Why are most handles laminated wood?

lVegita · Oct 18, 2018

Hello,
I was thinking about the handles being predominantly laminated wood, and not solid wood.
I can make up some reasons for that, like being cheaper, easier to create colorful design patterns, better sweat absorption, maybe better grip, weight, and so on.

But is there any real technical reason for that preference?

yogi_bear · Oct 18, 2018

Probably to reduce weight.

UpSideDownCarl · Oct 18, 2018

lVegita said:
Hello,
I was thinking about the handles being predominantly laminated wood, and not solid wood.
I can make up some reasons for that, like being cheaper, easier to create colorful design patterns, better sweat absorption, maybe better grip, weight, and so on.

But is there any real technical reason for that preference?

I could be wrong about this. I don't really know. It is just a guess.

When you have a solid piece of wood and it is exposed to liquid like water or sweat on a consistent basis, and the wood absorbs the sweat and dries and absorbs the sweat and dries over and over, it is much more likely to warp and change shape. When several plies of wood with fibers going in different directions are bonded to each other, as in ply wood, this kind of construction is much less subject to warping or other distortions of shape.

But it could also be that it looks nice to have a design created by different pieces of wood with different colors.

GinjaNinja · Oct 18, 2018

I would suggest it's due to weight, cost and aesthetics. For example, many manufacturers like to use walnut but if this was a solid piece it would weigh too much and would throw the 'standard' balance of the blade out - Beast mod noted here! Often cheaper and lighter woods are used and then stained or painted to make them look more interesting. The alternative is to mix more attractive natural woods with lighter woods, for example and OSP blade. I don't know the exact composition but it looks like walnut, ayous and basswood. Ayous and basswood are light woods and therefore counteract the heavier walnut. Thin pieces of wood tend to be cheaper than thicker pieces but this depends on the cut and the wood type. For example, a solid rosewood handle looks and feels beautiful but would need a lot of work for it to be right and would also be more expensive than the standard woods used for handles. Another example would be a Stiga nostalgia blade, I love the look of that series. That wenge handle must have had a high proportion of the weight removed otherwise it would be a 100g plus blade. This is extra work and therefore money.

UpSideDownCarl · Oct 18, 2018

Most blade manufacturers actually machine a hollow space in the handles:

[Photo from Der_Echte's thread.]

OSP, on the 4 blades I have from them, it feels like the side without the label is solid and the side with the label has a hollow space.

But I think manufacturers can mess with the weight and balance in any of number of ways pretty easily.

lVegita · Oct 18, 2018

GinjaNinja said:
For example, a solid rosewood handle looks and feels beautiful but would need a lot of work for it to be right and would also be more expensive than the standard woods used for handles.

This part got me thinking more. On top of the extra work, there is the worry about inconsistences on the wood surface, like knots (although it may look even better in some cases).

GinjaNinja said:
Another example would be a Stiga nostalgia blade, I love the look of that series. That wenge handle must have had a high proportion of the weight removed otherwise it would be a 100g plus blade. This is extra work and therefore money.

I was actually looking at those blades before posting. It is said that the handles are solid Wenge wood, but looking at the pictures, it looks laminated to me. Can someone confirm that?

lVegita · Oct 18, 2018

UpSideDownCarl said:
But I think manufacturers can mess with the weight and balance in any of number of ways pretty easily.

Agree with that. Although the solution you showed must imply in a lot of wood loss, if you think about mass production and compare it with laminating the same material.

But oh well, raw wood is just too pretty.

Nate4s · Oct 18, 2018

Lots of good points brought up here. To echo what has already been said, I think it's a mixture of:

1. Saving weight and cost by putting only the nicer (and often heavier wood) on the outside - like OSP does with Walnut.
2. Reducing warp by reinforcing with multiple layers of wood and glue.
3. Aesthetics - more design potential and pretty pattern potential.

That being said, I prefer solid (not hollowed) walnut handles on the blades I make to preserve the acoustic/vibration properties of a single piece of wood. It's easy to maintain good weights (80 to 90 grams) for 5 ply blades with Kiri cores, even with solid walnut handles (25 grams for a set).

GinjaNinja · Oct 20, 2018

Nate makes an interesting point about the hollowed or solid handle and one that often causes debate. One day I'll make identical blades but one with a hollowed handle and one solid to see how it compares. My preference is to have some of the weight removed but there are a lot of other factors here such as whether it's an all wood blade or a composite and also the balance point that you want. You get very different vibrations from a 5.2mm all wood blade made with hide glue than an 6.0mm blade with 200gpsm of hybrid carbon.
Sometimes there's a trade off too, if you want a 86g blade with an ayous core and an ash handle, it will have to be hollowed. Which is more important, the weight or a solid handle? This is all down to preference, I also find that some people don't mind whether the handle is hollowed or solid as long as it looks a certain way - the aesthetic is more important to them. Again fine with me, vive la difference!
What I would say is that harder/heavier woods have different vibrational properties than lighter/softer woods, which is why acoustic guitars have tops which are generally spruce or cedar as heavier woods are far less resonant. I think for this reason heavy woods should be hollowed so that there is less material and therefore greater vibration. There is a limit though as there is a point where you can really feel the hollowness in your hand and, for me anyway, that's not too pleasant.

GinjaNinja · Oct 20, 2018

But I think manufacturers can mess with the weight and balance in any of number of ways pretty easily.[/QUOTE]

I think you are right Carl, it's a pretty easy job. I do think the additional cost would be if a company's handles all used different woods and therefore they needed to change their set up every time they ran off a different batch of blades. If they use the same material but spray the handle they could have different designs but without the need to change their set up. I presume this is how it works but I don't know.

GinjaNinja · Oct 20, 2018

lVegita said:
This part got me thinking more. On top of the extra work, there is the worry about inconsistences on the wood surface, like knots (although it may look even better in some cases).

I was actually looking at those blades before posting. It is said that the handles are solid Wenge wood, but looking at the pictures, it looks laminated to me. Can someone confirm that?

There are inconsistencies in woods but I would imagine that most blade makers carefully select the woods they use, I know I do. Sometimes these inconsistencies are quite beautiful though. After all burl wood is a deformation in the wood growth, and spalted wood is caused by a fungi.

As for the Stiga Nostalgia, it looks solid to me but I can't confirm.

langel · Oct 20, 2018

I think that the cost is a main factor. Usually the cheaper blades of a brand are with laminated handles, and the more expensive are of solid wood. though not always of 1 piece, but not a lamination of several thinner layers.
Of course it may be considered as linked to the properties and the overall quality of the blade.
I haven't thought about that but as I look now the cheaper older blades of Xiom are laminated, and all of their newer blades are with solid wood handles. As nate4s said - it may have something with the properties and the feel.

darucla · Oct 20, 2018

A long time ago, when I was about 12, I made myself a blade, from an off-cut of plywood that I was able to lay my hands on. When I cut out the blade shape, I had a couple of pieces left, which just about happened to be big enough to use for the handle. I'm not saying that is what happens now, but I suspect I am not the only person to have done that.

I'd like to go on to say that with that bat, I fought my way to the top of the table tennis world, only to have it broken just before the World final, and as a result of that I lost, which is why the tale was lost to history. But that would be a lie. It was rubbish.

lVegita · Oct 22, 2018

GinjaNinja said:
Nate makes an interesting point about the hollowed or solid handle and one that often causes debate. One day I'll make identical blades but one with a hollowed handle and one solid to see how it compares. My preference is to have some of the weight removed but there are a lot of other factors here such as whether it's an all wood blade or a composite and also the balance point that you want. You get very different vibrations from a 5.2mm all wood blade made with hide glue than an 6.0mm blade with 200gpsm of hybrid carbon.
Sometimes there's a trade off too, if you want a 86g blade with an ayous core and an ash handle, it will have to be hollowed. Which is more important, the weight or a solid handle? This is all down to preference, I also find that some people don't mind whether the handle is hollowed or solid as long as it looks a certain way - the aesthetic is more important to them. Again fine with me, vive la difference!
What I would say is that harder/heavier woods have different vibrational properties than lighter/softer woods, which is why acoustic guitars have tops which are generally spruce or cedar as heavier woods are far less resonant. I think for this reason heavy woods should be hollowed so that there is less material and therefore greater vibration. There is a limit though as there is a point where you can really feel the hollowness in your hand and, for me anyway, that's not too pleasant.

Interesting post, this one. The hollow/solid vs vibrations thing got me thinking about another situation.
Do we agree that a tight grip vs a loose grip on the contact with the ball changes the whole blade interaction with it? If so, couldn’t a solid dense handle produce a similar effect of a tight grip on the blade, changing its characteristics? If that is the case, the laminated and hollow handles would be a way to preserve the original intended characteristics of the blade.

I’m just assuming a lot of stuff here haha, the identical blade with different handles would be a very nice experiment.

lVegita · Oct 22, 2018

GinjaNinja said:
There are inconsistencies in woods but I would imagine that most blade makers carefully select the woods they use, I know I do. Sometimes these inconsistencies are quite beautiful though. After all burl wood is a deformation in the wood growth, and spalted wood is caused by a fungi.

Agree! Sure the wood is carefully selected, and inconsistencies can be amazing, but that is the point. If you think about mass production, using laminated wood saves a lot of work on that selecting process of a good wood.

GinjaNinja said:
As for the Stiga Nostalgia, it looks solid to me but I can't confirm.

Stiga says:
“The handles also consist of solid Wenge wood, creating a firm and stabile feeling in your hand while hitting the ball.”

But have you seen these pictures?

GinjaNinja · Oct 22, 2018

Yeah, I've seen those pictures Wenge is a heavy wood and I imagine they'd weigh around 17 or 18g each before they were hollowed. A standard handle would be about 10g. 'Firm and stable', is this marketing or has anyone tried them and noticed this?

langel · Oct 22, 2018

I think that difference could be evaluated only by testing same blades with different handles. I have different blades with many different kind of handles and every blade is different, but I can't say what the handle factor is. One is for sure, at least for my blades - the better blades are with more solid wood.

BeGo · Oct 22, 2018

For the original question,

lamination is one of the easiest process to make the handle wood less abrasive for a long time.

Sent from my I7D using Tapatalk

GinjaNinja · Oct 23, 2018

Interesting that many people feel that the best feeling blades are those made by OSP, yet their handles are layered. I realise part of this is to look like old stiga blades but I am sure they must have tested with solid handles at some point and decided the layered/laminated option was the best one.
What this shows is that everyone has different preferences, some like layered, some solid, some hollowed and some not, some light, some heavy etc.

Baal · Oct 24, 2018

I aways figured it was for looks but I think Yogi has the correct answer.

Why are most handles laminated wood?

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