Question for Blade-Builders

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Hi lasta,

You are correct! I sand the edges to 400 grit on my belt sander and then give them a coating of polyurethane finish. This particular piece of kiri was a bit darker than my usual pieces, so it ended up looking more exotic.

I'm curious, have you experimented with soaking core plies in tung oil or some other varnish? One complaint I have with just about all modern blades is that they are not solid enough. I wanted to try oil soaking a few commercial blades but skeptical if they can actually penetrate to the core layers that way.
 
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I'm curious, have you experimented with soaking core plies in tung oil or some other varnish? One complaint I have with just about all modern blades is that they are not solid enough. I wanted to try oil soaking a few commercial blades but skeptical if they can actually penetrate to the core layers that way.

I have not tried soaking them all the way through, though the way kiri eats up polyurethane finish would lead me to believe you could easily soak the core before gluing the veneers on. Any ideas what that would feel like to play with? I wonder if something like "minwax wood hardener" (or "cactus juice") would do the trick on commercial blades, or if it would come out as far too solid and heavy (and illegal?).

On a related note, the most solid feeling core material I've used in blade-building was engelmann spruce. The only downside is that it pushes the threshold of acceptable overall weight.
 
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I have not tried soaking them all the way through, though the way kiri eats up polyurethane finish would lead me to believe you could easily soak the core before gluing the veneers on. Any ideas what that would feel like to play with? I wonder if something like "minwax wood hardener" (or "cactus juice") would do the trick on commercial blades, or if it would come out as far too solid and heavy (and illegal?).

On a related note, the most solid feeling core material I've used in blade-building was engelmann spruce. The only downside is that it pushes the threshold of acceptable overall weight.

It's curious you say that because I just built a blade using an englemann spruce core. But I don't find it that heavy, the density is ~410 kg/m3 so only a little heavier than the typical Ayous core.
 
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It's curious you say that because I just built a blade using an englemann spruce core. But I don't find it that heavy, the density is ~410 kg/m3 so only a little heavier than the typical Ayous core.

I agree with you - it's only a little heavier than typical Ayous; however, I find that anything heavier than Ayous really starts to dictate other properties of the blade if I want to keep it under a certain weight. For example, not being able to make it as thick, being selective about using heavier veneers, and having to use lighter handles (affecting balance). With Kiri cores, I feel like I have a lot more flexibility in what I can do with a blade's design.

Have you had a chance to try out one of those blades with an engelmann spruce core? If so, what did you think about how it changed the feel/playing properties?
 
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I agree with you - it's only a little heavier than typical Ayous; however, I find that anything heavier than Ayous really starts to dictate other properties of the blade if I want to keep it under a certain weight. For example, not being able to make it as thick, being selective about using heavier veneers, and having to use lighter handles (affecting balance). With Kiri cores, I feel like I have a lot more flexibility in what I can do with a blade's design.

Have you had a chance to try out one of those blades with an engelmann spruce core? If so, what did you think about how it changed the feel/playing properties?

You are right about that, but it's always a compromise. Kiri gives a lot of flexibility regarding blade design, but the feeling and power is different from ayous.

I made two blades with Engelmann spruce when I started building blades. They were very solid as you pointed out, but one had a Ipe outers and the other one mahogany. The Ipe one was fast, direct, low arc, but surprisingly with good feeling and control. The other one was more tamed.

I finished building one today, 5 ply spruce, 7.0mm with a big core. Wanted to push the limits of a 5 ply to see how it plays.
 
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I built an interesting 5-ply recently. The neatest feature of this blade (in my opinion) is that every single piece of wood came from trees cut within 20 miles of my house.

Composition: Port Orford Cedar - Redwood - Western Red Cedar - Redwood - Port Orford Cedar.

Handle: Walnut and Maple

*Sorry for the pictures with inconsistent white-balance...that's what I get for using my cellphone camera!

20200611_121720~2.jpg
20200611_121635~2.jpg
20200611_121211~2.jpg
 
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You are right about that, but it's always a compromise. Kiri gives a lot of flexibility regarding blade design, but the feeling and power is different from ayous.

I made two blades with Engelmann spruce when I started building blades. They were very solid as you pointed out, but one had a Ipe outers and the other one mahogany. The Ipe one was fast, direct, low arc, but surprisingly with good feeling and control. The other one was more tamed.

I finished building one today, 5 ply spruce, 7.0mm with a big core. Wanted to push the limits of a 5 ply to see how it plays.

Sounds like a very solid blade. How much does it weigh?
 
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I built an interesting 5-ply recently. The neatest feature of this blade (in my opinion) is that every single piece of wood came from trees cut within 20 miles of my house.

Composition: Port Orford Cedar - Redwood - Western Red Cedar - Redwood - Port Orford Cedar.

Handle: Walnut and Maple

*Sorry for the pictures with inconsistent white-balance...that's what I get for using my cellphone camera!

That is a neat feature. That's one blade that I probably wouldn't let go off.

And I'm really jealous of that Redwood, it has a really nice grain pattern and color!
 
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The same Stork flew back, slapped me one or two upside the head, then commenced a 3 minute speech that started something like "Hello McFly ??!!" before flying off in a cloud of dust and runny white droppings.

So naturally, I quickly located the box Nate sent and shook out another blade !!

My dumb-azz had thought the other stuff in the box was packing/padding material.

I guess I wouldn't know it even if a 2kg bar of gold fell out of the sky and hit me upside my thick head.

6b3b2a2d5789a6a08a22df425cb2b839.jpg


Sent from my SM-N970U using Tapatalk
 
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Out of the three blades in the hand, the LAST blade feels the best in had, feels like I can lever it a little better than the other two.

Won't really know until I slap on rubber and hit the gym.

The "Factory Second" actually feels lighter than the other two.

Interesting! The "factory second" is certainly the heaviest in terms of actual weight and the handles on all 3 that I sent are approximately the same weight, contour, and thickness (cut from the exact same woods I glued together); however, because the "factory second" blade is over 7mm thick, the actual handle circumference is the thickest of the bunch.

The one with Koto-outers should have the lowest balance-point (more toward the handle) since the blade itself is the lightest. I'm excited to get your impression on how you like the thick European Larch medial ply. I find the combination of Koto and EuroLarch to make for a very crisp feeling hit (i.e., sharp, high frequency vibrations with quick attenuation) with tons of power.
 
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I wrote to Nate earlier and discussed a few things I do... I though these would be a good thing to discus publicly as they are very under-discussed these things. (how we impact and whip)

*** ***

The Nittaku Mono blade I like... I suspect is a higher frequency and top end blade I suspect for an all wood, so your "mistake" or mis-fortune or whatever on the "Factory Second" ... big deal... If anything, it is more of what I am expecting - DIFFERENT. NOT DONE BY MOST IF ANYONE.

Maybe next time we hookup for blade making we make the handles a different experiment - one 95 mm and one 100 mm.

Why? My limited collection of data is showing me that my way that I seem to hold a bat and lever the handle on my base grip (which is pretty much choked up all the way for ease of establishing a consistent base position) does not require 110 mm. There seems to be extra hanging that is not helping the lever. If the end of the handle sits 1/3 the way up from the inside of my outer meaty part of hand, I can pivot the entire bat with more leverage and explosion.

Why is that important? My style of an addition extra explosion of the bat whip involves being loose then firming up. It is a double action. The initial stages of the firming are pivoting the bat on the end of the handle with force and leverage and at impact I have seriously firmed up which delivers the bang impact on a counter loop to give massive speed and spin... or I only explode the fingers at end and keep rest looser to more spin (and control over spin) and less speed... which produces a ball I like - Extreme heavy topspin and slower ball.. which can also be a devastating shot too.

The advantage of a longer handle seems to be the opposite of my goal. The longer handle seems to favor the situations where I keep base grip with a ST handle and transition quickly to FH to BH or BH to FH and hit mostly solid struck balls, whether that is with great force or less power - I feel improved stability in that situation with your fatter and longer handle... which is a different area from what I was looking to optimize (my use of fingers to whip bat more at the end)

Still, on FH with my grip adjustment for extra extreme spin I can certainly take advantage of a longer lever... and when I explode it with a longer lever in that position in palm, there is a lot of extra whip. So... the benefit of longer handle for one shot is still there.
 
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I wrote to Nate earlier and discussed a few things I do... I though these would be a good thing to discus publicly as they are very under-discussed these things. (how we impact and whip)

*** ***

The Nittaku Mono blade I like... I suspect is a higher frequency and top end blade I suspect for an all wood, so your "mistake" or mis-fortune or whatever on the "Factory Second" ... big deal... If anything, it is more of what I am expecting - DIFFERENT. NOT DONE BY MOST IF ANYONE.

Maybe next time we hookup for blade making we make the handles a different experiment - one 95 mm and one 100 mm.

Why? My limited collection of data is showing me that my way that I seem to hold a bat and lever the handle on my base grip (which is pretty much choked up all the way for ease of establishing a consistent base position) does not require 110 mm. There seems to be extra hanging that is not helping the lever. If the end of the handle sits 1/3 the way up from the inside of my outer meaty part of hand, I can pivot the entire bat with more leverage and explosion.

Why is that important? My style of an addition extra explosion of the bat whip involves being loose then firming up. It is a double action. The initial stages of the firming are pivoting the bat on the end of the handle with force and leverage and at impact I have seriously firmed up which delivers the bang impact on a counter loop to give massive speed and spin... or I only explode the fingers at end and keep rest looser to more spin (and control over spin) and less speed... which produces a ball I like - Extreme heavy topspin and slower ball.. which can also be a devastating shot too.

The advantage of a longer handle seems to be the opposite of my goal. The longer handle seems to favor the situations where I keep base grip with a ST handle and transition quickly to FH to BH or BH to FH and hit mostly solid struck balls, whether that is with great force or less power - I feel improved stability in that situation with your fatter and longer handle... which is a different area from what I was looking to optimize (my use of fingers to whip bat more at the end)

Still, on FH with my grip adjustment for extra extreme spin I can certainly take advantage of a longer lever... and when I explode it with a longer lever in that position in palm, there is a lot of extra whip. So... the benefit of longer handle for one shot is still there.

I hear what you're saying - it sounds as if the longer handle is too stable and doesn't give you the fulcrum/pivot that you really use to generate the spin and power. Side note: I still can't believe how large your "pawz" are - when I held those blades with the longer handles you requested, a large portion of it was sticking out for me (part of that is due to my very small hands).

The good news is the "factory second" blade I sent is the exact same composition as the non-factory second version, so the handle on one of them could be easily "shortened" by approximately 1cm without changing anything else about the blade (the only downside being...you can't put that portion of handle back on if it were sanded off).
 
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The pic makes my paws appear bigger than they are. If fact, if I spread out my hand, one will see my hand size is considerably smaller than average. However, I have a ton of "meat" on both left and right sides originating from bottom of my palm. I have worked with my hands for decades, so maybe it is that, or it is from choking fool or TT bats.

Let's go with the last one... in TT, there is a LOT of firming up going on over and over and over when you hit power shots. That can develop meaty paws, but really, when I look at my left paw, it is a little meatier. I have used it to hold stuff while I work on it with right hand, so maybe it is that.

Sherlock Holmes would take one look and know.
 
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This was really interesting. In march I got a custom blade built by Hipnotic with a large SQST handle (112x31x27). The blade is magnificient and plays really well. The main reason for me ordering the blade was to get a more beefy handle for my above average sized hands. My grip is definately more secure and shifting between fh/bh is considerably smoother. However, I have noticed a percieved drop in snappines on my backhand which I thought was mainly due to a slightly slower, less head heavy blade with a limba instead of koto outer.

Your reasoning, Der_Echte, on how a longer handle might influence the mechanics of the stroke makes me think the less snappy backhand is due to the handle rather then other blade caracterstics. Intriguing indeed!
 
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