Tibhar White Sword

plies: 5 (3 ply + 2 carbon)

speed: off

stiffness: medium

weight: 87 grams

thickness: 5.9mm

The Tibhar White Sword is one of the 2 carbon blades that will be released by Tibhar this year. I have yet to get my hands on the Tibhar Rapid Lite. The White Sword is the soft carbon blade that Tibhar launches this year. 

I have checked the outer plies and it really looks like ayous as i have an ayous outer ply blade before. On the pic below you could also see that the center ply is also ayous making this some sort of a soft carbon blade.

i played with this using the 1Q sound and genius sound. I would say that the speed is off. It is bouncy and lively on drills but it is not too fast. In terms of feel and speed it feels like a softer version of Yasaka Ma Lin Soft Carbon but with a soft outer ply of ayous instead of walnut. Fh and BH drills are above average with good feel. 

In terms of looping, the white sword excels a lot. It has a large sweet spot and it is very easy to make spinny loops. Tibhar says this was designed for controlled spinny looping. This is more or less a close to middle distance blade. More suited for high arc loops because when I tried it using the 1Q sound it produced a high arc spinny loop. This could also be good in blocking because of the high amount of control it possesses. Smashing is average for this blade and I didn't find loop drives or spin drives that outstanding using this. This is the most expensive blade Tibhar has for thsi year but it's in the midrange. It is 75 euros. Overall an above average performance for a blade with excellent control and feel.

Tibhar Furious

plies: 7 ply allwood

speed: off-

stiffness: medium stiff

weight: 92 grams

thickness: 6mm

Tibhar Curious

plies: 7 ply allwood

speed: off

stiffness: stiff

weight: 89 grams

thickness: 6mm

I made a side by side comparison between the 2 7 ply all wood blades from Tibhar. I noticed that a lot of companies have been going back to producing all wood blades based on a classic 7 ply all wood blades which has been proven effective.

This is the Furious plies on a side view:

and this is the Curious plies on a side view:

Now if  if i place them on top of each other we can see the differences in construction clearly and IMO this contributed to the difference in performance of the 2 blades:

basing on the pic above we can see that both have the same wood ply composition of limba-ayous layers but differ in terms of construction and thickness of wood layers. if you look closely at the colored outerply of the furious its still limba but colored only in black. The Furious has a different inner core construction wherein instead of a thick middle core with 2 thin layers surrounding it like a classic 7 ply all wood blade, it has a thin 4th n 6th layer sandwiching a thin center core also. The Curious is similar to the classic 7 ply all wood blade. The limba outer plies of the Furious have a thin varnish similar to a Clipper CC. Both Furious and Curious blades have a tendency to be head heavy.

Test rubbers:

1. 1Q Sound

2. 5Q Sound

3. MX-P evolution

Honestly, in terms of performance, the 2 blades have minor differences. The Curious has a harder feel due to the hardened outer limba layer while the Fuious felt softer. When hitting the ball both have potentially good speed. The Curious is fast and in the level of a Clipper CC or the rosewood V and Ma lin YEO. The Furious with its softer feel has a speed level same with the regular clipper, nittaku septear and a lil bit faster than the xiom amadeus. 

The MX-P with the Curious felt like a wrecking machine when I tried hitting away from the table with it. It felt that it had consistent power enough for the middle distance and to some extant far distance from the table. It spins well but spin drives better or counter hits better than the furious. When I glued a softer rubber like the 1Q sound it was good up to middle distance and only close to the table with the 5Q sound. I gave this to a friend who is about 2200 level and he liked it coming from a classic butterfly blade. He said that the loss of some speed wasn't a problem and it was compensated by a fast rubber like MX-P. The control and feel was better so he decided to keep it. He was a former national junior in our country and he counter loops amazingly. 

The Furious is a lil bit toned down on the other hand. It gave lesser speed maybe about 15% less than that of the Curious but it has this good, soft feeling when the ball hits the blade. You could really feel the ball and I liked this better when looping. This is more of a spin oriented attackers blade. Both blades have little vibrations only. I like the feel and control in looping especially when I was looping with either the 5Q or 1Q sound. You could feel the ball sink into the sponge when looping and it makes looping a lil bit less difficult to perform. Though the 2 sound rubbers are medium and medium soft, the furious didn't have the mushy feeling when hitting the ball. Furious is good up to mid distance with hard or medium hard rubbers.

Of the 2 7-ply blades, I am more inclined towards the Furious because the control is great and the feel is very good. I like the Curious also but the Furious has this soft feeling which makes me like it more when looping. For people who would like a lower priced clipper cc, the Curious is the way to go.

That's odd, I have my Furios for 2 years plus now and it plays just fine. Good soft feel and dwell for a looping or allround game. Controlled spin defines it more rather than speed, yet it is not slow either. It's not the blade you would want if you hit and smash, or step back away from the table. It does not feel right with hard chinese rubbers. Works well for me with Hexer HD, Q1, Q5, FastArc G1, Nimbus and 05; with Calibras, FastArc S1 and MX-P you get better speed results.