Pure wood, ZLC or ALC

lodro said:

What are examples of composite?A composite is a material that is made by combining two or more substances that have different physical properties.

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Not many actually publish the type of resin used but butterfly tamaca 5000 used carbon fibre stabilized with low viscosity epoxy resin. Last I checked resin is 1.) A substance and 2.) Not carbon

passifid said:

Not many actually publish the type of resin used but butterfly tamaca 5000 used carbon fibre stabilized with low viscosity epoxy resin. Last I checked resin is 1.) A substance and 2.) Not carbon

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by golly aren't you a clever feller. 🤣

When wikipedia states ( as quoted above in #40 ) that a composite is made up of 2 or more materials it does not
in any way describe the materials . So for example concrete is a composite of sand, stones, cement and water.

You somehow seem to want to compete here with "wisdom" you read in books or on the internet, against people who
spend years using the stuff in a professional capacity. Have you ever had , for example , fiberglass and Carbon fiber cloth
in 100m rolls in you work shop ?

lodro said:

by golly aren't you a clever feller. 🤣

When wikipedia states ( as quoted above in #40 ) that a composite is made up of 2 or more materials it does not
in any way describe the materials . So for example concrete is a composite of sand, stones, cement and water.

You somehow seem to want to compete here with "wisdom" you read in books or on the internet, against people who
spend years using the stuff in a professional capacity. Have you ever had , for example , fiberglass and Carbon fiber cloth
in 100m rolls in you work shop ?

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Hey I'm not the one who got arsey and preachy about that when you say carbon it should be soley and only carbon.
That was you.
If you want us all to stick to your rules then you should find it easy no?
so stop pretending you're using pure carbon layers without resin by saying carbon and instead say carbon fiber resin composite. And while at it point out a clipper is actually a 15 layer core because of the glue.

passifid said:

Hey I'm not the one who got arsey and preachy about that when you say carbon it should be soley and only carbon.
That was you.
If you want us all to stick to your rules then you should find it easy no?
so stop pretending you're using pure carbon layers without resin by saying carbon and instead say carbon fiber resin composite. And while at it point out a clipper is actually a 15 layer core because of the glue.

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waffle waffle waffle waffle nothing but waffle and more waffle
next thing you will be wanting to count the air as extra layers

PhenThohn said:

Hello TableTennisDaily Community!

Can anybody tell me in details what is the difference between the pure wood, ZLC and ALC blades? I've been looking, but I couldn't find the answer. Thought I might here.

Thanks!

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There are two big families of blades, all wood and composite blades. All wood blades can have a number of layers, how the number of layers and their distribution affects playing properties is a complex subject, but the most common numbers are 5 and 7 layers.

Composite blades are all wood blades that have an addition of artificial fiber(s). These artificial fibers are used because their mechanical properties are far superior to wood, they don't exist only to provide speed, but to manipulate many properties of a blade such as weight, sweetspot, flexibility, hardness, feeling, etc... These fibers are not engineered purposely for TT, they have many applications in other fields as well, many times with much more demanding performance ratios.

Artificial fibers are usually fabrics, with various types of weaving patterns and densities, which are often as important as the fiber itself. These fabrics alone don't have any real advantages, to be used to the full extent of their properties they must be infused with a resin. There are many types of resin, this is another variable that affects the performance of the fabric being used.

There are many types of of artificial fibers, but in terms of fabrics you basically have two families: plain fabrics, which contain only one fiber, and hybrid fabric which contain two or more fibers. The most commonly used fibers are: Carbon, Glass , Arylate (which is really named Vectran, it was just renamed by Butterfly), Aramid (is in fact a family of fibers which has many brands, most common is Kevlar) and Zylon (Zylon is also a brand, the real name of the fiber is PBO). In terms of performance, carbon has properties that none of the other fibers has, mostly in terms of speed and sweetspot, so to get the most out of both worlds, hybrid fabrics are used. Because carbon is king, you also have various types: soft-carbon (known by many names, but basically it's a non-woven fabric, just small strands of fibers compressed into a sheet), Textreme-Carbon (textreme is just a trademark name for a way of weaving fabrics, this results in thinner fabrics with less density. There are also other textreme fibers but they are not as common).

Hybrid fabrics have even more possibilities than plain fabrics, because with two fabrics, the number of combinations for weaving patterns is much higher. How the fibers are distributed within the wave pattern is really important, but generally manufacturers just stick to one weave type, although there can be differences from brand to brand. The most common hybrid fabrics are: arylate-carbon (commonly known as ALC), aramid-carbon (most people use the term alc for this one as well, but although the fibers are similar, they are not exactly the same), and Zylon-carbon (known as ZLC or PBO-C).