Stiga Arctic Wood

Yes, to some extent, see my first impressions above. Still did not fully recover from the injury, though, so I don't have any updates. And I don't have an Infinity to compare it to, sorry.

Edited by arg0 - 06/19/2017 at 4:07am

available in Munich by Topspeed

Nobody else has had the chance to play with an Arctic Wood (AW) yet?
I just saw it's also not yet on the Stiga website, apart from their digital paper catalog.

Just wanted to add that the outer plies are very thin, hard, and smooth, to the point that they appear sharp and glassy (must be the Stiga "Diamond Touch" finish). When unglueing rubbers I had a tiny tiny splinter come off: it was hardly thicker than a hair and just a few mm long. It's about the same size as the grooves I showed in the wood grain and totally unnoticeable now. However, I still am a bit worried.

I normally always thinly seal my blades before glueing rubbers and the rubbers usually stick less to the wood than with the AW which I did not seal before.

Any advice on whether the "Diamond Touch" blades would still benefit from a thin layer of lacquer?

These are the images of the tree used in the video (for what it's worth).




Looks like some kind or larch or pine, to my untrained eye. Dahurian larch can be quite irregularly shaped, and some pictures of larch grain I found on the Web are quite similar (colour aside), so maybe we have a candidate...

For some reason I recall reading/deducing the "Mysterious Arctic Wood" was some kind of Arctic Ash, but I don't remember why.

After having had a closer look at the Arctic Wood (AW) blade, and at the pictures of the Infinity VPS (IVPS) blade in this thread, it could well be that the AW has the same ayous core and same intermediate layers of thermally-treated (VPS) spruce, the only difference being the outer plies, where limba of the IVPS blade was replaced by the misterious arctic tree wood.
The outer plies of AW are also thinner than IVPS, which may account for AW being slightly thinner than IVPS (6.0mm vs 6.1mm).

So Arctic Wood is essentially an updated Infinity VPS, most likely with a denser outer ply, resulting in a harder/crisper feeling and a bit more speed.

Stiga should have called it Arctic Wood VPS...

arg0 wrote: First impressions form a short training session. Note: I had shoulder pain and was playing at about 50% my usual level, today. So don't trust my impressions too much. Tested the Arctic Wood (AW) with Vega Pro on FH and Nimbus Soft on BH. Mainly played passively: blocks, counters, backspin. Maybe because of the low weight of my AW, I would not classify it as OFF+; rather OFF. The feeling upon ball impact is hard, however the wood is not stiff. Think a Waldner Dicon/JO Limited 2016 with a harder feeling. Feedback/Vibration is very nice and crisp. Sound upon ball impact is full (ie, not hollow), medium-pitched, and pleasant to my ear. The ST handle is nearly identical to the Violin Large Handle I normally play and it's likely the most comfortable ST handles I played with: not too oval, not too squared, just right. YMMV. Stay tuned for clearer impressions as soon as I recover.

Thanks arg0. I took out my ST hybrid wood. It is actually same size as the blade I am using. Strange but I remember it to be smaller. Will try it out in real play.

The straight handle cross section measures 29.5 x 23 mm.
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Edited by arg0 - 06/10/2017 at 4:09am

good for you. my arctic will be sent by stiga next week. teh outer plies look closer to a white ash or spruce

Doesn't look bad at all. Moreover, the blade is much lighter than I expected. Expecting the average to be 95g (as per Stiga), I asked for a light one, possibly around 85g, and actually got 82g. That's perfectly fine, I'm not into heavy and fast blades anyway.

This is my first Stiga blade with ST grip and I must say it fits my hand very well. The handle is on the thicker side (unlike some thin ST handles of Nittaku and Butterfly blades) and similar in size and shape to Violin and Acoustic Large Handle. The shape of the cross-section is a golden average between oval (e.g., Donic ST) and squarish (e.g., Butterfly M. Maze ST).
If this is the size and shape of the typical Stiga ST "classic" handle, I feel I should have given more attention to Stiga during my EJ career (which is slowly getting to an end).

Anyhoo, from the ball bounce tests it seems to be a fast blade, quite 'reactive' (as opposite to 'captive', to XIOM terminology), and hard. But it does not seem to be very stiff. So it may turn out that OFF+ is overrated. At least, that's what I hope. I'm not into fast blades, and I just decided to give this blade a go because of the looks and the hype, and because I was curious to try a Stiga ST handle.

Looking forward to your playing impressions!

tom wrote: good price, I checked a site that is charging more than 100.  I just ordered it from TT11 - don't usually do this - ordering without seeing a review - hope for the best

TT11 has a 30-days no-questions-asked return policy (customer pays return shipping, though), so if in the meantime reviews come out that picture the blade differently from what you expected, you will be able to send it back (if you did not test it yourself, that is).

BTW, and in response to one of my posts above, the price is way lower than the $120 first reported. Ordered mine for less than $80 shipped.

arg0 wrote: Ordered one about one month ago, still waiting for it to be shipped. Other shops appear to have it in stock by now, though.