Custom hinoki penhold: Q - size, shape, 'hardness'

I'm in Asia right now and visited a shop today for a custom one ply hinoki Jpen  blade made for my large hand with some special extension for my thumb to have better grip. It was a treat to see some top grade Hinoki (hundreds of square blanks), and seeing the blade made right before my eyes.  I took some pictures and hope to post them when I get back after an extended trip.

I'm going back tomorrow to get a second one made and do have some questions:

1. Jpen are mostly square but I really prefer the round shape visually and grew up with one (Senkoh 5) so I had a JPEN with round head.  150mm width - shape based on C-pen size. 

However, coming home, I measured my current square JPEN (TSP, Nittaku) and found that it surface area is smaller than the Cpen round sizes. In fact, the square head fist INSIDE the contour of the CPEN. 

Questions: 

a. Can someone confirm that Jpen in round shapes are actually smaller surface area than Cpen?  Noodling online, I see that some look to be around 143mm (i.e. Senkoh 5 which I do not have with me.)

b. Why square Jpen?  Reading online, some say the sweetspot is larger - I don't find that to be actually so compared to Cpen.  BUT the center of the sweet spot is a bit further away from the hand as it is square.  Perhaps for more offense?  (I find that I generate plenty of hand speed on my forehand so am not worried about that.)

c. I play between close to table to moderate distances, never far out to loop, and use Tenergy 05 or 05FX.  For the Hinoki, I have option to go softer or harder feel which also correspond somewhat to the power.  Playing from mid to close distance with emphasis on top spin drives and smashes, I think that I like long dwell time.  Even with the current heavier ball, I'm thinking I may want a softer feel and longer dwell time since the Tenergy 05 already provides plenty of power.  

Agree or disagree?  Suggestions? 

By the way, my first one today is on the more powerful side of the hinoki and we thinned it down to 9.5mm.  The maker suggested 9mm but I was nervous as I've been using 10mm hinoki Jpens up to this point.  That blade does have good feel and a very large sweetspot when I am bouncing the ball bare on its surface. Perhaps because it is a Cpen with larger surface - not sure. The owner personally suggested that particular slab of wood and acknowledge that its on the stiffer side of Hinoki.  I'm thinking of thinning it down to 9mm still as the handles have not been glued yet. 

Happy to take any questions to pass on the owner if anyone has any.

Chairman Meow, 

Thanks for your informed comments. Wow! 

I hope that this gets to you before I go back to the shop. 

A few questions if you do not mind - I so appreciate your taking time to comment above.

1. What rubber do you fancy? I'm probably settling on Tenergy - 05 or 05FX.   Nevermind, I just saw your rubber listing - not familiar with those in person as I've not tried them. 

2. If 0.5mm makes a huge difference (and I can feel it as it got thicknessed down) then using the same tree, a 9mm and 10.5mm produces a 'night and day' difference then? 

3. Can you share, as the thickness goes up - what do you gain and loose?  I value a soft feel, high dwell time, and control - but without giving up too much power for top spin drives and smashes.  Are those things on the opposite end of each other? 

4. In an ideal world, I would have completed blades that I would pick through - but the reality is that given my special request in terms of blade size and handle width, I don't get to have that choice.  So I'm actually testing the blade thicknessed down wood blanks.  A bit more difficult to figure out beyond just visuals. 

5. 11.5mm?  I assume you used softer/lighter blanks for the thicker blades?  Is 11.5mm even 'soft' feeling anymore? 

As you increase the thickness, the most significant difference is the speed. I have felt the softness to be the same for two different thickness blades from the same block, which makes sense because the wood is not changing hardness, only thickness. The dwell time also seems to be the same even though I would expect a thicker and stiffer blade to have less dwell. I guess the rigidity is already so high because the blades are thick, that dwell is more or less dependent only on softness and rubber.

If you have a 9 and 10.5 mm blade from the same tree, there will be a big difference. I think a thicker blade would keep all your desired characteristics except control. The thicker one will feel more stable and have less vibration. It will also be much faster when you put in some power. However, they will both feel like they are grabbing and flinging the ball. On especially hard hits, the thinner blade may feel like it doesn't carry the ball as much. It is hard to describe, and you need to try it in person to feel the magnitude of the difference. I have sometimes swung full power with my 9 mm blade, and felt the ball just jump off the racket. It is a fast shot, but it is very strange and uncontrollable with weird spin. The thicker one would carry the ball, even on power loops. This is the only area where I think the thicker one is more controllable. A big problem with the thicker blades is serve and serve receive, especially with the rubbers you have in mind. Due to the extra speed, thickness, and lack of vibration, these things may be difficult. I could not serve or receive well with the 11 and 11.5mm blades until I had been using them for a month. It is still sometimes tricky, and going thicker than that may make it no longer viable.

You may want to take an old rubber with you for testing. Just put a bunch of glue on the sponge and let it dry. You should then be able to just press it on to a blade and use it without putting glue on the blade. Hit with it a little, then peel it off and press it on the next one. It is very helpful to judge the thickness you want, because it's hard to tell how the rubber and blade work together without a rubber.

Again, this is just my experience. Due to the difference that the cut of wood makes, single-ply hinoki  blades are often quite noticeably different. Others may disagree, and you may feel something contrary after testing yours.

Is their address is as advertised : Xinzhuang District, New Taipei City.

Hope you will enjoy the blades you have bought.....and maybe provide some feedback.

Also do post your photos. 

Yup, that place. You guys got it pegged.  

Quick response, 

1. You can hear from the pitch and quality of the note.  All things being equal in terms of block size, high pitch is harder - generally. He could also feel the softness of the wood. I can feel it by bouncing a ball on it. There's also the length of the pitch after it is struck. I know this from musical instrument woods.  WIth these hese blocks, I could not hear that as the time is very short.  But he could apparently. 

2. For me, I like a very soft feel but good power - but that also depends on the rubber and player. Basically need to match player to blade to rubber.  So one can try to do one's best.  For me, I like a soft feel but at least medium power - at least that's what I think after trying six blades of a friend recently as we were playing.  There's something to be said about Carbon blades which my friend also has  as I can just block balls by using his power which is nice. Some Hinoki does that - one of my two customs that I picked up is on the harder side and I'm debating whether to actually build that out or not - as I'm thinking of just building out the softer one instead. All Hinoki should have that single ply feel - but we are talking about degrees.  Apparently some players like harder feel for less effort on their part to return the ball.  

How soft do I like?  That's the $64,000 question. I'm almost tempted to go back and that that other super soft feel blade just to test it but I don't want to waste $ either just testing blades as I'm not a professional. 

3. I can give a more thorough answer but have no time right now on my trip. Basically you want the strongest wood for the weight.  Strength is maximized when wood is QUARTERED. (Go look it up)  The more non vertical the grain, the less strength you have for the weight.   Also, there's 'silking' in the wood when quartered.  All the blades I got has silking though Hinoki does not nearly have silking as much as spruces such as Sitka or Adirondack spruce. (Those of you into musical instruments know what I am talking about...:) 

The eyes just come from perfect quartering and perfect shaping of the blade. You can cheat a bit in how you shape to get the eye if you want. 

I will note that as with musical instrument wood, there's not a one to one  correlation between appearance and playing characteristics. Some of my best instruments have been with wood that looked 2nd grade but they play just amazing. Some of the best looking woods are frankly really poor quality in terms of physical strength and tone. So if i had to choose, I would much rather pick on the quality of the wood in terms of physics than visuals. Of course, the $$$ blades must have both - visual and physics - that's why they are so expensive.  When he picked one that's supposedly in the 0.3% of the woods, I was very tempted...but I don't think that plays better than what I got in the lower visual grade.  So I was being practical....but I am still thinking thinking thinking about pulling the trigger....:)

That's why selection in person, I think, matters.  You can also have perfect looking woods that frankly, doesn't perform as well as a lesser looking wood. Looks is just one part of the evaluation and I would actually say not the most important part.  But most people would probably look just at the visutal - how even, tight, color free and vertical the grain lines are.  That plus the weight. But for me, that's just half the evaluation.  (I had not thought about my musical instrument wood background coming into play until this trip when spend the hours there. I think that there are parallels - and if anything, actually physical performance is far more important for musical instruments where one instrument takes dozens of man hours, unlike a blade.) 

4. May I ask what you paid for that blade you have.    

Comment - VISUALLY, I would say that's similar to the one grade below their top grade production blades (though there is variation from blade to blade). The cut is good and vertical so you have that proper quartering. My 9mm production one I got is also 1 grade below and it is a bit  nicer - grain is tighter and more even and it is has that 'eye' you look for - never heard that before until you mentioned it. You do have nice grain on 60% of the way in terms of tightness and then it gets wide and then on the edge which means that the tree grew really fast each of those early years as each grain line width indicates the growth in each year. But of course, this still doesn't tell you how the blade plays as I am commenting only on visuals.

Their grades for wood is AAA, AA, A, B and C. Visually, my production blade is A. So yours is about A. AA and AAA do look close to each other I think. 

Here's the deal though - the lowest grade for manufacturers is lowest in part due to how they cut out of the log.  And I believe the lowest grade goes to make hinoki ply blades. That's why I don't think plywood blades with Hinoki really get the good stuff - when you can fetch top dollar for really great single ply Hinoki. 

Basically if you find ONE blade that is just amazing, keep it for life.  And you can't really tell until you actually play with it.  I think all the tapping, bouncing ball, evaluating for graing lines, cuts etc - can get you a majority part of the way there and maximize your chances of a great blade, but I think the ultimate test is playing. With musical instruments, I do think that you can tell how a piece of wood will do 80% of the way there by selection.  In musical instruments, there's always some that a maker and I call the 'AOG" - act of God - where everything just comes together to make a particularly exceptional one that we could not anticipate, but can try to raise the chances as much as possible with great material and craftsmanship.   Perhaps blades also...

This is good questions - the more educated the public, the better. 

One more thing.  I personally do not think that Japanese Hinoki is really that scarce. There will always be a supply - just that cost is going up but there's an upper limit as there is a supply.  (More on that when I get back.)   I do feel that the Hinoki 'rarity' is done in part for profit purposes but I'm not totally sure if it is as rare as some think...  There will always be top grade stuff in my opinion as long as one is willing to pay a bit more. 

MTMT

shinshiro wrote: MTMT, thank you very much for sharing your experience! I find hinoki wood very beautiful and interesting, tough I don't know much about it yet.  I have a few questions if you don't mind: 1) You said you use the 'tap test' to know if a wood is softer than other. Could you please explain in more details how you do it? You judge by the sound it makes or by your feeling/touch when you tap? "Both have that Hinoki feel but there are differences. These have some coloration in one, or grain lines that is not as even on the other - but both tap out to have very good playing characteristics" 2) There is other characteristics you can guess by just taping aside softness? Can you elaborate a bit more on this? And what you consider to be good playing characteristics? 3) Blades with vertical grains and with the "eyes" on both sides are very beautiful to see and are also praised by many people. Does it have any influence on how a blade actually plays? What characteristics are affected if a blade has inclined grains and no 'eyes'? 4) I recently purchased a hinoki blade, Kokutaku Bishu nº1 Specialist. You seem to understand about hinoki grades. Could you please take a look at the hinoki of my blade and compare it to Ariex ones you saw? How would you classify it? (top, second best, third, or other classification, I don't know exactly what the correct names they use for each grade...) Link to pictures: http://imgur.com/a/WCLte Sorry for all these questions, but this subject is very interesting to me and I also want to learn a bit about how to evaluate a hinoki blade. I don't know if there are many people here who understand about this, and you seem to understand quite well about it.

Edited by MTMT - 03/24/2018 at 3:15am