New Blade - time to get familiar with?

[PakDa1988]

What personal experiences do you have, how long does it take for you, to get used to a new blade?

The specific case is as follows:
About two months ago a friend loaned me the Butterfly Innerforce ALC for testing, weight 87g.
I glued my rubbers on it and after 1-2 hours I played very well with the blade. His blade is about 1.5 years old and has been played regularly.

I then decided to buy myself a new one, I also selected the weight at 87-88g.
Now, last week, I glued my rubbers, which I also played on his blade, to my new one, and I have noticed that the new blade really plays completely differently in every way.

It's much harder for me, gives me a lot less feel for the ball and doesn't have a real pressure point like his.
In addition, it is much faster and everything is somehow more uncontrolled.
Especially passive balls (block, service receive) and the soft topspins on backspin, everything plays completely differently, and I do a lot of easy mistakes now (balls often go out the back).

From the past I didn't have the feeling that I had such a problem with new blades.
For this reason, I would like to know what your experiences are and why what I have described can be?

 

[JJ Ng]

What personal experiences do you have, how long does it take for you, to get used to a new blade?

The specific case is as follows:
About two months ago a friend loaned me the Butterfly Innerforce ALC for testing, weight 87g.
I glued my rubbers on it and after 1-2 hours I played very well with the blade. His blade is about 1.5 years old and has been played regularly.

I then decided to buy myself a new one, I also selected the weight at 87-88g.
Now, last week, I glued my rubbers, which I also played on his blade, to my new one, and I have noticed that the new blade really plays completely differently in every way.

It's much harder for me, gives me a lot less feel for the ball and doesn't have a real pressure point like his.
In addition, it is much faster and everything is somehow more uncontrolled.
Especially passive balls (block, service receive) and the soft topspins on backspin, everything plays completely differently, and I do a lot of easy mistakes now (balls often go out the back).

From the past I didn't have the feeling that I had such a problem with new blades.
For this reason, I would like to know what your experiences are and why what I have described can be?

No idea. Quality control issue maybe?

For me, I have been playing with various 5-ply or 7-ply wood blades just to test them out. I get used to the new blade within about an hour. My usual blade is Tibhar Stratus Power Wood. Ealier today I played with Donic Persson Powerplay with H3 neo on the FH and EL-S on the BH (both are old rubbers I have had for a while). I had a blast with the set up after practicing for 45 minutes first.

I have also been playing with outer fast carbon blades (I own an Acoustic carbon and a Viscaria). I still have not gotten used to them after owning them for 3 years. To be fair, those blades have been collecting dust most of the past 3 years because my game is based on spinny loops, control and placement. I never learned how to counter loop. I grew up in the 38mm celluloid ball era where it is very important to loop a heavy back spin and finish the point ASAP. This 40+ mm plastic ball with little to no spin and everyone just countering back and forth is just not my type of game

Slower, inner carbon blades, I also get used to them in about an hour or so. For example, Tibhar Fortino Performance was pretty easy for me to handle after hitting it for 20-30 minutes.

So maybe your current blade, even though it is the same model as your friend's, is just not a good blade for your style? I don't think the age of the blade has something to do with it. Maybe quality control issue?

As I have played for longer period of time, I am starting to learn how to trust my feelings about equipments. I don't care about all the discussion about throw angles and technical terms like that. It is really meaningless. Chinese rubber on the FH side can be fast and linear with very low throw angle or can be slow and spinny with very high arc if you brush it lightly.

You should trust your feeling.

 

[Wrighty67]

Interestingly I also have 2 inner force layer ALC blades, and mine are quite different. My preferred one, that plays like your friends it sounds, is a straight handled 2016 blade thats been used, weighs 90g and is a beauty. I also got the new one, a 2022 flared handle weighing 87g and it is both harder feeling and faster and lacks the same feel and touch.

my frequency checks also reveal 1334hz for older one and 1388hz for the newer one.

Not sure it are related but it’s not uncommon for two of the same blade to play quite differently across many Buttefly blades. You need to try them and keep the ones that play better.

I’ve had the same experience with Joola Rossi Emotion.

 

[_JOOLA_]

I have two almost identical homemade blades that my father made for me, but they are different in the game. They are made from the same batch of veneer, carbon and glue, but with a break of two weeks and with one seemingly very small difference - on one blade, 0.1 mm was sanded from each side of the outer veneer, on the second - only the inner intermediate one. The first blade is harder and faster, the second blade is softer and slower. The frequencies are also different - 1383 Hz the first and 1348 Hz the second. If these bases were made from different batches of veneer, that is, from different trees, then these would be completely different blades.

 

[Oscarting]

I switched to my current blade about 7 or so months ago and im very used to it now. Its different for everyone. But since you already tried his/her blade and bought your own, it can't take that long to get used to. It may just be a matter of 'playing it in' like activating the alc or wood or something, and it might just be a placebo. and i could explain that in detail but I'm just going to estimate the time it will take you.

1 1/2 months

 

[lodro]

What personal experiences do you have, how long does it take for you, to get used to a new blade?

The specific case is as follows:
About two months ago a friend loaned me the Butterfly Innerforce ALC for testing, weight 87g.
I glued my rubbers on it and after 1-2 hours I played very well with the blade. His blade is about 1.5 years old and has been played regularly.

I then decided to buy myself a new one, I also selected the weight at 87-88g.
Now, last week, I glued my rubbers, which I also played on his blade, to my new one, and I have noticed that the new blade really plays completely differently in every way.

It's much harder for me, gives me a lot less feel for the ball and doesn't have a real pressure point like his.
In addition, it is much faster and everything is somehow more uncontrolled.
Especially passive balls (block, service receive) and the soft topspins on backspin, everything plays completely differently, and I do a lot of easy mistakes now (balls often go out the back).

From the past I didn't have the feeling that I had such a problem with new blades.
For this reason, I would like to know what your experiences are and why what I have described can be?

Maybe you should offer your friend a straight swap : your new one against his used one.

There are quite obviously two different ideas namely one that believes that a blade needs "running in" (like some rubbers maybe ????) then the second idea is that
one has to give time to get used to the new blade.
I believe in the second option, one has to get used to a new blade.
Sometimes this simply does not work. I sold my BTY Innerforce ALC because I could
not do anything with it that I could not do with another cheaper blade.
In the moment I got the same issue with my SDC blade. Something just does not click.
I do not know if butterfly peels their own trees or buys the veneers from a supplier.
I do not know if you ever have seen a video how veneers can be made but it is quite clear that a veneer cut from the outer layer of a tree will have different characteristics than a piece cut from close to the heart of a tree .
In this situation we have 5 pieces of wood and so variations are not avoidable.
When you think you have given it enough time - better sell it.

 

[Kuba Hajto]

His blade is about 1.5 years old and has been played regularly.

That is probably the cause.

When you are playing a couple of things happen:

• Your sweat sinks into the handle
• The handle is ever so slightly worn.

I do not have physics and materials knowledge to give you full reasoning, but all blades that were heavily used in my collection (apart from Xiom Omega Tour blade), are better than the ones I bought new. I have a 2 or 3 Tibhar curious blades. After 100hrs or so of training they feel very close to one another.

In guitar business there is a phenomenon that for long time well used and toured guitars feld much better than brand new ones. Manufacturers did analysis on it, and came to conclusion that the edges of fingerboard are getting physically worn by the players skin over the 100s of hours of play. So they took sandpaper to it and rolled the edges. My coach did the same to wings of blade. You are never gonna guess...

 

[Kuba Hajto]

BTW it might be fun for you to do a blind test against your friends setup. BTW

• are you using the same rubbers?
• Were the rubbers new?
• How long have you played with the loaner?
• Have you been playing against the same opponent?

If you slapped a new rubbers and comparing them to used rubbers there is your difference m8.

 

[Wakkibatty]

I can get 'used' to a new blade in anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour of play (where the vast majority of my strokes go in) -- this is partially a reflection though of the fact I'm constantly playing with / testing new blades as part of my job.

It takes me a good month of regular play however to feel truly comfortable with a new blade (where I feel able to attempt lower percentage shots).

I also find familiarity with a general type or style of blade has a massive effect. Compositionally speaking, the closer a new blade is to something I've played a lot with before, the less time it takes for me to adjust and feel truly comfortable.

I personally also find it's easier to go from slow to fast, rather than vice versa, and playing comp is always a different story. As an example, I'm currently testing an all-new, ALL + rated blade prototype... At work, the blade feels brilliant -- I'm very happy with it's performance, but trying to play comp with it yesterday was a mistake. The speed difference between this new blade and my usual one-ply / composite blades models was frankly driving me nuts. 😂😂😂😂