Somebody call? 🙂
(Reads thread)
Ahhh okay, outer carbon Limba blades.
Hmm-- okay... I'm probably going to cost myself a sale here, but so be it. 🤨
While I make plenty of outer carbon composite blades, and have used limba on many occasions in the past, to be brutally honest I really don't use limba anymore -- same for koto, black walnut, rosewood, and all the usual TT Woods you see used elsewhere.
Australian native timbers are really my thing and have been for years. I see no reason to going back to using traditional TT Woods, as frankly there's no point. I can't do anything new or different with a Limba outer carbon blade, that hasn't already been done over and over ad infinitum by dozens of larger makers over the last 20+ years.
My range of blades is very diverse and they often a lot in their behaviour, but one thing they all share in common is that they are all about the wood, not the carbon.
To make their blades, larger brands like Butterfly typically use only a few wood species, but employ numerous different types or styles of carbon to create different playing properties. This is done for commercial reasons, as its an approach that suits mass manufacturing the best. This is also why all their research is focussed towards exploring different applications of modern composites.
I however do the exact opposite. I use only a few select types of composite fabric, but a massively wide variety of different species of wood. I also spend enormous amounts of time every year researching and testing the mechanical properties of different Australian timber species in general. Given that well over 20,000 different natove Aussie species exist, it's a process I'll probably never fully complete in my lifetime.
Embracing a very wood-centric playing feel is really my thing with my blades, but I also do this very selectively. I want to avoid all the usual negatives that come with all-wood blades, while still retaining all the very best bits of modern composite designs.
To explain what i mean, take Queensland maple for example -- it's a gorgeous australian native timber that's virtually identical in softness, spin, playing feel and weight to limba. Typically I use it whenever limba is normally called for in a blade recipe.
Queensland maple however (like so many other Australian native species) is also significantly stiffer in veneer format than limba. It also has far greater porosity. Limba outers have lots of moderately large pores to them, whereas Qu. Maple has thousands of smaller pores. Extra pores helps give timber a greater spin potential through increasing dwell time.
Qu. Maple's extra stiffness in a blade means I can get away with using a softer flexier class of composite fabrics. I don't have to make the same sorts of tradeoffs between hardness and spin/power that you get with standard outer'carbon blades.
As Qu. Maple as an outer layer provides superior stiffness to limba, I can therefore use a softer and slightly more flexible type of composite fabric in my blades. Limba and koto really aren't very strong in veneer format, so you need stronger composite materis to support them. Australian equivalents have greater strength, so I can get away with using different composites entirely (therefore no hard carbon feel).
Best of all, many Australian woods are genuine odd-ball, 'wierdo' timbers from an evolutionary standpoint. This sometimes allows me to access mechanical properties and playing features with my blades that you simply cannot achieve with 'normal' table tennis timber (I chose my business name for a reason y'know! 🤣🤣).
I find with this approach, there's a lot less compromise involved for me in making a blade. I still get all the same levels of spin and control as I would have gotten with limba outers, and I still keep all the same stiffness and power of a regular composite blade. But I DON'T however also have to put up with the typical hard, dead playing feel you get with ALC or other similar outer carbon fabrics. It lets my blades keep more of that sexy, softer, all-wood playing feel and natural flex I'm chasing, and they feel far more alive in your hands as a result.
Long story short, If you're the type of player that wants a genuine, all-wood-like playing feel, while still retaining all the hitting power and speed of a composite blade, then one of my blades might be right up your alley.
If however you prefer the more common outer-carbon + Limba feel, where limba's softness is largely tempered by a hard crisp carbon or ALC bed located under the outer layers, then one of my blades is not the one to go for.
