Hi folks,

I thought I'd start this general thread to provide a place for me to drop a few blade photos now and again.   While there's a similar thread running on OOAK, I think each can evolve independently, driven by whatever questions and comments happen to be posted.

 

To start things off, I just completed a blade for mmerkel, and I thought that his choice for the handle wood turned out so nicely that I asked him if I could post a few photos.    The blade composition is white obeche - anigre - kiri - anigre - white obeche.  The handle is masur birch and chakte viga.  Check it out.

 

 

 

 

Ross is very professional and take his work seriously.  We went through a series of email, and he always stayed on top of them, and answered them promptly and accurately.

@Ross:  Do you still have the pictures of my blade?  please post them, I'd like to share with everyone.

I don't have my notes/emails available right now, but I do recall that control and balance were at the top of the list.  The soft obeche outers are extra thick (0.9mm), so the blade should have tons of dwell.  The handle pieces were hollowed slightly to drop their weight by about 6g to give the blade a neutral balance and a final weight just under 80g.

 

Here are few photos of your blade:

You are quite right - the Sotto Voce would have been too fast and too stiff to meet the requirements, not to mention its balsa core (and Mike specifically requested a no-balsa blade).

Can you put the person's name in the handle Ross?  Also can you make combo blades for people that play with long pips or short pips on 1 side?

Thanks,

Dave

 

I have made some combo blades.  I've not heard any reports of them warping, but as JimT indicates, it could be a long-term possibility.  For that matter, it could happen to symmetric blades as well due to unequal stresses within the wood.  That's the nature of natural materials. 

Are you kidding? Who would not want to have the initial of a guy, who I predict, will break 2200 rating soon?

 

Thanks!  The composition is white limba - dyed red koto - black limba - kiri - black limba - dyed red koto - white limba.  Wow, I just now realized there's a lot of color adjectives in those plies!  :)

 

I only recently found a source for kiri, and I still need to update the website.

 

fatt wrote: I used to play the Mizutani Jun (one of the best offensive looping fast blades ever made) before I banned Butterfly from my tt life; this blade is close to it, the dyed red koto replacing the ZL carbon in the MJ composition (limba-zl carbon-limba-kiri-limba-zl carbon-limba). I might be next in line for a matching pair of those. Could a teak or paduk veneer do the same job than koto in the above blade composition?

Only Speedy has played this blade, so he might be able to compare it to the Mizutani Jun.  It does have a handle modeled directly from the ST Mizutani.  Speedy and I hashed out the composition over numerous emails, and in the end the blade didn't have quite the speed he was after.  An adjustment to the koto layer (switching it out for something harder) should bump it up a notch.  I currently do not have padauk veneer, but it is a possibility if it's a requirement.  Contact me offline if you'd like me to add you to the waiting list.

-------------
Ross
http://rossleidy.com - http://rossleidy.com - Handcrafted Table Tennis Blades

 

 

Should IPE do the job as it does for sotto voce ? Is it hard enough to replace Mizutani's Zylon ? At least it's harder than Koto.

Fatt, if you are looking to something as fast as Mizutani with much better feeling and control, no need to go for a 7 ply blade. Sotto voce with Mahogany outer is the way to go. 

 

Ultimate P #1

Yasaka Extend HS 2.0

BTY T05 FX 1.9

Hey frogger - yes, the blade arrived in top condition.  Please forgive me if I didn't follow-up with you after it arrived.  I'm glad to hear #1 is working out so well for you.

Mike - here are a few photos of the pair of blades:

Both blades use identical plies and differ only in the grain orientation of the core plies.  Frogger and I were interested in how a small difference would affect the character of the two blades blades.  Each blade has a core made up of 4 layers of 0.9mm obeche.  In blade #1, all the grain ran lengthwise - this would be closest to a solid core of 3.6mm.  In blade #2, the grain orientation of the center two plies was rotated to run side-to-side.  As expected, blade #2 had slightly more flex along its length and was slightly slower than #1.    As I recall, the difference between the blades was not great, but it was noticeable.  Frogger might be able to add to this comment.  He reviewed blade #1  http://mytt.net/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=45626 - here.

 

 Thanks Ross for reposting the pics of the two blades. Yes I liked blade #1 with the vertical grains. It felt like it had a tic more pop and was just slightly faster. Both blades felt identical in weight and both played like a dream. I feel blade #2 would be perfect for a controled looper as blade #1 is perfect for hitting with a supporting loop. I have never owned such an addicting blade and I have owned well over a hundred or so over the years.

Sorry, but I'm not building any composite blades at this time.  Perhaps someday, but not in the immediate future.

Mike's quite right.  Here's a photo of a blade with a slightly different FH/BH.  Because of the extra assembly time and fitting involved, I do charge extra for handles like this.  

I have thought about adding a serial number to the blades, but the only way that I've found that will result in a quality result is by laser engraving.  And, I don't have the budget for one of them quite yet.  :)

Now I must own one.

I hate it. I am feeling like Obama, spending all these money I don't have.

And Peter79, what is the composition of your blade?

You said hurricane king, but that doesn't look like the koto on the website, unless I have the plies of the HK wrong.

I was actually referring to the top veneer, as it isn't the red koto that Ross has on his site.

jcdi is quite right - the final weight depends on the size of the blade template that I use.  Unless requested otherwise, I aim for a neutral balance where the balance point is near the center point of the overall length.  I control the balance by the weight of the handle pieces, and will usually have to hollow them to achieve the balance.  If you have a specific target weight in mind, then I ignore balance and fine-tune the handle weight to hit the specified weight.  

I love cheddar, but I rarely use it in blades.  :)  Of course, peter79 was referring to alaskan yellow cedar.

I purchased some graphite-color dyed koto for this blade.

I have it written down as a bit heavier than that at 92.4g

 

Oh my......It's so well done that I've been fooled like a newbie. Congrats ! Can't wait you tell us how it plays.

Please correct me if I'm wrong here....

Someday I'll branch out into composites.  I have a lot of experience using fiberglass and carbon from building kayaks, but it's a more labor intensive and costly process.  There are enough variables in building all-wood blades so I'm trying to keep a few things constant for a while.  You can be assured that if I do start building composite blades, I'll share the result on the forums.

Peter and I are on the same wavelength here.   I use the oil-based Minwax Wipe-On Poly.  The oil-based product really brings out the character of the wood.

Hey, thanks strikewzen.  I appreciate the kind words about the blades.  To answer your question, it's not entirely necessary to maintain symmetric plies, but it does help to reduce an issues due to dissimilar expansion/contraction issues between different woods.  On a thick Jpen with it's smaller shape, that not as much of an issue.  So actually, a thick Jpen is the safest place to use asymmetric compositions.