SDC Handmade Blades

[Der_Echte]

GENAU !!!

Yes, that is the one I tested. I didn't really get to bang the ball around, was in doubles matches and I mostly make opening topspins.

Maybe Friday at Church I will get a chance to make it bark sum moar louder.

 

[Der_Echte]

Another local player really likes Hinoki.

 

[hipnotic]

One more flag to the collection. I need to make a world map to register the countries I've "visited" 🙂

Composition: Hinoki / Ayous / I-C / Ayous / I-C / Ayous / Hinoki
Weight: 90g
Thickness: 6.05mm
Freq.: 1230Hz
Balance: 3.1cm (Med)

 

[Lazer]

Thanks! Do you mean the brown wood? That's Mahogany.

Yes I do.

Cheers
L-zr

 

[Elraghy]

do you seal the handles , cause it would be shame to stain that beauty with sweat .

 

[hipnotic]

do you seal the handles , cause it would be shame to stain that beauty with sweat .

Normally I don't, I only seal the handle if requested. Sealed handles can be slippery and, to me, performance trumps looks.

Sent from my MAR-LX1A using Tapatalk

 

[Metaxa]

One more flag to the collection. I need to make a world map to register the countries I've "visited" [emoji846]

Composition: Hinoki / Ayous / I-C / Ayous / I-C / Ayous / Hinoki
Weight: 90g
Thickness: 6.05mm
Freq.: 1230Hz
Balance: 3.1cm (Med)

Lovely (fast enough) control blade.


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[damszelfly]

Normally I don't, I only seal the handle if requested. Sealed handles can be slippery and, to me, performance trumps looks.

Sent from my MAR-LX1A using Tapatalk

Hi hipnotic,

What kind of sealers do you have experience with?

I am personally fine with Revolution nr. 3 sealer, but I only used it on more rough handles (I treated a few budget class blades for a few of my coworkers), and not on super smooth handles, like I see on your blades. I guess, on properly sanded handles, slipperiness can be a serious problem.

I also think, that sealed handle slipperiness can depend as well on the type of wood the handle built of.

 

[hipnotic]

Hi hipnotic,

What kind of sealers do you have experience with?

I am personally fine with Revolution nr. 3 sealer, but I only used it on more rough handles (I treated a few budget class blades for a few of my coworkers), and not on super smooth handles, like I see on your blades. I guess, on properly sanded handles, slipperiness can be a serious problem.

I also think, that sealed handle slipperiness can depend as well on the type of wood the handle built of.

I've tried a few, water based, poly based, oil based, shellac... Some give better results than others, and it's true, the wood your applying it on also makes a difference. But in the end a sealer, seals... If moisture has nowhere to go it will stay between your hand and the handle, making it more slippery. I know people who use sealed handles without a problem, but you put on of those in my hands and you'll get an instant boomerang. So the main factor is really the user.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

I've tried a few, water based, poly based, oil based, shellac... Some give better results than others, and it's true, the wood your applying it on also makes a difference. But in the end a sealer, seals... If moisture has nowhere to go it will stay between your hand and the handle, making it more slippery. I know people who use sealed handles without a problem, but you put on of those in my hands and you'll get an instant boomerang. So the main factor is really the user.

Agree. And I know, I personally hate sealed handles. I like feeling the wood and I like the wood absorbing my sweat.

 

[damszelfly]

do you seal the handles , cause it would be shame to stain that beauty with sweat .

Unfortunately my hand produce a lot of sweat, and I would like to prevent the handle getting soaked with it, because the handle and the plies are visually too appealing to me to let them get stained with my sweat.
There is another aspect to consider regarding lacquering - it hasn't been really a problem for most of my blades, but I have a PimplePark blade (Pila) with a handle, which already absorbed a lot of sweat (my setup was 182.3g in its brand new state, now it is 189.2g) as it has weirdly exposed open wooden fiber structure along the surface, and that really can affect balance of the blade.
However I also fully understand the feeling of grip loss by my experience as well (to some more or less noticeable extent per different blades), so while I am not getting to any tournament situation in the near future, I guess, I would definitely not do lacquer on a blade, which I would use during a tournament.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Unfortunately my hand produce a lot of sweat, and I would like to prevent the handle getting soaked with it, because the handle and the plies are visually too appealing to me to let them get stained with my sweat.
There is another aspect to consider regarding lacquering - it hasn't been really a problem for most of my blades, but I have a PimplePark blade (Pila) with a handle, which already absorbed a lot of sweat (my setup was 182.3g in its brand new state, now it is 189.2g) as it has weirdly exposed open wooden fiber structure along the surface, and that really can affect balance of the blade.
However I also fully understand the feeling of grip loss by my experience as well (to some more or less noticeable extent per different blades), so while I am not getting to any tournament situation in the near future, I guess, I would definitely not do lacquer on a blade, which I would use during a tournament.

Nobody can see the handle when your hand is holding it. And if the wood of the handle absorbs the sweat while you are holding it, it is doing the job it was meant to do.

When you are done playing, you should leave the handle out in the open air so the sweat it absorbed evaporates.

Of course those statements reflect my opinion and you are entitled to have a different opinion.

 

[damszelfly]

One more flag to the collection. I need to make a world map to register the countries I've "visited" 🙂

Composition: Hinoki / Ayous / I-C / Ayous / I-C / Ayous / Hinoki
Weight: 90g
Thickness: 6.05mm
Freq.: 1230Hz
Balance: 3.1cm (Med)

May I ask, what wood species have you used for this handle? It looks like a fineline handle (if I got it right, fineline is not a kind of wood, but a method of forming a plank from many thin wood layers before further use), and I like, that there was different kind of wood used for the white part (maybe Koto?), but I cannot guess the wood composition of the blue part.

As you are also experienced with physical properties of many wood species, do you use notably different orientation of wood fibers within different plies of the same kind of wood to achieve different playing characteristics (I guess, there are wood species with more spectacular and less spectacular differences, if being used like this)?

 

[hipnotic]

May I ask, what wood species have you used for this handle? It looks like a fineline handle (if I got it right, fineline is not a kind of wood, but a method of forming a plank from many thin wood layers before further use), and I like, that there was different kind of wood used for the white part (maybe Koto?), but I cannot guess the wood composition of the blue part.

As you are also experienced with physical properties of many wood species, do you use notably different orientation of wood fibers within different plies of the same kind of wood to achieve different playing characteristics (I guess, there are wood species with more spectacular and less spectacular differences, if being used like this)?

Yes, fineline is comprised of individually glued pre dyed sheets of wood. For a big company stuff like this is easy, but I have to glue all those layers individually so it's a lot of work. They use various woods to dye, but mostly light colored woods that won't change the color being used. The white wood is koto, the blue one is maple.

I do play around with the orientation of the wood plies occasionally, depending on the goal for that particular blade.

 

[hipnotic]

Purely out of curiosity, I wanted to make the thinnest (but still playable) blade possible. So I used hard components, but that would keep the weight still reasonable, 5 layers of Mahogany and 2 of Super-Carbon. Well, I just had to try this one, even if just briefly, so I'm selling it at a discount for anyone who wants to try it as well. This is different than everything out there, it's a very flexible blade, as indicated by the frequency reading, but surprisingly faster than what I was expecting. The throw angle is ridiculously high, which makes blocking near the table pretty awful to be honest, but it's pretty good if you like to spin everything. The feeling is hard to describe, it's obviously a hard blade looking at the composition, but due to the thickness it still feels kind of soft. I've put DEF in the description due to its speed, but it's still a decent offensive blade if you prioritize spin over speed and love monstrous arcs.

Composition: Mahogany / Mahogany / SC / Mahogany / SC / Mahogany / Mahogany
Weight: 92.6g
Thickness: 3.7mm
Freq.: 796Hz
Balance: 3.1cm (Med)

 

[Lazer]

Too nice to put rubber on....

 

[chintanmashroo]

wish this was an FL handle

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[damszelfly]

This is an antithesis to the thick balsa core blades... probably the first 5 + 2 veneer blade with this (or even similar) thickness. I guess, I wouldn't be able to use it properly, but I would be very curious to see a video featuring a player, who plays this.

Is this blade cut to "Butterfly standard" (157×150mm) head size, or different?

 

[hipnotic]

This is an antithesis to the thick balsa core blades... probably the first 5 + 2 veneer blade with this (or even similar) thickness. I guess, I wouldn't be able to use it properly, but I would be very curious to see a video featuring a player, who plays this.

Is this blade cut to "Butterfly standard" (157×150mm) head size, or different?

I do like to step out of the box 🙂

Yes, the head size is the standard 157x150mm.

 

[hipnotic]

I post my successes, so I think it's only fair that I post some of my failures as well. In this case not so much a failure, but the inability to fully comply with the customer's requests. The problem with making "clone" blades is that even commercial blades can have a great variation within the same model. So, achieving the specific feeling the customer has in mind can be a hard task. On top of that I also need to comply with the weight and balance requested, which makes the job even harder.

Here the owner was looking for a soft innerforce ALC style blade, and even though my initial suggestion for this blade was A-C, which is a bit harder than ALC, he still wanted to use the ALC. Still, I misjudged how soft he wanted the blade, and in the end it turned out to be to be too soft and too slow for him. So what happened? Basically the core was too heavy, which constrained the resin application on the fiber to keep the weight in check, making it softer than usual. Lesson learned. He also wanted a Viscaria type handle, and in that regard I think I did not disappoint.

Composition: Limba / Ayous / ALC / Ayous / ALC / Ayous / Limba
Weight: 88.3g
Thickness: 5.8mm
Freq.: 1200Hz
Balance: 3.4cm (Med)