Old JO Waldner Banda - Worth the time and effort?

[Liten]

This just in!

This is older and not in the best of shapes.. Feels like a lighter blade. Will be interesting to see how it plays when im done restoring it..

 

[Liten]

Oh, maby not lighter after all... The rubbers are just turned into paper!!!

This is after 1min of peeling with only my fingers.. [emoji50]

 

[Liten]

Evil twins!

Most cleanup and woodwork is done.
The new Banda feels lighter than the old one, for sure. Must get hold of that scale again.

A few coats of oil on the handle, a coat of hairspray on the head, and its rubber-ready!

Super happy!

 

[Liten]

Mmmm

 

[HappySpinner]

Mmmm

Very nice twins! What oil did you use on the handle? [emoji4]

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[Liten]

This is what we call "kallpressad linolja".. Coldpressed linseed-oil..

 

[Liten]

Their pretty much the same.. Ill be leaving these handles alone. Just a matter of getting used to, and the performance has been real nice so far!

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Yeah. I think keeping the classic the way it was made is a good idea. And any handle, blade, blade size, shape or weight, if you play with it for a while you do get used to it. Der_Echte would be jealous that you have two blades that weigh 100 grams without his modification and that they are from back in the era when they still made solid handles.


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[Liten]

The last one might be lighter.. Don't know yet.

 

[Liten]

Anyone have any idea what woodplys these blades are made of?

Can't really get my head around why this blade plays SO much better than the tremendously more modern Stiga Hybrid Wood??

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

It is hard to say from the photo. Ooak Forum lists the plies as:

Limba-Spruce-Ayous-Spruce-Limba

Your blade doesn't really look like that. It looks more like:

Limba-Ayous-Ayous-Ayous-Limba

But, at least from my phone, I can't really tell.

However, I think that there is a different reason for why it plays so much better. Or, really a few reasons.

The first is, the wood has aged naturally because it is old, which means it is dryer and that produces more feeling.

The second is, the real McCoy, solid handle. I believe that blade is from back in the days when they did not make hollow spaces in the handle.

The third reason is it was made with good quality wood and they did not do too much to mess with it. And the last reason is the gluing process.

The world renowned Swedish excellence in making table tennis blades was peaking somewhere around the time when that blade was made. They were known for just what you are feeling in that blade.

These days what Stiga does, (I think Stiga, Banda and Avalox were all connected and their blades were made by the same blade makers back in the day), anyway, what Stiga is doing these days is like shortcuts to create good feeling by technology instead of high quality wood and gluing.

They are still very good blades and feel very nice. But it is different to have NCT on your blade, or VPS with Diamond Touch than to have classic, simple gluing process with wood that is selected because it is high quality without any processing.

The guy from OSP studied that and that is what he is doing. It is why OSP blades feel so good and at the same time are so solid, sturdy and durable. Mr Palatinus is using high quality wood. The plies of the blade are always made with continuous sheets of wood. In some mass produced blades you will see that somewhere in there one sheet ended and a next sheet began because the blade was cut from a giant sheet of plied wood that is made from several smaller sheets. I can find this on many of the Stiga blades I have seen that were made in the last 5 years or maybe even the last 10 years.

Then the gluing process is a more classic, simple, but effective process.

I think those are the reasons that blade may play so well. Old fashioned, quality craftsmanship beats technology in this area.


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[Liten]

I think this image might be better?:

Looks like the original spec from ooak could be right?

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Is there an angle where you can see the grain of the 2nd ply? Spruce has a very distinct and visible grain pattern. There should be dark brown almost vertical lines.


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[UpSideDownCarl]

See if you can look at the photos of the V'King from the OSP website. They have a photo where you can see the grains of the Spruce ply.


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[Liten]

I see what your saying.
But that can be explained by how the wood is sawed? Quatersawn usually shows a totally different grain.
Hard to tell but the 2 and 4th ply is definetly darker in both the bandas.

And again, thanks for the great and valuable info Carl!

And!
The V'King Cpen sure struck a nerve!!
What a beautiful blade!

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Yep that is a beauty.

I actually think I am about to dust off my V'King.

I got new rubber, Evolution MX-P and it is kind of amazing and it plays well on my Virtuoso+ but it hides some of the blades feeling. It feels to me like the rubber would play better on a harder blade.

And, well, that would be the V'King. I like the V+ better overall. But I love this rubber so I want to see how it plays on the harder Koto blade.


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[fais]

I think these blades found you, and not the other way around. God did not let these two classic blade like this go to waste. Im really stoked for you bro, keep those pics coming and tell us more on how they play!!!!

I look forward to the day (and the story how) my perfect blade finds me

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

I see what your saying.
But that can be explained by how the wood is sawed? Quatersawn usually shows a totally different grain.
Hard to tell but the 2 and 4th ply is definetly darker in both the bandas.

Regardless of how the wood is cut, I think that dark grain would pop out at some angle. Also, if it was Spruce I don't think it would have those pores in it. That is more characteristic of Ayous. And now that I am on a computer, that darker second ply just looks like a darker Ayous.

However, I don't have the blade in my hand where I could really look at it. And photos off a computer, well, it is hard to tell.

But I think how they made the blade has more to do with why it is so good than what wood they used.

 

[Baal]

First name that sprung to mind: Heffaklumpen ("The Heffalump" in English, from the old Winnie the Pooh series..)
Sort of fits the bill quite nice.. "feard by all the animals in The Hundred Acre Wood"...

Help!!! A horrible heffalump! A heffible horrilump!

 

[Baal]

Jag bodde i Sverige från 1969 till 1971. Det är där jag lärde mig att spela pingis. Den gamla Stiga därefter är fortfarande bra.