Flexible vs. Stiff blade?

Usually softer all wood blades compared to stiff all wood blades are able to produce more dwell time and more spin because of it. With blades like the Stiga Offensive CR you are able to feel the flex when you hit big loops.

also the thickness of the blade plays a big part in the equation,thinner=more flex

FireHorse wrote: Hi all, I have question about flexible vs. stiff blade.  Which one is easier to provide spin?  I would think that flexible blade is.  But how do you test to see how flexible it is, or you just feel it? Thanks. FireHorse

Yeah, with a flexible blade it's easier to get spin because often it has more dwell time. The outer layers also have a part in this, harder outer layers have less dwell time. It's hard to test how flexible a blade is exactly, for me the best way is just try and see how it feels on harder shots.

Generally wood has more flex than composite and thin blades have more flex than thick blades.

Knocking a blade with your knuckles or using a very light wooden mallet will give you some idea about hardness or softness. Harder blades will gave a higher tone, softer will have a lower tone but this us a relative test. For stiffness I usually just lay the blade on a hard fiat surface and very gently press down on the blade face and the flex in the flexy blades is quite clearly evident. But don't press too hard lest you snap it. And thinner or thicker blade is not always a reliable way of assuming a blade is flexible or not. Some very thin 7-ply blades are very very stiff. Case in point being the BBC Double Diamond which is one of the stiffest and fastest wood blades out there. And some really thick blades have flex and even vibrate on impact like single ply blades.
Stiff can have a softer outer ply and a flexible blade can have a harder outer ply. Stiff means great for smashes, flat hits, pips out rubbers and good in the short game. Usually won't go well with hard sponges.
Blades with flex are good for looping, generate more spin but are also more sensitive to incoming spin. Are not always good in the short game because of the catapult effect when the blade bends under impact and then throws the ball out. Usually best with a medium hard sponge. Examples would be most five ply all wood blades unless they ard built around a really thick center ply. There are exceptions to every rule.

If you find a thinner 5.1mm blade like the Allround Classic and 5.4mm Offensive CR too flexy, you'd be better off with blades like the Allround Evolution, Offensive NCT and allround NCT; which are around 6mm thick. 

FireHorse wrote: Hi all,I have question about flexible vs. stiff blade.� Which one is easier to provide spin?� I would think that flexible blade is.� But how do you test to see how flexible it is, or you just feel it?Thanks.FireHorse

Well, this is a very good question. I had spent so much money and so much time to just answer this question.

I didn't understand too much about Chinese rubbers vs. Japanese rubbers. In the last 6 months, I have been playing with various Chinese rubbers, and they tied to the flexible vs. stiff blade topic.

Yes, in general, flexible blade would be great for spin. However, it would be even better, if you use flexible (thin) blades with Chinese rubbers. If it is all wood with 5.0mm to 5.5mm (78-84grams), that's the best.

Stiff blades are good for power looping from mid-distance with Japanese rubbers, i.e. Tenergy 05 or some traditional Japanese rubbers.

I hope I answered your question.

Good luck,

It's about the whole sandwich.

Topsheet-Sponge-Wood-Sponge-Topsheet

That's like

Bread-Condiment-Meat-Condiment-Bread

To make a good sandwich that loops well you must have harmony of ingredients.

Speedy's recipes:

(thin, flexible blade with chinese FH) produces a spin weapon that flexes and provides dwell at mid distance due to flex - but also good against short balls (hard sponge, tacky topsheet).

(thick stiff blade with japanese rubbers) produces a speed weapon that excels at mid distance due to the rubbers and sponge providing dwell and spin, but require greater touch and more precision in the short game.

The recipes indeed get strange when you have chinese FH rubber and euro BH rubber on stiff blade (fast and not as spinny).

Seguso, you can add a fair bit of stiffness to a flexible blade by putting on three coats of sealant on it. But that will alter other playing characteristics as well. So it would be a bit of an experiment.

FireHorse wrote: Hi all,I have question about flexible vs. stiff blade. Which one is easier to provide spin? I would think that flexible blade is. But how do you test to see how flexible it is, or you just feel it?Thanks.FireHorse

Flexible blade makes it easier to produce spin. My The only thing I do to test it is play it :)

racquetsforsale wrote: I don't understand how the stiffness of a blade can dramatically affect its looping performance. When looping, the blade is swung on edge and any flexing of the blade at the narrowest cross section will be in the plane of the blade, which is the strong direction. Given the very small scale of the deflection in this strong direction, shouldn't there be negligible difference between that of a flexible blade and a stiff blade, not enough to be felt? The stiffness does come into play when driving with topspin because the blade deflects in the weak direction, as a result of the blade being swung with the face relatively more head-on than when looping. In this instance, a flexible blade deflects more than a stiff one and is likely to provide a different feel.

it will again be debated. but imo it is similar to hard and soft sponge rubbers.

The flex of a flexible blade as a stiga allround has a low frecquency and big amplitude. I can imagine  this makes it possible to use the flex of the blade as a give (for dwelltime to use the rubber elasticity) but make the ball leave the rubber before the blade fully recovers from that flex. The blade/rubber behaves slow then and a ball would not reach the net if the player doesn,t put enough energy in his stroke. Thus has to put more energy in and that makes the spin higher because spin is not affected by this loss of energy.

With a soft thick sponge with also a low frecquency it becomes diffcult to use this principle because the ball has to stay too long for the rubber giving the blade too much time to avoid a full rebound. This wouldn,t affect the spin for a stroke with given amount of energy but makes that the stroke has to be done with more caution - less energy - to keep the ball on the table and that decreases the spin then for a too soft sponge.


This technicque to load the spin in a way comes down to disconnecting blade and rubber and with that speed and spin where a blade never really adds to the spin. Minimize linear component  enables to put more energy in a stroke (in many occasions) enables to load up the spin more and put more energy in the stroke.

Offcourse this does not count where a curved trajektory is not needed as much to land the ball.
Then a more flexible blade will still reduce the speed according to this principle of "delayed rebound" result in a higher spin/speedratio (which can make it look more spinny due to more curvation and longer dwelltime on the opponents rubber when blocked passive) but not really less (or more) spin.






Edited by mercuur - 04/19/2011 at 2:46am

icontek wrote: The recipes indeed get strange when you have chinese FH rubber and euro BH rubber on stiff blade (fast and not as spinny).

That's exactly how I like my bat!  I guess strange people like strange combos.