One of my favorite builds so far!
Composition: Black Limba / Ako / Carbon / Ayous / Carbon / Ako / Black Limba
Weight: 91g
Thickness: 5.5mm
Headsize: 159x150mm
Since I probably won't be playing at my club for quite some time I might as well post my initial thoughts of the amazing blade Hipnotic made. First of all big thanks to Hipnotic, the entire process of ordering the blade was very pleasant and I would definitely recommend anyone on the forum looking for a custom blade to hit up Hipnotic. The quality, craftsmanship and looks of the blade he made me are absolutely stunning.
I have been using Xiom Vega X on the FH and Gewo Nanoflex FT40 on the BH. Unfortunately due to the ongoing pandemic I haven't been able to try the blade at my club yet. I have been using it on my outdoor table with my robot quite a bit in the last two weeks, also played my father a few times but only for a very short hit each time. Now the testing environment is not great due to the wind and not so great table but I have gotten quite an idea of how the blade plays especially comparing it to some of my other blades.
Lets start with the handle, the wenge/purpleheart combo looks gorgeous and it is the most comfortable one I've ever used. I had asked for it to be lowered 2mm which gives the blade it's bigger head while having a slightly smaller neck. I absolutely love that the chamfer near the rubber is so large, much larger than on any commercial blade and much more comfortable for my thumb but also my index finger on the backhand benefits from it. It just feels so much more natural than a handle with a shorter chamfer, Not sure why no other manufacturer does this. There's also a second custom lens as shown in the picture, I still wanted the blade makers logo visible on my blade so I asked for both.
Now the speed, the frequency measures in at 1250 Hz. The blade feels only slightly faster than my Violin and about the same speed as my Violin carbon-inner. It has plenty of power away from the table though, on top of the carbon this has probably also to do with the slightly heavier weight compared to the rest of my blades (full setup is between 7-10g heavier than most of my other ones).
Control is very high, the blade has quite a bit of dwell time for a carbon blade and for me it's great in the short game. Both blocking and driving are incredibly stable, the sweetspot on this blade is absolutely massive. It obviously doesn't quite give the same feedback of an all wood blade but it's still very nice because it's pretty thin as well. It feels nice and soft on slower balls but when you start to put some power in the blade really starts to kick while still feeling very safe to hit harder with.
Spin is also very good on this blade, it seems pretty flexible because the spin I'm getting is quite high. This in combination with the dwell makes for a very pleasant experience when playing topspins.
The only thing that's a little strange for me is the arc of the ball when looping but only sometimes and it only really happens on the FH. It's quite unlike any setup I have played with, in general the quality of my shots is pretty good (for my standard at least) but sometimes it's completely random even if I think I hit the ball well. My shots always have a the spin I want to put in but occasionally the arc is either very high short or very low and it goes over the table. Can be very unpredictable at times. This is probably due to me not being completely used to the blade yet but I feel the Vega X is not the best combination with this blade so I might give another rubber a shot and see if that helps. It could also be because the sweetspot feels so large that when my shot is unpredictable I just didn't hit it in the right spot without me noticing. Not being able to play in a club setting has me only guessing though since the wind and table can affect the ball in some funny ways at times.
So once again thank you very much Hipnotic, really can't wait to test out the blade at my club but I'm afraid that might be a while. Glad to see more people like the look of my blade too.