Balsa blades, are you a fan?

Nicefrog , don;t say things like this , keep you eyes open on the forsale column, i think there will be 1 Joola R1 blade, get all your info from T37, in a few weeks time, he can put the price in the ball and you can tell him where you wan;t it to land, and all he has to do is smack it , and you will get it fastttttttttttt, soommmmmmmmmm. 

I tried the TSP 8.5. Crazy fast blade, but it feels like you are playing with a brick. No feeling at all, zero control. I can't believe the Joola is even faster.

The Balsa blades from what I can see are all slightly differant, different thicknesses and different layers over the blade from a variety of woods, to glass, carbon and texalium.
My Donic Appelgren Dotec Control for example has an inner ply of ayous, a middle core of balsa and an outer layer of limba. The J/kool is mostly balsa but has a layer of pine tree limba and texalium. The Joola R*1 has an even thicker balsa core than the kool and a layer of limba. Therefore the playing characteristics will vary somewhat. How these type of blades play for you seems to depend very much on how you play the ball. My son for example used the Killerspin Fortissimo on my J/Kool and had much less trouble keeping the ball on the table than I did but has more trouble controlling the Bryce, while I find using the Bryce very easy.

Some interesting reviews about the Joola R*1 it on the forum on One Of A Kind Trading if any of you want to look it up.

Have just tried the Stiga Almana Sound 2.0mm on the forehand today and it was GREAT! I could control the loops and it played fantastic. The best forehand rubber I have tried on the Kool yet. I have a few more I will try but this one was impressive.

The J/Kool is my offensive blade but as I am a very curious fello, keen and adventurous and get a buzz out of experimenting and testing, I am also going to give the Joola R*1 a go but with long pips and chopping style rubbers. I like variety, and since I have come back to the sport I want to find out what style I am most effective with and have the most fun using.

These balsa based blades certainly provide the versatility I am looking for.

I have played with many, many blades over the last 20 years and at first I didn't like balsa blades. However, about 8 years ago I started to play with a Tibhar Patrick Chila blade which I really liked and stuck with for about 2 years. Then after that a Yasaka balsa (harder and stiffer).

I have been making blades for about 3 years and I always use balsa cores, but  I am pretty certain that many of them do not have a typical balsa feeling. Balsa varies greatly in weight and hardness and when you consider this with the variety of outer ply/gluing possibilities it's really hard to identify a "balsa feel".

That being said most of the thick, light blade structures use the lightest and softest types of balsa to keep the weight down. So any blades engineered to be really light and fast, will probably have that soft springy feel to them.  They will tend to be stiff because they have to be to thick to create speed. I think this is what most players think the "balsa feel" is, unfortunately is only a "balsa feel". A thin light core of balsa will play like a limp pillow unless you put some seriously hard outer layers on it.

Viscaria has a kiri core.

I own and play with a Joola Kool and use Haifu Shark speed yellow sponge. It's the best backhand rubber/blade combo I have ever used, Balsa wood or not. I highly recommend it. 

I have been heard of Butterfly, DHS, Sword, KOKUTaKU, Stiga. 
  




Edited by stevingreen - 09/25/2012 at 3:00am

Viscaria's Balsa blade too no?

ahhh.  thx

91g is probably one of the lightest out of all Viscarias. 

mikepong wrote: tsanyc wrote: 91g is probably one of the lightest out of all Viscarias.  I am not 100% certain if vis has a balsa core. i saw an 88 gram viscaria ( no joke ) it was a year ago i think, i was buying  rubbers at a TT store and this girl was buying a viscaria and on the electronic scale it reads 88.3 grams upon weighing it

wow!  please tell me which TT store was that?

ah  i know the store, owner is mr. lim.