Importance of the blade handle (handle grip) over the actual blade

[sebi]

I could be wrong, but I have this feeling that the handle plays a much more important role then any of the replies so far have suggested. How long it is, how thick it is on bh and fh, alignments and cuts and angles. Or maybe - did I fall for the info on Soulspin’s site? To buy one of each would be a very expensive endeavor, but I wonder how much thought blademakets put into this? They do not even offer blades for lefties or righties which could be very odd when I think about it.

It probably does, if your angel is off because of the handle, no combination of wood can fix that.

 

[CyNyC]

Hope that no big brand is reading this; they could start to sell blades with no handle (same price of course ) and then provide tons of different handle shape/style/dimension to glue on it.

A "handle kit" with 2 piece of perfectly carved wood and a dedicated performance glue: YOUR best grip ever, tailored on your hand! Only 39,90€!

Which would be common sense as anyone has different hand. And could also push EJ market as no one would be afraid anymore to buy another blade just because of large handle

In case....contact me for royalties on original idea!

 

[qylw]

There is no reason to be sorry for penhold players as we mostly handling the blade not a handle. But yeah: I customize my handle with files. Pic attached.

 

[Wakkibatty]

Both matter, but for the record, the handle scales are primarily designed to match / suit the blade.

If a blade's panel is designed to have flex in it, you can increase or decrease it's propensity to flex by changing the thickness (or the shape!) of the handle scales, through simple increases in mechanical leverage.

Thick handle scales act a lot like a lever... If you make the scales thinner, you shorten the length of the lever, and there's less bending forces applied to the blade during play.

Small changes in thickness don't *usually* result massive changes to a blade's performance in most cases... But with some blades small changes can definitely make a huge difference.

If you like really flex blades in general, I encourage you not to mess with the thickness of their handle scales too much, as it's potentially easy to change the blade's flex, and by extension it's throw angle.

With stiffer blades this is less of a problem, and you have a bit more scope to vary the handle thickness without adjusting the blade's playing feel and performance too much.

That said, really *any* change to a blade's handle geometry has at least some potential to change its playing behaviour to some degree. Predicting how big or how likely any change might be is difficult, as it's going to differ from one blade model to another, depending on its construction.