hipnotic, I call you out!

Zwill · Mar 29, 2022

Sorry for the "clickbait" title, I don't want to call you out actually. I am not blade maker just a player who has subjective opinions, but you have maybe hundreds of blade manufacturing behind you and can give good insight.
I am curious on your insight on recent Butterfly blades.(from the past 5-6 years)
Many people buy into that BTY has the highest possible quality. It is kind of undebatable that they drive the innovation of blades if it comes to special materials. But if you can debate it then please do since I would belive your insight over any corporate marketing BS.

As of late I have a problem with BTY blades. Whenever I try a Mizutani SZLC or Viscaria or some recently made Innerforce ZLC blade if I do flat hits or blocks the blade makes a weird sound and loses all power. By weird sound I mean a "pia" sound. 15 or 20 year old BTY blades don't have this issue.
I have tried Maze ALC and black tag TB Spirit, and they don't have any of this issue.

I have also tried several Chinese, Korean clones, they don't exhibit this "feature". So what is going on with Butterfly blades?

That being said no other blade feels so bipolar as Butterfly blades, newer BTY blades feel super dead and "pia" on over the table touches/blocks but come totally alive on topspin shots. I only experienced this defect/feature on BTY blades.

I would appreciate your opinion and also sharing who makes the most high blades nowdays. BTY, Xiom, DHS, Yinhe, You, OSP etc etc?

lodro · Mar 29, 2022

Ha ha ha, this is going to be real fun 😁😁😁

Michael Zhuang · Mar 29, 2022

My vote goes to Yinhe! In fact I was being tempted to get a Pro 01, but I already have a V14 pro. So it seems very superfluous.

JustANoob · Mar 29, 2022

My guess without any evidence or expertise or skill or information or background or understanding of physics is that the blades are lighter compared to the good old days and lack the potential power for a good smacking.

hipnotic · Mar 30, 2022

I'm no expert when it comes to high end blades, I own a ZJK SZLC signed by the man himself simply because I own it in a contest. I owned a couple of Butterfly blades some years ago, but I quickly sold them because I didn't like them. I do try some blades occasionally but mostly from other players. Up until I started making blades I basically used Donic, I looked at the numbers, read the reviews, and that was good enough for me. Now that I know a little more I see the differences. Big weight discrepancies, uneven plies, joint top plies, crooked handles and God knows what inside them. Did this make them play badly? Not at all, but they sure lacked in the craftsmanship department.

Butterfly does have a high standard for quality when it comes to blades (and other stuff). I think Japan is a synonym for high quality these days, so I think all Japanese brands have good quality. Something many people don't care since it's a detail, but most Butterfly blades I had in my hands had an even thickness, down to 0.01mm, all across the blade face. That is a really high precision! I can't get that kind of precision consistently, and many companies can't either. Still, I think most of their blades are overpriced. You are paying for marketing, sponsorships, r&d, hype, not just the blade. But then again, I think that this has become a trend and now every major brand has a premium line or model with exacerbated prices. That is good for me! I can't compete with Chinese prices (not if I want to make a living), so within the bubble of those crazy premium blades, my not so cheap prices still seem justifiable. But I'm just one guy, I know what it takes and what it costs to make a blade, so it seems obscene to me the profit they are making with all the resources they have. The marketing and gimmicks around supposed technologies is something that also tickles me, but I won't get into that. At the end of the day, this is business for them, and they do what they can to sell, simple as that.

About the behavior you describe, I can see that happening with ALC blades, but not ZLC or SZLC, or at least I don't have an explanation for it. Butterfly is using very little resin in their blades, this is a pic from a recent ALC blade:

All the fibers are clearly visible and the fabric is not fully saturated. On the other hand, this is a 2016 Viscaria:

You can clearly see how the fabric is fully saturated with resin. These two blades will feel very different despite having the same composition. Do they do this to differentiate between models? Was this just on these particular blades? I don't know, I needed to have a larger sample of blades to answer that. But the lack of resin in the first pic may cause the sound you describe. However, I don't see that happening with ZLC, the fabric is much more intertwined, it does not have open spaces, and it's also thinner, so it doesn't take much resin to be saturated. I also had a pic of that but I don't know where I put it, but it was a solid layer.

Lazer · Mar 30, 2022

Zwill said:
Sorry for the "clickbait" title, I don't want to call you out actually. I am not blade maker just a player who has subjective opinions, but you have maybe hundreds of blade manufacturing behind you and can give good insight.
I am curious on your insight on recent Butterfly blades.(from the past 5-6 years)
Many people buy into that BTY has the highest possible quality. It is kind of undebatable that they drive the innovation of blades if it comes to special materials. But if you can debate it then please do since I would belive your insight over any corporate marketing BS.

As of late I have a problem with BTY blades. Whenever I try a Mizutani SZLC or Viscaria or some recently made Innerforce ZLC blade if I do flat hits or blocks the blade makes a weird sound and loses all power. By weird sound I mean a "pia" sound. 15 or 20 year old BTY blades don't have this issue.
I have tried Maze ALC and black tag TB Spirit, and they don't have any of this issue.

I have also tried several Chinese, Korean clones, they don't exhibit this "feature". So what is going on with Butterfly blades?

That being said no other blade feels so bipolar as Butterfly blades, newer BTY blades feel super dead and "pia" on over the table touches/blocks but come totally alive on topspin shots. I only experienced this defect/feature on BTY blades.

I would appreciate your opinion and also sharing who makes the most high blades nowdays. BTY, Xiom, DHS, Yinhe, You, OSP etc etc?

Well 15 - 20 Years old blades have had a longer time for the wood to dry., this makes a difference...
This could have an effect on sound..

The loos of power is not so straight forward. Maybe You have a fake blade where the veneer isn't glued properly.
Maybe the rubber is poor and absorbs the power You put into it, maybe its imagination.

Anyway I have always liked Butterfly and never heard of an issue like this before...

Cheers
L-zr

ricospin · Mar 30, 2022

Maybe you just have lemons? What could be flawed about it too is maybe gluing process, or if they boost or whatever. I have a friend who has 2 blades that are the same as mine, and he has multiple blades. All of his stuff felt the same... somewhat clicky and hollow... Surely from all the blades that I've hit with that were his, they weren't all lemons.

Zwill · Mar 30, 2022

I also think that premium blade prices are not justified. Like Butterfly I can even understand since they actually sponsor a ton of pro players, but it's not like Joola or Xiom etc have that many sponsored players and their blades aren't much cheaper if at all.

The ply evenness is very good with Butterfly blades, I never seen a high end BTY blade that had visibly uneven plies or one that looked crooked.
I cannot say this about Stiga blades, uneven plies are very common, in fact I seen Carbonado 145 blades with different headsize which is super weird.

I tried many friends or opponents TB ALC and Viscaria and the newer ones do exhibit this loss of power and probably it is because that they use less and less resin over the years. I get their point since that resin is not something that you would want in your blade, but it's a necessary evil for glueing the artificial materials. Actually a T series Mizutani SZLC is the worst offender, it does this a lot on flat blocks. If you block passively it's fine but if you apply a certain amount of force it just acts up. It could be the resin or maybe the ayous under the SZLC is too soft. If you give an angle to your hit for example on topspins it doesn't do it. It's not a huge issue I think, just weird since I don't experience it in Chinese blades or Korean (Xiom) ones.

What I was always concerned about with "small" blade makers is the wood that they get. Never their skill. I'm sure Butterfly or Nittaku can fork out a lot of money for a log of good wood. I've seen documentaries about Japan forestry and how they auction their best logs. It wasn't about table tennis, but I'm sure a table tennis company or a musical instrument maker can fork out more money than some furniture company just purely based on used wood. I don't know how much the wood quality matters, but companies do market it a lot, they especially go wild with hinoki. And of course there's how one dries the wood etc etc, or there are these newly introduced cold-pressed blades, or burned wood. Some methods sound legit, some like a gimmick. I'm now more sceptical about the wood quality since the cheap Yinhe clones play about the same as expensive premium blades.

Zwill · Mar 30, 2022

Lazer said:
Well 15 - 20 Years old blades have had a longer time for the wood to dry., this makes a difference...
This could have an effect on sound..

The loos of power is not so straight forward. Maybe You have a fake blade where the veneer isn't glued properly.
Maybe the rubber is poor and absorbs the power You put into it, maybe its imagination.

Anyway I have always liked Butterfly and never heard of an issue like this before...

Cheers
L-zr

I think older blades are less dry. They absorb sweat and humidity over the years. New blades always feel very dry, "artificially" you can dry wood much better.

I experience this a lot with newer BTY blades, not just one. I don't think it's a faulty blade, definietely not a rubber or gluejob issue. It's coming from the blades and it's probably as Sergio says due to the resin, and how BTY is using less of it. They could've changed their resin sometime during the years. I'm sure they are experimenting with that too, they just don't make a big deal out of it.

But like I said it's not a huge issue, but it is present in some blades they make. One can adjust to it, it's not a showstopper and the blades otherwise play well.

Lazer · Mar 30, 2022

You should be, there is is less and less quality wood available.
Wood quality do make a difference.

Cheers
L-zr

hipnotic · Mar 30, 2022

Older blades can gain or lose moisture content, it depends on how they were stored, where they were stored, if they were fairly used or not, if there were environmental changes (shipped from one country to another for example), and the initial moisture content. People always talk about how wood must be really dry to be good, but that is not true, it needs to be stable. Wood will exchange water with the environment depending on it's water content, that's why you have reference values for wood water content depending on its use. In the furniture business for example, wood meant for outside use will have more moisture content than wood meant for indoor use, it will exchange less moisture with the environment and remain stable for longer. Moisture changes cause swelling/retraction that leads to cracking in the wood. In a TT blade, especially nowadays with water based glue, some water content is desirable. Have you noticed that on some top plies that are really dry, when you put glue the wood just soaks it up? That's not good, it will cause the fibers to swell and raise and it will splinter more easily when you remove the rubber.

Do you think TT companies are cutting their own veneers? They aren't, they get it from veneer suppliers meant for the furniture business, same as me. That's why most layers are around 0.5-0.6mm, that is the common range for these veneers. And they don't control this very well, you can see differences in the top ply of Viscaria depending on the batch it belongs to. I've also seen some Xiom blades with weirdly thick top plies, making the blade 5.9mm instead of 5.7mm. Smaller companies like OSP might be getting their own veneers by partnering up with other wood working companies, it would make sense since they focus on quality. I know Soulspin is cutting their own veneers, but they specialize in Spruce, I don't know if they do it with other woods. And they also make Spruce blades for other companies. The companies might be making their own cores, it takes other types of resources. Butterfly clearly does it with their 8 pieces kiri cores. And getting back to the furniture business, I've worked with Donic and Stiga blades with paper backed veneer top plies. Paper backed veneer is usually a thin veneer, around 0.4mm, with paper glued on the backside, meant for easily covering doors and stuff. You can buy this stuff at your local hardware store.

Stiga is the worst brand for me. I'm all up for joint cores, I used them as well, but they will just put a joint anywhere on a blade without any concern for symmetry or grain. This shows they are just making the best use of wood possible to cut costs. A joint top ply on a 200€ blade is not acceptable, neither a misaligned and crooked logo.

Lazer · Mar 30, 2022

Zwill said:
I think older blades are less dry. They absorb sweat and humidity over the years. New blades always feel very dry, "artificially" you can dry wood much better.

I experience this a lot with newer BTY blades, not just one. I don't think it's a faulty blade, definietely not a rubber or gluejob issue. It's coming from the blades and it's probably as Sergio says due to the resin, and how BTY is using less of it. They could've changed their resin sometime during the years. I'm sure they are experimenting with that too, they just don't make a big deal out of it.

But like I said it's not a huge issue, but it is present in some blades they make. One can adjust to it, it's not a showstopper and the blades otherwise play well.

Nope, wood that is cut from its tree always gets drier, and no the best woods are dried naturally. If You dry wood artificially it is a huge risk that it gets warped. Even natural drying must be done in correct humidity. The wood will strive for the same humidity as your average air humidity. If you leave it out in the rain, different story...
Except for the handle almost no sweat is absorbed.

Cheers
L-z

Zwill · Mar 30, 2022

Lazer said:
Nope, wood that is cut from its tree always gets drier, and no the best woods are dried naturally. If You dry wood artificially it is a huge risk that it gets warped. Even natural drying must be done in correct humidity. The wood will strive for the same humidity as your average air humidity. If you leave it out in the rain, different story...
Except for the handle almost no sweat is absorbed.

Cheers
L-z

You are right, but I just meant artificially you can make the wood more dry. I'm not very concerned about how dry a blade is tbh, but I do notice that brand new blades are always super dry and after some use they must absorb some humidity since they no longer feel so dry. They also get a few gramms heavier.
As you and Sergio have mentioned the enviroment will effect how dry the blade is so that's why I don't think a 15-20 year old blade is more dry, especially not as dry as a new blade. My point is that I doubt that is causing this "pia" sound.

Have you noticed that on some top plies that are really dry, when you put glue the wood just soaks it up?

Yes, I notice it every time with new blades. But later not so much.

Do you think TT companies are cutting their own veneers? They aren't, they get it from veneer suppliers meant for the furniture business, same as me. That's why most layers are around 0.5-0.6mm, that is the common range for these veneers.

Well I actually thought they are doing the cutting themselves since it's a specific usecase. But now I know I believed it wrong. Sometimes the truth is a letdown 😅 but it is still the truth!

Stiga is the worst brand for me.

I don't like Stiga blades either because of uneven veneers and splintering. Like 90% of Stiga blades have limba top ply and limba likes to splinter more than koto or hinoki. But on BTY and especially on DHS blades I never have splintering issues.
However I do like Stiga/DHS head shape and I wish they would actually make their blades in all of their handle choices. Stiga handles are actually pretty good and other companies could take a hint.

A joint top ply on a 200€ blade is not acceptable, neither a misaligned and crooked logo.

Even above 100EUR there shouldn't be any obvious blemishes. It's funny you say Stiga uses joined cores since I think they use ayous mostly and I fail to find baldes that don't have a one piece ayous core. Even the cheap DHS blades tend to have a one piece ayous.

Konrad Bak · Mar 30, 2022

deleted

hipnotic · Mar 31, 2022

I find that hard to believe, that's a whole new set of resources right there. They need to get the wood, store it and dry it, cut it, store the veneers, and in the case of clipper dye the veneers red which requires a specialized process in vacuum. It' not just one machine. If it is true and they are still using joints on top plies that makes matters even worse. But then again, Stiga also produces lawnmowers and tractors, so maybe...

Ayous is a big tree, it's easy getting boards wide enough. My cores are all one piece, except if I need a 90º core. The grain is also very homogeneous, so there isn't a noticeable difference if the cut is flat or quartered. Kiri is a small tree, getting boards wide enough for 1 piece cores is hard, unless they are cut from the center of the tree. So what Butterfly does, and that I've began to do more and more as well, is to use smaller pieces to ensure more homogeneity of the grain. This shows they actually care about the grain direction, which matters more if the core is one piece or not.

latej · Mar 31, 2022

@hipnotic I now play with innerforce like blade, limba, ayous, ALC, ayous core, which I like. What is to expect if the 2nd layer was limba instead of ayous, all other things being equal? Would you expect the frequency to go up or down? Would you expect it to feel softer or harder, faster or slower? All I know is that limba is heavier than ayous.

P.S. Zwill, I hope you don't mind I'm asking this question in your thread. I find it's better fit here than poluting Sergio's thread

hipnotic · Mar 31, 2022

Limba is denser and harder than Ayous. The medial ply in a 5+2 is usually horizontal, so the individual stiffness of that wood layer does not impact longitudinal stiffness directly. It does impact transversal stiffness, so all else being equal it will feel a bit more solid and harder. Harder blades tend to have a more linear behavior, so there will be an increase in the top end reaction. The frequency reading will be more or less the same, there might be a small increase because the mode we measure is the 6th, which reflects the out of plane deformation, and that will be smaller. So basically we would be increasing the relation between the 1st and 6th modes.

Sent from my MAR-LX1A using Tapatalk

Haraold · Mar 31, 2022

so you talking about an Envelope in frequency?Like 1-6th Mode in attack,release and decay (sound language!).like a filter? Or did i misread it?

hipnotic · Mar 31, 2022

Haraold said:
so you talking about an Envelope in frequency?Like 1-6th Mode in attack,release and decay (sound language!).like a filter? Or did i misread it?

No Harald, I was talking about natural frequency modes: https://www.sdcttblades.com/nerdy-stuff/frequency-reading-hz

Zwill · Mar 31, 2022

Just a thought regarding the companies making blades buying the veneer from furniture companies. I guess it explains why there are so few type of wood being used. I don't really know the used wood on defensive blades, those might be a bit of an exception but like allround and offensive blades are construced from the same 5-6 wood pretty much, right? Limba, ayous, kiri, koto, hinoki/cypress, maybe balsa? There are a few moderately used like basswood, angrie, rosewood, spruce, wallnut, tung... not sure what else, but even these are kind of rare.
This goes down to what these furniture companies offer or more into the what is widely available? Or other wood are just not suitable, feasable or economically viable?

So what Butterfly does, and that I've began to do more and more as well, is to use smaller pieces to ensure more homogeneity of the grain. This shows they actually care about the grain direction, which matters more if the core is one piece or not.

I think the one piece core is a good marketing tactic, I noticed it with Xiom mentioning it as a bullet point. Not sure any onther company did it before them.
I don't remember a BTY blade I had with a kiri core that was one piece, and it never felt like an issue.

I don't say what is best or the worst but zhang jike blue dragon is the worst 🤣

I don't get your hate for that specific blade. One of my teammates had one, it felt like a blade that's even softer than a TB Spirit. It wasn't the worst. I have had the privilage to try some of those cheap blades like Andor novacell, yuck it felt like playing with styrofoam.

P.S. Zwill, I hope you don't mind I'm asking this question in your thread. I find it's better fit here than poluting Sergio's thread

Dude, please! I am so bored by the same rubber threads about random generic ESN rubbers. I get the impression that people don't talk about blades since they don't actually feel the difference so they have not much to say.

hipnotic, I call you out!

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