers

Or I'll be back with my humble pie greedily gobbling it down asking what went wrong.

Overseer Kevin · Mar 28, 2018

bobpuls said:
It is not my primary job, so yes customer who wants to try crazy types of experiment have to go to next door (like in your case i try to push him in some direction first i do not have so much time to do 6 or more test blades where none from the customers is willing to pay for such of amount of work but they want to try and customize )... but still i do custom but with some reasonable design (but i do not make copy of other brands)
The resin on side could help ... interesting idea..... Thanks

You owe me for that. I'm sending the contract now. If I see one blade mass produce with poxy protection I'm blaming you. Oh, my bad... this is a public forum. Me and my big mouth

bobpuls · Mar 28, 2018

beer on me !

Overseer Kevin · Mar 28, 2018

cfagyal said:
BTW abbrebiating Glass Fibre (GF) it would have probably have been best to specify what the abbreviation meant I knew from your prior post that you were probably referring to Glass Fibre. That may have been part of the confusion.

Part of getting a custom blade is definitely about customization and trying new things. That's entirely why I got into making blades through working with a custom blade maker and following the work of makers like Ross Leidy and Bobpuls...I just found it fascinating and now i'm completely hooked with thousands of my own dollars invested into equipment and wood

Ok. So you've graduated from ordering customized blades to actually crafting them. My wife would have a fit of I started moving wood working equipment in!! The way my mind works I would be so fixated on the perfect design. Right wood, thickness, handle, balance, weight... too many variables... she get so tired of listening to me explaining why I'm doing something a certain way, when she has absolutely no interest in. Lol

Overseer Kevin · Mar 28, 2018

bobpuls said:
beer

bobpuls · Mar 28, 2018

btw it takes me 12-13 blades to make my best fit for me ;-)

GinjaNinja · Mar 28, 2018

Overseer Kevin said:
Ok. So you've graduated from ordering customized blades to actually crafting them. My wife would have a fit of I started moving wood working equipment in!! The way my mind works I would be so fixated on the perfect design. Right wood, thickness, handle, balance, weight... too many variables... she get so tired of listening to me explaining why I'm doing something a certain way, when she has absolutely no interest in. Lol

Its always reassuring to know there are others whose lives are very similar!

Overseer Kevin · Mar 28, 2018

bobpuls said:
btw it takes me 12-13 blades to make my best fit for me ;-)

12-13 blades. Oh my goodness. I'd have to literally burn or give away the previous blade. Why? Because I'd keep going back retrying previous models and never make any progress.

noisyboy101 · Mar 28, 2018

bobpuls said:
Are you joking or what ?
This will be really crappy blade.... because in first ... there is no cross bound ply of the wood (even when the balsa will be used as cross bound (which does not realy looks like it from the picture) it will last maximum one week and then breaks)...and second there is no gf carbon on that picture ...
sorry ..

Interesting! I was never aware of cross binding the plies together. None of my blades seem to have a problem with that and I believe mine aren't as well. Besides structural strength what else do cross binding do?

cfagyal · Mar 28, 2018

noisyboy101 said:
Interesting! I was never aware of cross binding the plies together. None of my blades seem to have a problem with that and I believe mine aren't as well. Besides structural strength what else do cross binding do?

. Wood is much more flexible with the grain versus against it. Try to bend a ply of veneer against the grain (I.e it oriented at 0 degrees...), and you will find it is rather difficult with flexible woods, and nigh impossible without breaking the wood with stiffer woods. Take those same woods and bend with the grain and it’s very easy to bend. So if you take a blade, aside from all previous discussions, and align all plies at 0 degrees, it will increase the stiffness of the blade along that axis (but will result in a rather weak blade along the other axis, which is why I mentioned the possibility of such a blade splitting). Pretty much all commercial blades will have the medial ply oriented at 90 degrees. I have made a variety of different blades with varying orientations, but I’ve always oriented at least one ply in the 90 defeee (horizontal) alignment. Some of the custom blade makers here have done things such as aligning the core at 90 degrees to give a more flexible/soft feel to the core. I’ve done this in a few blades that received lots of positive feedback. I’ve also done something such as in a 7 ply blade orienting the top 2 plies at 0, the ply above the core at 90 and then the core at 0....in fact that’s the blade I’m playing with now and it plays absolutely wonderfully...it was an experiment that I wanted to try and I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the results.

Overseer Kevin · Mar 28, 2018

cfagyal said:
. Wood is much more flexible with the grain versus against it. Try to bend a ply of veneer against the grain (I.e it oriented at 0 degrees...), and you will find it is rather difficult with flexible woods, and nigh impossible without breaking the wood with stiffer woods. Take those same woods and bend with the grain and it’s very easy to bend. So if you take a blade, aside from all previous discussions, and align all plies at 0 degrees, it will increase the stiffness of the blade along that axis (but will result in a rather weak blade along the other axis, which is why I mentioned the possibility of such a blade splitting). Pretty much all commercial blades will have the medial ply oriented at 90 degrees. I have made a variety of different blades with varying orientations, but I’ve always oriented at least one ply in the 90 defeee (horizontal) alignment. Some of the custom blade makers here have done things such as aligning the core at 90 degrees to give a more flexible/soft feel to the core. I’ve done this in a few blades that received lots of positive feedback. I’ve also done something such as in a 7 ply blade orienting the top 2 plies at 0, the ply above the core at 90 and then the core at 0....in fact that’s the blade I’m playing with now and it plays absolutely wonderfully...it was an experiment that I wanted to try and I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the results.

Intersting. I've seen this done before with the Carbonado series from Stiga. The 90, 190, 290 series all have the carbon traditionally aligned at a 90 degree angle. While the 45, 145, and 245 all have the carbon placed at a 45 degree angle. The 45 series's all play a bit harder and to me seem at bit more difficult to control.

I'm not sure if that transfers to the wood plies we're talking about but I do see a similarity.

Custom Made Blade DAB Studios

Member

Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Well-Known Member

Member

Member

Well-Known Member

Member

Member

Well-Known Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Similar threads