SDC Handmade Blades

[hipnotic]

Wait, that confuses me.
Isnt classic Viscaria Koto, ALC, Limba, Kiri, Limba, ALC, Koto?
And therefore shouldnt Super Viscaria just have a different composite layer, but the same wood plies?

A quick search gave me that it should have Limba as inner ply too: https://www.megaspin.net/articles/1598/butterfly-viscaria-super-alc-review

Ah alright. Still intrigued, because that sounds like something that could fit my game...

Nope, it's wrong... Ayous, not Limba.

 

[latej]

DHS uses Aramid-Carbon on the HL5 and W968, not ALC. I've written this somewhere else, the composition on those blades isn't exactly the same, there is a fundamental difference between them. The commercial version of the HL5 uses (or used, it appears they may have changed this) what I call Ay-C. This particular type of fabric only has aramid in the vertical direction and carbon in the horizontal direction. The higher flexibility of aramid is responsible for the lower frequency reading. The W968 uses a plain A-C fabric, with an equal ratio of fibers in both directions. This gives it a bit more stiffness, but also more softness, and the frequency is usually in the lower 1300s Hz.

The new generation of W968 has a higher frequency, closer to 1400 Hz, which tells me they messed with the stiffness somehow. This can be done in a number of ways, but the most obvious one is the lamination process of the A-C layer. This is also something I often experiment with. I also see a small, but relevant difference in the plies, so it can be one of the two, or both.

Sergio, I'd like to ask 1 question about the intriguing basalt fibre (BF), which you offer. In your page it is described as similar to carbon performance-wise. If we take the HL5/W968 composition, and switch just the fibers, between the AC-# (I assume this is the one used by DHS), the ALC, the BF. Is it possible to estimate the difference in the stiffness readings? Let's say the frequency were 1300 with AC-#, what approx. it would be with the ALC and especially the BF. For the BF I don't have an idea what difference to expect.

 

[hipnotic]

Sergio, I'd like to ask 1 question about the intriguing basalt fibre (BF), which you offer. In your page it is described as similar to carbon performance-wise. If we take the HL5/W968 composition, and switch just the fibers, between the AC-# (I assume this is the one used by DHS), the ALC, the BF. Is it possible to estimate the difference in the stiffness readings? Let's say the frequency were 1300 with AC-#, what approx. it would be with the ALC and especially the BF. For the BF I don't have an idea what difference to expect.

This question doesn't have a direct answer. Basalt is a heavy fabric, I'm using a 200 g/m2 cloth and it's only 0.15mm, while my 165 g/m2 AC# is 0.25mm. This means that, if I swap AC# for BF in that composition, in order to maintain the same total thickness, I have to make up for the missing 0.2mm somewhere. The layer I choose to do it will have different impact on performance and frequency reading. Overall you can expect a slightly lower frequency, because BF has the properties of a 100 g/m2 carbon, but with the weight of a 200 g/m2 carbon, which is not very advantageous. For ALC it would be about the same since they are much closer together in terms of physical properties and the relative distance between them in this composition isn't enough to cause many changes in frequency.

BF compares more to a 100 g/m2 carbon, the thing is that this type of carbon isn't very common, in fact it's mostly used for Aeronautical applications and it's much more expensive than other, more common types. It's usually referred to as "1K carbon", because the threads are very fine, and it's also thin. It's what Nittaku uses on the Acoustic line for example. BF can be a good substitute for 1k carbon, it's also thin with fine threads, but it's much cheaper, the disadvantage is just really the weight.

 

[TischTenniser]

Hello Sergio, what combination does Nittaku uses in their Acoustic series, (all wood and inner carbon ones) ? I am using the Nittaku Acoustic Tenaly (all wood ) and Inner carbon. Among the blades that i have played so far, the all wood acoustic seems to me, the one with best ball contact feeling(feedback) and control.

What are the aspects of the blade composition that effect ball contact feeling and the feedback ?

 

[hipnotic]

Hello Sergio, what combination does Nittaku uses in their Acoustic series, (all wood and inner carbon ones) ? I am using the Nittaku Acoustic Tenaly (all wood ) and Inner carbon. Among the blades that i have played so far, the all wood acoustic seems to me, the one with best ball contact feeling(feedback) and control.

What are the aspects of the blade composition that effect ball contact feeling and the feedback ?

The composition of the Acoustic is Limba / Limba / Kiri. I know it says Tung everywhere online but that's wrong, it's a translation error that got propagated. The Acoustic is one of the few blades that actually has Limba in the medial layer, in fact it has a thick medial layer which pairs well with the soft core. There is some hype about the glue, which plays a part too of course, but it's not the main cause. For the carbon version they decreased the thickness of the medial layer a bit and added a thin carbon layer.

 

[Wakkibatty]

And now the inner fiber version with the Diolen-Carbon fabric. Because the fiber layers have less relative distance between them, you get much less increase in stiffness compared to the outer version, but it's still more than you usually have at this speed range. This helps to control the throw angle, making it not excessively high, which can be a problem for some players with these types of blades. You also get a bigger sweetspot, which gives extra stability, making it more suitable for blocking than common blades in the same category.

The "sabre" handle has a straight half, and a flared half, and feels very natural to hold.

Available FS.

- Limba / Ayous / D-C / Ayous / D-C / Ayous / Limba
- 88.0g
- 5.9mm
- 157x150mm
- FL/ST (105x24mm)
- 1250Hz
- Balance: 2.8cm (Low)

Ooooohhh now that IS lovely.

Brilliant bit of handle design there - Respect! 😎👍

 

[hipnotic]

Ooooohhh now that IS lovely.

Brilliant bit of handle design there - Respect! 😎👍

Thanks!

 

[hipnotic]

This is a fully experimental blade, and one of the weirdest I ever built. It starts with the composition, it's a center composite blade which is very unusual, it doesn't get more "inner" than this. The idea was to make a very flexible blade, so I used a hard carbon layer in the center to avoid breaking. The core itself is very thin, and it's surrounded with two thick spruce layers laid horizontally. This ensures their contribution to the longitudinal stiffness is as minimal as possible. Furthermore, the handle system adds even more flexibility to the blade, you can literally bend it with your fingers.

The feeling is very unusual, it doesn't really feel hard, but it feels hard on the inside (hard to explain 😅), which makes sense given it has a hard center carbon layer. Despite this, you can feel the huge dwell time given by the flexibility of this composition and handle system.

Available FS.

- Anigre / Spruce / Ayous / TC200 / Ayous / Spruce / Anigre
- 90.8g
- 5.7mm
- 157x150mm
- ST (102x29x23.5mm)
- 1250Hz
- Balance: 3.3cm (Med)

 

[hipnotic]

Easily one of my favorite builds!

It's a Vis composition with a twist. For the top layer I used this very good looking "fish-scale" Ako, which is just slightly harder than Ayous but softer than Limba for example. For the medial layer I swapped the usual Ayous for Sycamore, which is a dense but not very lively wood. This results in a less stiff blade, but with a "firmer" touch. Feels less lively than a typical Vis, but more linear, meaning you can still extract some speed on those harder shots. Just pair it with LIDL shoes and you'll be invincible!

Available FS.

- Ako / ALC / Sycamore / Kiri / Sycamore / ALC / Ako
- 90.1g
- 5.9mm
- 157x150mm
- ST (102x29x23.5mm)
- 1313Hz
- Balance: 2.6cm (Low)

 

[hipnotic]

This time a purely defensive blade, also with an unusual composition. The stiff and relatively hard Sycamore outer layers provide a crisp feeling, the thick Ayous medial layers offer good sweetspot and stability, and the soft and dead Cork core makes it very dampening. It's a slow blade, yet it doesn't feel hollow and has a pleasant feeling. It's a bit cheesy using leftover layers of the blade on the handle, but sometimes it just works.

Available FS.

- Sycamore / Ayous / Cork / Ayous / Sycamore
- 90.4g
- 6.35mm
- 165x155mm
- ST (102x31x22mm)
- 1012Hz
- Balance: 3.1cm (High)

 

[hipnotic]

Another slightly out of the box build, this time a 3+2 blade but with Ayous instead of the usual Hinoki or Cypress. Ayous doesn't have the same "trampoline" like feeling as these woods, and in this case I used very thick 1.8mm outer layers. So, this is meant for someone who enjoys a very stiff blade, with a low throw angle and zero vibration, but don't want it to be as fast as Primorac Carbon for example.

Available FS.

- Ayous / Glass-Carbon / Kiri / Glass-Carbon / Ayous
- 90.8g
- 8.3mm
- 157x150mm
- FL (102x25mm)
- 1680Hz
- Balance: 3.3cm (Med)

 

[hipnotic]

The experimentation continues, this time within the Vis structure. Usually a blade is glued in a crossed grain pattern, the core and outer layers have the grain aligned vertically, and the medial layer has the grain aligned horizontally. On a 5 ply blade, this is made to ensure that it will not warp, as most of wood's strength is along the grain. However, on a composite blade the fiber layer gives enough stiffness and strength, so it's possible to play with the orientation of the wood layers. In this case I used a horizontal core, and vertical medial and outer layers. What happens is that the blade loses some longitudinal stiffness which was provided by the core, and the frequency drops significantly. It also becomes slower, so we have a more flexible blade with a higher throw angle, but a very similar feeling. I say similar because now we have more transversal stiffness, which affects the sweetspot, and you can sort of feel how it's less elongated but wider.

Available FS.

- Koto / ALC / Ayous / Kiri / Ayous / ALC / Koto
- 88.5g
- 5.9mm
- 157x150mm
- ST (102x29x23.5mm)
- 1313Hz
- Balance: 2.8cm (Low)

 

[Creek]

Interesting 🤔

 

[Attitude]

Damn make that concave and its sold immediatly^^

 

[Haraold]

or anatomic and a "definitely not a Viscaria" lens and shoot me a message

 

[hipnotic]

I wanted to pay tribute to the 2023 European Champions, and decided to do so with a blade that combines the weapons of choice of two Swedish players: former glory Waldner, and the new generation Truls. Waldner is best known for using the Waldner Senso Carbon in the last stages of his career, and Truls currently uses the Cybershape, so this blade combines certain properties of both. The WSC is a very popular blade, but a bit slow for the current game and I've had many requests to upgrade that composition to handle the polyball a bit better. However, it's not easy making a blade faster without changing its characteristic feel, which would certainly happen if we used anything other than soft-carbon (believe me, I've tried 😅). So I'm introducing a new fiber, the "Super - soft carbon", super not in the sense that's it's very soft, but a higher density version of soft-carbon, like what happens with other fibers. It's actually a bit harder, but not as much as a plain carbon, and it's obviously heavier making it harder to pair with an Ayous core, used in the original composition. So I decided to use Kiri for this one, which is lighter than Ayous and also used in the Cybershape. In the end this blade feels something between a toned down Cybershape and a faster WSC.

Available FS.

- Limba / Meranti / Super - soft carbon / Kiri / Super - soft carbon / Meranti / Limba
- 84.8g
- 5.9mm
- ST (102x28.5x23.0mm)
- 1356Hz
- Balance: 3.5cm (Med)

 

[hipnotic]

Faster than a fh slap from Truls! This one is gone...