Custom Made Blade DAB Studios

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We discussed crossing the layers to add stiffness. But decided not to. At least for this test run. As for damage from dropping or table hits. I have a friend at the club that applies a poxy around the edge of the blade that's very hard. It's protected several of my blades from major bangs on the table. Not a splinter of wood out of place.

I believe DA blades' Dimitri will add a thin band of veneer around the edge of the blade for that purpose, at least on those with softer/more brittle core woods. My Kiri-cored V1 has it; a nice touch.
 
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Bobpuls I think you solved a mystery for me.

Some time ago I bought both a Coronado 145 and 190. While playing my partner and I noticed a horrible cracking sound when I would hit my power shots. In the blades there was a material called "textreme carbon". I noticed you mentioned earlier about the fragility and brittle nature of GF. I immediately began to think about the 145 and 190 blades. I think the horrible cracking sound could have been the textreme actually fracturing. In those blades the carbon is placed directly under the top sheet and could possibly be subject to fracture during high impact shots.
 
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Bobpuls I think you solved a mystery for me.

Some time ago I bought both a Coronado 145 and 190. While playing my partner and I noticed a horrible cracking sound when I would hit my power shots. In the blades there was a material called "textreme carbon". I noticed you mentioned earlier about the fragility and brittle nature of GF. I immediately began to think about the 145 and 190 blades. I think the horrible cracking sound could have been the textreme actually fracturing. In those blades the carbon is placed directly under the top sheet and could possibly be subject to fracture during high impact shots.

I know you've asked Bobpuls this question but I would very much doubt that the textreme would have fractured. I haven't used textreme but I believe it is stronger than kevlar which is used for body armour! I've used a few types of carbon and hybrid cloths and I don't believe there is any way a table tennis ball would cause them to fracture.
 
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Getting my blade made. Materials all laid out by Dimitri at Dabb studios. Bet you wanna know what it is don't you? OK, since you're twistin my arm.

I know I said I wanted a 4+1 blade. And I really did until I was introduced to a overwhelming amount of material to choose from. Like Burger King says, "you can have it your way." Lol This sandwich is going to be the bomb (fingers crossed). Either I'm a genius or ... well we'll see.

Limba, balsa, gf carbon, ayous, gf carbon, balsa, limba

Any thoughts? yea or nay ...

Any update?
 
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Bobpuls I think you solved a mystery for me.

Some time ago I bought both a Coronado 145 and 190. While playing my partner and I noticed a horrible cracking sound when I would hit my power shots. In the blades there was a material called "textreme carbon". I noticed you mentioned earlier about the fragility and brittle nature of GF. I immediately began to think about the 145 and 190 blades. I think the horrible cracking sound could have been the textreme actually fracturing. In those blades the carbon is placed directly under the top sheet and could possibly be subject to fracture during high impact shots.

Kevin's "sparring" partner (who's incidentally just dropped out of the picture frame) has been reported to have a headache. Any takers? ;)

Mark-Ruffalo-The-Hulk-The-Avengers.jpg
















I'm kidding but some kinds or variants of carbon fiber can be fairly brittle. That used to be notoriously the case with motorbikes' exhaust pipes (silencers) when they first came about in carbon, because of the intense vibrations and temperature, although things have improved massively since then (nigh on three decades by now, I'd guess). The fiber wouldn't break as such, but simply all the filaments would start to dissociate from one another. I'd be surprised if that was the case in your blade, with the layer of wood in between and the glue holding everything together. Not impossible of course.
 
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Any update?
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Just got it on Friday 4/20. Played with it 4 hours last night and a couple hours this morning at the Regional Hopes camp here in Columbus ohio.

Fh - MX-P (1.9)
Bh - Victas V-15 Extra

First impressions. Great spin blade! The balsa and limba combination actually work very well together. It has great touch on the short game and it has power off the table as well. The loop to loop rallies give me great feel when countering. And there is nothing lacking in the power.

This blade is a modified Wang Hao 3 type blade. The core is alc unlike the gf carbon of the DHS Wang Hao. The medial layer of Ayous was kept but in my blade it's thinner. An additional layer of wood (balsa) was placed on the Ayous. A layer of GF sits on top of that, and then the top ply of limba.

Durability...unfortunately I was going for a shot and crashed the blade into the table. I thought it was done for. I just knew the blade had really been damaged. But to my surprise, very little damage at all (a slight nick). So the quality of the construction is extremely high. I hit the Carbonado 145 on the table the same way about a year ago and totally split the carbon from the medial layer. At least a half inch into the blade. So in comparison, Dab's quality exceeded that of Stiga. Pleasantly surprised.

MX-P doesn't pair well with this blade so far. Then again, it could be me. But I let a higher level player loop to another higher level players block and he didn't like the MX-P either. The Victas is far better on this blade. In my experience MX-P works better on hard, fast, low dwell blades.

The handle was a bit blocky for me. Not as round as I am used to playing with. The DHS Long 5 and Wang Hao 3 are quite thin and round flared handle blades. But that was no problem at all. Nothing a piece of sandpaper couldn't handle. Now the handle is rounded and flared comparable to the dhs blades I like.

So far everyone who has hit with it loves the blade. And I've got a few people who are interested in designing their own personal blade. So Dimitri your going to be getting some clients your direction. We'll discuss the discount for me later. Lol
 
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Great stuff! I'm really pleased this worked out. Nice looking blade too, I like the way they finish their handles with the 'cap' at the end. Is the black ebony?

I really don't know. You'll have to ask Dab about the wood in the handle. I hit around today with the Naresh brothers. They are up and coming juniors here in the US (14 yr old Sid 2300 and 12 yr old Namdan 2100+). They both liked it. Also yesterday Samson Dubina 2400+ got a few swings with it. He was pleased as well. They all had that look like. .. "you came up with this"? Lol Then Sarah Jali (2100+ 12 yr old) proceeded to kick my but while I'm playing with my new blade. Some things just ain't fair

I took the mxp off and went with 05 tenergy. I can say that the balsa and gf do add a bit of bounce/rebound to the ball. But it's easily controllable rebound. So far I am totally pleased. I'll be paying with my regular buddies tonight (John Tannehill former #2 in the US, my coach) and a few other 1900 level players. I'll really see what it can do then as I will expect to at least perform as well as in the past.
 
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Great stuff! I'm really pleased this worked out. Nice looking blade too, I like the way they finish their handles with the 'cap' at the end. Is the black ebony?

We talked about that when discussing my blade. Dimitri said:

My handles are mostly cedar, ayous & linden which are solid, lightweight woods, along with small pieces of heavier exotic woods like rosewood, zebrawood or padauk for looks (if I am within the desired weight). I avoid using woods that are very porous (and lightweight) as they absorb sweat and break in a couple of years. I also don't colour them, it's their natural tone treated with danish oil.

 
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This blade is amazing! Touch, control...amazing. It doesn't have the throw off the DHS Long 5 which for me increases the accuracy of my shots. I played today with DHS Hurricane 3 on my forehand and the control was phenomenal. I did have a little trouble off the table with the hurricane, but that's because I haven't used it for a long time. It's going to take some adjusting.

The feel of the blade is comparable to the Butterfly Viscaria. But so much better. It's got a much softer feel than the Viscaria. It's got speed, but the blade isn't hard not does it give a hard sound at contact.

I can only describe it like hitting into a stiff foam. Yep, that's what it feels like. But instead of a slow rebound, you get a ball that's got tons of spin with whatever amount of speed you out into the shot. Now with the hurricane 3 on the forehand. It's like I can't miss the table with any shot that I'm able to aim. Even the backhand, with the 05 is much better. The control is awesome!!

The speed of a Hurricane Long 5, with the touch of a all wood slow blade. Yep!!!! I'M A GENIUS or lucky. Lol I'm sticking with genius.

The most beautiful thing...it's only one of these in the entire world!
 
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says Hi In first i want to thank you for your interest...
says Hi In first i want to thank you for your interest...
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what makes you to change the composition ?
This three artificial layers are good choice IMHO ... how is short game on net ? isn't it to bouncy on short over net pushes (here i assuming that the balsa under the top layer can make this problems ... but maybe not .. this is why i`m asking)?
It`s good you like it ! And on first attempt !!
 
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amazing post.The idea was really beautiful .thank you so much.The art is really interesting.keep it for hsraing this kind of information.
 
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what makes you to change the composition ?
This three artificial layers are good choice IMHO ... how is short game on net ? isn't it to bouncy on short over net pushes (here i assuming that the balsa under the top layer can make this problems ... but maybe not .. this is why i`m asking)?
It`s good you like it ! And on first attempt !!

Great questions.

What made me change the composition? Well, as I started out. I wanted a 4 wood + 1 composite blade. Similar to the Hurricane Hao 3 blade. I just wanted to change the Koto topsheet to Limba. But as I got to thinking and talking to Dab things slightly changed. And the composition took on a more conventional blade. I forget what the second idea was, but it's posted on this thread. After some criticism here (thanks guys) I again rethought my approach. Back to the 4+1. But in practice I noticed something. The Hurricane Long 5 (7 ply off+) gave a great ball but the blade was just a bit too hard for my liking. Not enough feel. While the Hurricane Hao 3 gave great feel, but didn't pack the punch I was accustomed to.

So I decided to split the Ayous layer of the Hao 3 roughly in half and replace the removed portion with a layer of Balsa. Now instead of a thick layer of Ayous as a medial ply. I now have 2 plies (ayous and balsa). My thoughts were that the balsa would add a bit of kick to the blade while maintaining a soft feel and dwell. I read up on balsa and realized how springy it is said to be. So I decided to hopefully reduce some of the spring/bound by adding a layer of glass fiber to cover the balsa. Also the layer of glass fiber I thought would add a bit of stiffness to the blade. (I think there were some concerns raised here about the stiffness of my original construction idea.) So I listened and added the glass fiber to help with stiffness. The topsheet also, in my mind, served to help muffle some of the bounce from the Balsa. While giving me a topsheet that I'm used to playing with. So instead of a 4+1 (5 ply blade). I ended up adding 2 layers of composite and 2 layers of balsa. A 6+3 (9 ply) blade.

How does it play around the net? I'm used to playing with pretty fast blades. The hurricane Long 5, I really learned to keep close to the net and actually developed a bit of touch around the net. But nothing like this.... This blade, around the net, I can drop the ball within centimeters of the net.

I might have to get another one made a let Dan and Tom do a review. Lol See what they think about it.

Dab put it together. But even he told me that he had no clue how it would play.
 
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says Hi In first i want to thank you for your interest...
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Great .... Make one for Dan and then maybe they can do also Review of blade from me ... ;-) .... they are busy as hell .
My blade is there for more then half year and still waiting ... ;-)
 
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