My Single-ply Hinoki Cracked

People say single-ply hinoki is fragile. That ain't bull, guys. My 4-month old Darker J-Speed 90 developed a hair line crack along the grain straight from the handle to the top. And, no, I didn't hit it again the table edge or nothing.

But I'm not fretting. I mess around with blades enough to be able to fix the damn thing even if it breaks completely in halves. No asking for picture, guys. You won't be able to see the crack since I don't have any fancy camera to capture that extra fine line of a crack.

khvn wrote: People say single-ply hinoki is fragile. That ain't bull, guys. My 4-month old Darker J-Speed 90 developed a hair line crack along the grain straight from the handle to the top. And, no, I didn't hit it again the table edge or nothing. But I'm not fretting. I mess around with blades enough to be able to fix the damn thing even if it breaks completely in halves. No asking for picture, guys. You won't be able to see the crack since I don't have any fancy camera to capture that extra fine line of a crack.

Sorry to hear that. Do you feel the difference when playing it?

Hi khvn, you are probably right. I had a Juic Shuri before that was the same way. It had a very fine line crack one day out of nowhere and I didn't think I hit the blade on anything other than the ball. Maybe sealing the blade will keep the moisture in check or even prevent further cracking.

I think both malvin and SDRamones are very knowlegeable in this stuff. Hopefully they can give you better recommendations.

how to seal a hinoki blade?
Do you use some wood varnish or some polyurethane ?
Tx

stefanusj wrote: how to seal a hinoki blade? Do you use some wood varnish or some polyurethane ? Tx

I use both polyurethane and sanding sealer. If you want to retain the original softness/feel of your Hinoki blade as much as possible, then use the sanding sealer. You can also do incremetal sealing. Test your bare blade by bouncing a ball on it before applying the sealing. Put a very light coat on. When it's dried use the ball test again to see if you like it or want to put on another layer without losing the feel of your blade. I believe just a thin layer should suffice.

Then I don't understand. If it cracks on dry air, it is understandable, but on humid air it is unlikely.
So another research must be done : which percentage range of humidity is the best to give long life to the single ply hinoki blade. And perhaps thicker blade will be stronger against crack than thinner one. I believe yours is 8,5 mm.
One info for you : I just shaved my Darker 7p2a carbon and it does not smudge like Butterfly, so I think they are using different material.

It's a shame for your blade, khvn...  Hopefully it won't get any worse...

It seems that this problem is very real. I read a post of a member who shared his findings about 1-ply Hinoki blades, gathered on some Asian TT sites, I think. He mentioned users of 1-ply Hinoki blades complaining about their cracked blades.

Hm... Not encouraging for people considering purchasing this type of blade...

What a drag.. can't take it back for refund or exchange either, ha.. No warranty on table tennis blades especially from overseas...

But, ..

I know a Korean guy who is probably about 2200+ level (he is not from US, so he doesn't have a rating) who is using Rorin3 and it is glued in the middle from the crack. He says that he reglues it every year, and it plays just fine. So, there is hope yet!

-cheers

 

Aeoliah, IruIru and Darker will laugh at me, if I send the blade back after months of use. Let's face it, the price for single-ply hinoki is that it simply can't be as sturdy as composite.

To the single-ply hinoki aficionados, I'll say don't give up on single-ply. Like any prodigious racing thoroughbred, single-ply hinoki can be finicky, you just have to deal with it. It's worth the incredible feeling only single-ply hinoki can give.

Here's how you can fix hair line crack on hinoki: Dip a q-tip in Gorilla glue, slightly bend the blade to widen the crack a bit and wipe the q-tip along the full leght of the crack. slightly press the q-tip so the glue is pushed into the crack. Wipe clean any trace of glue on the blade face. Lay the blade on a flat surface (glass table is best) put a sheet of aluminum or plastic wrap on the blade face and stack books or heavy object on top of the blade.

Some explanation on why we do what we did: For Gorilla glue to work, you need to clamp the pieces together. That's why we need to weight down the blade on a flat surface. This helps press the crack together. Why the aluminum/plastic wrap? This is because Gorilla glue will expand and penetrate deep into the wood fibers (that's what gives its famous strength). As a result of the expansion, some of the glue may ooze out of the crack and show up on the blade face. Lucky for us, the aluminum/plastic wrap is there to prevent the glue gets into things other than the blade. This means you may need to change the aluminum/plastic wrap from time to time and wipe the glue clean off the blade face until it stops showing up (this could last  2 -3 hours).

Gorilla glue is, guess what..., polyutherane based (funny how I run into polyutherane everywhere I turn). So if you can't find Gorilla, just get any polyutherane based glue. They work the same.

 

Aeoliah, you're a tough customer. Them vendors shouldn't mess around with you and sell you no good stuffs. Has anyone else got their single-ply hinoki cracked naturally w/o hitting it against the table? Am I the only one out of luck with mine? My friend said maybe I accidentally baked it by leaving it in a hot car or something. About Gorilla, it's an all-purpose glue, but it's very good for wood.

Khvn, I think I am reasonable enough, I don't think there is anybody in this forum who is willing to buy a blade that will last 4 months. At least go tell iruiru and Darker about this to find out their reaction. If they are thinking about future sales, they must do something. Even now I am sure many people who originally has interest in single ply hinoki is becoming hesitant, me included.
Khvun you can tell them that all your friends from TT forum urged you to put up a claim after reading your post. Perhaps this will start them thinking.
TTman, I would say that it is only one ply that cracked and the crack does not go through. Anyhow I would count one and a half for hinoki cracks, one from Khvn and half from you.
More happenings like this, and popularity of hinoki will decrease.

rf20 wrote: I have 8 1-ply Hinoki shakehand blads, and they are all sealed with Shallac(?) and no cracks yet. I am in Texas too.

You have 8 hinoki blades? Any of them is this Tanpan shakehand blade? How does it play/feel? My friend is excitedly waiting for his first single-ply hinoki Tanpan which is on its way to him from IruIru.

 

7P-2A.7T is a good blade, but the feel is different then Schlager Carbon/Kool/Air Carbon, or any 1-ply Hinoki blades. You can see I like that "hard" feel from carbon blades, and the soft but powerful feel from 1-ply Hinoki. 7t is something in between that I do not feel special about it. As for which one is faster, 7t or 1-ply Hinoki? For slow swing, less power shot, I think 7t is faster. For full power, 1-ply hinoki is more powerful. All this is my personal feel, other people may think differently.

As for control which one is better? I always think control is from player not much to do with blade or rubber. You have to find a blade and rubber combination to achieve the desired control. I think a lot of people think a good control blade will put the ball back on the table more often than some other blades, but after the ball is on the other player's side you got killed by the return, is that good control? So I always think control is from player's brain, skill through the blade and rubber to achieve control.

I do have Tanpan, and Tanpan feels softer than Armstrong.
Armstrong has two kinds of 1-ply Hinoki; one is real single piece Hinoki wood (the one I am selling), and the other kind is two or more pieces glued togrther, which is harder than the single piece Hinoki.

Darker's craftsmanship is the best, they are better than Armstrong and BTY. I have a Speed 70 and BTY Cypress Special Select for collection, you really can tell the difference in sanding and polishing from the two blades.
I have never played with these two blades, so I could not tell you more about them.

I am not a wood expert, so I really could not tell which blade is better or worse than the rest. Some people say straight grain is better, but I have read one article about some JP player like to have non-straight grain wood for the reasons I cannot remember and understand. Some people say it does not matter if the wood is three hundred year old or five hundred year old. Some people say BTY's wood is better because the wood was naturally dried for 12 years, and Darker's wood was artificially dried so the wood is harder.

If you never played TT with a single ply Hinoki, you really should try once in your life just for sake of it if you can afford to. You'll be amazed.

I am not a good TT player so DO NOT take what I said seriously, I just like to have fun in TT and love the wood stuff.

Please excuse my English, I am a Chinese live in Texas.

most people play penhold in Korea where i live, more and more beginners are starting this sport with shakehand though. so i have heard of and seen many cases of this sort around me. I heard the hinoki tanpan(which literally means "single-ply") can break due to the impact of hitting balls.

they say when a blade get cracked, drop it onto the hard floor so that it breaks cleanly into halves or more(i have seen one in thirds) and glue them back into its shape with a strong adhesive. your heart would break but there will be no difference of feel, if any, you wouldnt feel it. I guess it could be the better idea than trying to seal the crack.

I have no idea if the seller would refund or replace the cracked or broken blade without practically hitting anything except for the ball. I would have a go.

 

rf20, thanks for the good info.

You're are right about control is from the player's skill. But that's dynamic control. Another aspect of control is the static control that comes from the blade itself. Simply put, slower and softer blades yield more control than than faster and harder blades.

All my babling about control is just to let me get to this point where I can rave some more about the merit of single-ply hinoki: "Soft but fast, fast but controllable". What other blade can do that, I ask you? That's the hinoki feeling you can find nowhere else but.

Ok, ok... I hear you. Enough already. You won't hear me hinoki raving again any time soon. One last thing before I go though, expect single-ply to  feel thick in your hand. Shaving helps cut that down some. And one really last thing, EJ'ing all you want to get it out of your system, chances are you'll give up everthing and go back to single-ply hinoki coz nuthing else can satisfy you but.