Butterfly blades - the whole truth!

Sorry for the clickbait, I couldn't resist

** labels might be misleading, I'm talking about the second layer here, not the core**

I had this conversation so many times that I decided to write a post about it. If you look at the composition of a Butterfly blade online you will see Limba written all over the place for their second layers. That is incorrect. The truth is that Butterfly doesn’t disclose the composition of their blades, all you see online are just guesses that got passed around, and unfortunately the majority of them are incorrect. Butterfly uses Ayous in the second layer for the majority of their blades, such as Viscaria, TB line, ZJK line, Innerforce, etc… How do I know this? The difference is clear if you know what to look for, but I also saw the inside of some of these blades and proved it myself. There are brands that use Limba, such as Xiom for example, and if you compare a Viscaria with a 36.5 you will see what I mean. Ayous can look like Limba in certain situations, but Limba is unmistakably Limba. First you gotta look at the end grain, which for the second layer will be on the side of the handle. If you look at the bottom of the handle they will look the same. Also, the blade must be new or in good condition, when sweat gets into the handle it makes the grain swell and the wood darker, which hides the characteristics we are looking for. Limba is usually darker than Ayous, that’s a clue, but it may not be the case. The give away are the little diagonal lines you can see on the Ayous layer, which Limba doesn’t have. They are called medullary rays, cellular structures found in some species of wood, what we in the TT world also call the fish scale pattern.

So, is there a big difference? Not really… If we look at the average density of each wood, Limba is about 1.4x heavier than Ayous. For a normal blade this means 3-4g more. Limba is also about 1.5x harder than Ayous, this will give the blade a slightly harder touch. In the end, all else being equal, a blade with Limba instead of Ayous will feel a little harder, less bouncy, but with more speed potential.

Originally Posted by vvk1

So the inner core of a normal blade (like a viscaria) is 10g or less? Are you sure?

I didn't say that. I don't know where you got that math from. I said that if you use Limba instead of Ayous you will get 3-4g more. So, all else being equal, an 85g blade would be 88 or 89g.

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I think we have a lapse in communication here. By medial ply I mean the second ply not the core!

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I think the confusion here was the example pic which did show the core...
(It would have been very difficult to see a difference on any other layer...)

Cheers
L-zr

The pictures show all the layers, they are the same apart from the second layer, and the core is neither Limba or Ayous but Kiri. Nobody uses Limba for cores... Also, some of those blades mentioned have obviously different cores, so I didn't thought there was a reason to be confused.

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The pic shows the words "Limba" and "Ayous" smack right in the middle of the core...
And They do look a bit different, I think here lies the confusion...

Anyway I never ever heard anybody call the core "medial"...

Cheers
L-zr

I had to put the words somewhere... Maybe a little arrow would've helped.

Yeah, I call it core and so does everyone. As for the medial ply nobody ever mentions it so there is no common term. Maybe medial is not the best one, but second or intermediate doesn't seem right either.

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Updated the post, should be clearer now.

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Core should be obviously the core. How about inner ply? It would work on a 5 ply blade. Inner, intermediate and top/outer ply could work for a 7 ply. Anything more and you’re gonna have to number them any way. Shouldn’t interfere with naming synthetic layers.

I do wish manufacturers would just list the complete composition of all their blades, it’s pretty important for me when choosing a new one. Not even sure if I own a blade with a limba inner/medial/whatever ply.

Here you can see, what Sérgio means. ​​You can clearly see, that the structure of the bayous-core of my Harimoto Innerforce ALC is the same like the structure of the second layer. Therefore the second ply is definitely the same like the core (Ayous) and not Limba.

Originally Posted by Magic_M

Here you can see, what Sérgio means. ​​You can clearly see, that the structure of the bayous-core of my Harimoto Innerforce ALC is the same like the structure of the second layer. Therefore the second ply is definitely the same like the core (Ayous) and not Limba.

Good example, thank you Manfred.