Dhs w968/ hurricane long 5 splintering issues

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If sealing the blade prevents from splintering without changing properties then why manufacturers don't do it in a factory?
 
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If sealing the blade prevents from splintering without changing properties then why manufacturers don't do it in a factory?

2 reasons come to mnd

1 there are a lot of players that find reasons for not sealing their blade so if the manufacturers would sell them only sealed they would loose clients.

2 While it only would take seconds , in a factory situation, to seal blades, it would be problematic to have them drying. This takes time, special stands and there might even be a chance of warping and bending etc etc etc .

p.s.
a lot of blades out of china are warped, bent etc and they have not even been sealed 😁

 
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My solution for splintering blades was from 247tabletennis.
He just puts speedglue on the blade which seals it quite nice. Every blade ive used it on i could easily rip the rubber off of it. And on top i didnt feel any perfomance difference from the speedglue.

Just to make it clear:
From now and then i put speedglue on my blade and let it sink in.
AFTER the blade is dry again i put waterbased glue on it glue the rubbers onto the blade.

Source: https://sites.google.com/view/247tabletennis/articles?authuser=0
 
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A few pieces of information:
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1) Long 5 and W968 have a Limba top ply. Limba is a wood that is a little delicate and it is easy to tear the grain of the wood.
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2) Sealing, Varnishing, Shalacking, Finishing....I think people are using different terms that basically are referring to the same process and the OP does not realize they mean the same thing. Hence he asked someone who said they Joola Water Based "Varnish" if he sealed the blade as well:
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I use water based Joola varnish on my Long 5. That‘s a very mild form of protecting the top layer of the blade. Never had any issues.
Do you seal your blade as well?
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Water Based Joola "Varnish" is a SEALANT, so he has sealed his blade and he used a Joola brand product. So, even though MK73 said:----
No, I just use the Joola varnish. That's enough.
----
The actual answer should be: THE JOOLA PRODUCT WAS THE SEALANT. I called it varnish. But the product sealed the top ply of my blade.
----
Not everyone likes to seal their blades. The people who don't like to add a thin layer of some kind of water proof sealant (whether you call it sealant, polyurethane, shellack, varnish......) can be useful for 2 things:
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a) it keeps the water from the water based glue from damaging the wood over time from gluing and regluing rubbers onto your blade.
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b) it makes it easier to not damage the top ply of the wood.
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Some people like to seal their blades. Some people don't. If you add a very thin layer of sealant, it will not change the playing characteristics of the blade in a way that any human could notice. If the layer of sealant is thicker, you may feel the difference. Will the change make the blade feel better or worse? Since everyone's opinion of what is better and what is not, is very subjective, you could have two people and one would think the change was better and the other would think the opposite.
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Also, it is up for debate whether the sealant would make the blade harder. How hard is the material in the sealant? Polyurethane is not really that hard and is softer than many woods used as top plies: if the sealant is softer than the wood in the top ply, IT WILL NOT MAKE THE BLADE HARDER. And if the layer of sealant is so thin that it is barely noticeable, then it should not change anything.
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In the end, you get to decide if you want to seal or not.
---
But, if you don't seal (make the top ply of the wood sealed against water damage), then, the more frequently you change your rubbers the sooner your blade will become slower and feel less crisp. The water from the glue seeping into the wood, over time causes the blade to be less crisp and slower. Again, whether this matters or not is up for discussion: would a blade becoming a little less crisp and a little slower make it better or worse? The answer would depend on the person holding the blade. :) But for this reason, most top pros change their blades much more frequently than they used to before TT players started using Water Based Glues.
 
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2 reasons come to mnd

1 there are a lot of players that find reasons for not sealing their blade so if the manufacturers would sell them only sealed they would loose clients.

2 While it only would take seconds , in a factory situation, to seal blades, it would be problematic to have them drying. This takes time, special stands and there might even be a chance of warping and bending etc etc etc .

p.s.
a lot of blades out of china are warped, bent etc and they have not even been sealed 😁

1. Could be.
2. I don't believe that sealing is significant effort compared to the rest of the manufacturing process and can't think of any reason for warping or bending. Maybe some blade manufacturer from this forum can shed some light on that.

 
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1. Could be.
2. I don't believe that sealing is significant effort compared to the rest of the manufacturing process and can't think of any reason for warping or bending. Maybe some blade manufacturer from this forum can shed some light on that.

The thing is, some blades do come with a sealant and some don't.

So, the reason is that they don't choose to seal all their blades.

Avalox BT550 is a sealed blade. Stiga Rosewood V with NCT is a sealed blade.

Avalox P500 is not sealed. Stiga Clipper is not sealed.

So, they can and they do seal blades when they want to. But perhaps they also understand that some people don't want their blades sealed and perhaps they also know that some people want to seal the blade themself.

Why do blade manufacturers do what they do? I am not always sure. But if all blades were always sealed, there would be some people who were not happy about it. And it is easy enough to do if you want your blade sealed.

 
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The thing is, some blades do come with a sealant and some don't.

So, the reason is that they don't choose to seal all their blades.

Avalox BT550 is a sealed blade. Stiga Rosewood V with NCT is a sealed blade.

Avalox P500 is not sealed. Stiga Clipper is not sealed.

So, they can and they do seal blades when they want to. But perhaps they also understand that some people don't want their blades sealed and perhaps they also know that some people want to seal the blade themself.

Why do blade manufacturers do what they do? I am not always sure. But if all blades were always sealed, there would be some people who were not happy about it. And it is easy enough to do if you want your blade sealed.

Thx, didn't know there are presealed blades. I remember long time ago trying some Stiga blade that had some weird glossy hard coating out of the box. Didn't like how it played, it was too hard. Maybe that one was NCT.
Are these blades you mentioned clearly advertised as factory sealed? I would expect manufacturers to put something like "...new inovative noninvasive sealing process researched at our laboratory that protects the blade from splintering and absorbing glue. Ideal for players who often change their rubbers." I mean they usually like to put something like that.
​​​​​​

 
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1. Could be.
2. I don't believe that sealing is significant effort compared to the rest of the manufacturing process and can't think of any reason for warping or bending. Maybe some blade manufacturer from this forum can shed some light on that.

this is a bit off-topic : get yourself a piece of plywood, wet it thoroughly with water on only 1 side. Let it dry and then hold a metal straight-edge over the wood............................oh dear !!!!!!😂

 
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this is a bit off-topic : get yourself a piece of plywood, wet it thoroughly with water on only 1 side. Let it dry and then hold a metal straight-edge over the wood............................oh dear !!!!!!😂

It will warp? That's not sealing though.
 
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Thx, didn't know there are presealed blades. I remember long time ago trying some Stiga blade that had some weird glossy hard coating out of the box. Didn't like how it played, it was too hard. Maybe that one was NCT.
Are these blades you mentioned clearly advertised as factory sealed? I would expect manufacturers to put something like "...new inovative noninvasive sealing process researched at our laboratory that protects the blade from splintering and absorbing glue. Ideal for players who often change their rubbers." I mean they usually like to put something like that.
​​​​​​

The thick hardened coating that Stiga calls NCT will indeed make the blade harder because of the particular substance they use. And Stiga indeed presents things like their NCT coating with marketing nonsense. But here is text lifted from TT11's listing of the Avalox BT 555 blade:

"All Avalox Blue Thunder blades come pre-coated to avoid wood fiber loss when reglueing."

So, Avalox has not presented it as anything more than what it is. But stuff like that will depend on the brand.

 
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No, but it presents a part of the reasoning behind sealing: protecting the wood from unwanted water damage.

That was never in doubt.
My response was to the implications that sealing could cause bending and warping. I don't understand how.

 
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Many TT shops offer a free or very cheap sealing when you order a blade with them.

I ordered a sealing service once and it was done so subtly that I couldn't see the difference from ordinary blade..
But that factory coating on Stiga was something else. I was afraid that rubbers wouldn't stick how smooth and hard the surface was.
​​​​​​

 
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That was never in doubt.
My response was to the implications that sealing could cause bending and warping. I don't understand how.
Yeah. I don't get that either.

Also, I don't like water based sealers. I like the old fashioned stuff. With a water based sealer, you are still starting out by putting water on the blade. With the old fashioned stuff, you start out with harmful chemicals but they are oils and they evaporate quickly. The science behind how they make something that is not water soluble and dries into something WATERPROOF, into something that has been suspended in water until it dries, is very very cool. But I don't like how they perform for what you are using them for on a TT blade. The old fashioned stuff works how I want it to. And you can get it at any hardware store.

I personally would rather seal a blade myself because I am confident I can do it better in about 2 min than any blade shop would do it. And I definitely do it exactly how I want so that the layer is super thin and yet the surface has been completely covered. I am good with leaving the edges unsealed these days even though I used to think it was good to seal them. I want moisture that is under the surface to be able to get out. I only want the blade face where the rubbers are attached to have sealant on them.
Good quality blades don't require any varnish. I have limba top plied blades and they don't splinter. I have DHS and Butterfly, they are all good. In fact I trust DHS much better at this.
No blade really NEEDS to be sealed. And there are reasons to seal and other reasons not to seal. You get to make your own choices. As long as you know that if you are applying glue that has water in it every few months to the face of your blade, over time, it will have an effect on the wood. Some people don't care about that. Others do.

 
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I ordered a sealing service once and it was done so subtly that I couldn't see the difference from ordinary blade..
But that factory coating on Stiga was something else. I was afraid that rubbers wouldn't stick how smooth and hard the surface was.
​​​​

Yeah. That sounds like the NCT coating. I do know people who had blades with that surface where their rubbers kept coming off. I was not a fan. And Stiga does seem to come up with a lot of half baked gimmicks. Oh well. Their blades still do feel really good. I just don't like how easy so many of their blades are to break. But I always had a feeling that that was part of why they felt so good. :)

 
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Good quality blades don't require any varnish. I have limba top plied blades and they don't splinter. I have DHS and Butterfly, they are all good. In fact I trust DHS much better at this.

Yeah rubber glue is also important, I aboslutely adore DHS no 15 glue for all of it's properties.
If so you don’t seal your blade? and just add the glue to the rubber sponge and to the blade and finally combining them? By the way do you use hurricane long 5 and dhs no 15 glue?
thank you for answering

 
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