SDC Handmade Blades

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People still use all wood blades, who would have thought? :D
This is a classic 5 ply composition, similar to Korbel, that I made for a former team mate.

Composition: Limba / Ayous / Ayous / Ayous / Limba
Thickness: 5.9 mmWeight: 86.8 g
Head Size: 158x152 mm
Freq.: 1290 Hz
Balance: 2.9 cm

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People still use all wood blades, who would have thought? :D
This is a classic 5 ply composition, similar to Korbel, that I made for a former team mate.

Composition: Limba / Ayous / Ayous / Ayous / Limba
Thickness: 5.9 mmWeight: 86.8 g
Head Size: 158x152 mm
Freq.: 1290 Hz
Balance: 2.9 cm

View attachment 21685

View attachment 21686

View attachment 21687

Very nice, that's exactly the same composition as Stiga AllRound Classic.

What do you think of this compo:

Limba
Ayous
Ayous
Ayous Core
Ayous
Limba

Can be a mix of Stiga AllRound Classic & Clipper. Could be good for me: one side push-blocker & the other topspin?
 
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Very nice, that's exactly the same composition as Stiga AllRound Classic.

What do you think of this compo:

Limba
Ayous
Ayous
Ayous Core
Ayous
Limba

Can be a mix of Stiga AllRound Classic & Clipper. Could be good for me: one side push-blocker & the other topspin?

Yes, but the allround classic is much thinner.

6 plies? What would be the purpose of this?
 
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Very nice, that's exactly the same composition as Stiga AllRound Classic.

What do you think of this compo:

Limba
Ayous
Ayous
Ayous Core
Ayous
Limba

Can be a mix of Stiga AllRound Classic & Clipper. Could be good for me: one side push-blocker & the other topspin?

Yes, but the allround classic is much thinner.

6 plies? What would be the purpose of this?

Also, technically, with a 6 ply blade, and there are a few out there, the core would be the two middle most plies. If you tried to make one of those two plies thicker than the other, you would be creating something that would be very weird and would not have the effect I think you are hoping for.

There have been 6 ply blades that were put on the market. I can't think of any that have not been discontinued.

My guess is, your idea would be to make one side (BH side) like a 5 ply blade (slower - note, that is not quite what happens with a 5 ply blade) and one side like a 7 ply blade (thinking that wold be faster for FH side). But you would get something else from that if you did not make the two innermost plies the same thickness which is, a blade that is unstable because the ply closes to the core is more on one side of the blade than the other.

So, it would have to be this:

Limba
Ayous
Ayous Core same thickness as next ply
Ayous Core same thickness as previous ply
Ayous
Limba

Or you would have something that would feel pretty bad.
 
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Also, technically, with a 6 ply blade, and there are a few out there, the core would be the two middle most plies. If you tried to make one of those two plies thicker than the other, you would be creating something that would be very weird and would not have the effect I think you are hoping for.

There have been 6 ply blades that were put on the market. I can't think of any that have not been discontinued.

My guess is, your idea would be to make one side (BH side) like a 5 ply blade (slower - note, that is not quite what happens with a 5 ply blade) and one side like a 7 ply blade (thinking that wold be faster for FH side). But you would get something else from that if you did not make the two innermost plies the same thickness which is, a blade that is unstable because the ply closes to the core is more on one side of the blade than the other.

So, it would have to be this:

Limba
Ayous
Ayous Core same thickness as next ply
Ayous Core same thickness as previous ply
Ayous
Limba

Or you would have something that would feel pretty bad.

I'm making some blades for a friend of Der_Echte and he is mainly interested in combination blades with drastically different properties on each side - it's a tough to create a blade with dissimilar playing properties on each side while also making sure to create a stable piece of wood.

I've done a considerable amount of reading about ply-wood construction and best practices to maintain a "balanced" construction (e.g., an odd number of plies is preferred), but there is so little information on how far you can push certain factors out of balance before the ply-wood starts to experience negative consequences (e.g., warp). For example, would some glues provide more resistance to warp (surely those with less creep would be better, right)? Would a fiber layer make the entire panel more resistant to warp? Even thickness of wood layers is in-line with best practices for a stable/balanced panel, but how much thicker can you get away with? Woods differ in dimensional stability, so how could you maintain a balanced ply-wood panel AND use different woods?

In the past, I've made combi-blades with the order of outer- and medial- plies switched on one side, which I consider very little risk in regard to creating an unbalanced panel. I've also created one with the outer- and medial-plies switched AND a different glue between the outer and medial plies on one side - this seems slightly riskier and more likely to result in warp (though the blade seems unaffected 1.5 years later). Thus far, I haven't tried drastically different woods on each side or different thicknesses, but I am getting curious about what I could get away with. I'm thinking about trying out a carbon-aramid core with completely different woods on each side (albeit, I will keep the thickness of each layer mirrored on each side). Thoughts on the viability of this design?
 
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Yeah. I do think any of what you said would be possible. And it would be different than trying to force a ply into being "the core" when the blade has 6 plies and the core is not the ply that is centered between the two sides.

But when you make those blades that are different on each side, it might not be completely centered where the different woods on each side shift the center a little, that is different than what would happen if you were pretending you could have 3 plies on one side of the "core" and 2 plies on the other side of the core thereby making the core Nowhere Near the center of the blade.
 
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I'm making some blades for a friend of Der_Echte and he is mainly interested in combination blades with drastically different properties on each side - it's a tough to create a blade with dissimilar playing properties on each side while also making sure to create a stable piece of wood.

I've done a considerable amount of reading about ply-wood construction and best practices to maintain a "balanced" construction (e.g., an odd number of plies is preferred), but there is so little information on how far you can push certain factors out of balance before the ply-wood starts to experience negative consequences (e.g., warp). For example, would some glues provide more resistance to warp (surely those with less creep would be better, right)? Would a fiber layer make the entire panel more resistant to warp? Even thickness of wood layers is in-line with best practices for a stable/balanced panel, but how much thicker can you get away with? Woods differ in dimensional stability, so how could you maintain a balanced ply-wood panel AND use different woods?

In the past, I've made combi-blades with the order of outer- and medial- plies switched on one side, which I consider very little risk in regard to creating an unbalanced panel. I've also created one with the outer- and medial-plies switched AND a different glue between the outer and medial plies on one side - this seems slightly riskier and more likely to result in warp (though the blade seems unaffected 1.5 years later). Thus far, I haven't tried drastically different woods on each side or different thicknesses, but I am getting curious about what I could get away with. I'm thinking about trying out a carbon-aramid core with completely different woods on each side (albeit, I will keep the thickness of each layer mirrored on each side). Thoughts on the viability of this design?

I have also had that idea but still hadn't the time to do it. I think it might work.

I have never had a problem with warping, and I've made blades with significant differences between sides. I think part of the secret is gluing each set of layers at a time. Another thing is not to use water based glues, as this introduces water to the wood, and different woods absorb water at different rates. Then the retraction will also be different causing warping.

Having a thick core is important, as it brings stability to the blade and acts as a "barrier" between sides. You can see this in most combination blades out there, so most manufactures use Balsa for this. However, a thick balsa core has a very distinct feel, bouncy and low arc. So the trick is to do this without that thick balsa core.
 
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Combi blade one side slow & the other faster.

Like what Carl said, it doesn't work that way. And I can tell you that even theoretically, that composition wouldn't cause significant differences between sides.

Yep. And, if you read what I wrote, you cannot force a ply that is not in the center to be the core.

So you could not have a blade that would theoretically be like a 5 ply on one side and a 7 ply on the other side by making a 6 ply.

The core of a 6 ply would have to be the TWO innermost plies. And those two innermost plies would have to be the same thickness. Otherwise you would just have a blade that felt inconsistent rather than having a slower side and a faster side.
 
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Why people don't make 3 ply blades?

As a general rule of thumb, the less layers a blade has, the thicker it needs to be in order to have sufficient stiffness and hardness. The problem when you increase thickness is that you also increase the weight. So, light woods must be used for this, such as Hinoki and Spruce. That really limits the design options on this kind of blades. Also, not everyone likes to play with thick blades.
 
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This was another one of my experiments during quarantine. I hadn't built a a 7 ply with kiri core in a while and I wanted to try this Smoked Eucalyptus. The blade is very linear, not bouncy at all, and has a soft but solid and muted feel. However, you can clearly feel the hard to ply on harder shots.

Composition: Smoked Eucalyptus / Ayous / Kiri / Kiri / Kiri / Ayous / Smoked Eucalyptus
Weight: 84.1 g
Thickness: 5.95 mm
Freq.: 1270 Hz
Balance: 2.4 cm (Low)

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How do you do the coloring of the wood for handles?.. Such saturated colors... I'm interesting in this process..

Sorry but I prefer not to disclose that. I don't mean to be selfish, but it is something that has taken me a lot of work and research to perfect. Don't get me wrong, you of all people are deserve to know since you shared so much knowledge, but I'm sure there are also aspects of your blades you prefer not to reveal.
 
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