OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Hello all, this thread is dedicated to the potential non-wood materials that could be used in blades. For more context, see viewtopic.php?f=58&t=30263&p=322165#p322165. Anyway, I will keep an (updated) list of materials that I might try out in this experiment, and any suggestions or feedback would be appreciated. Keep in mind that not all of these test blades will be for ITTF-approved competition (though my final ones should be), but for the purposes of scientific investigation. Of course, materials that I could use in blades would be good. It doesn't matter whether the materials are used for more power, dampening for pips, or just to see what happens. Also, any potential combinations (for future tests) would also make good suggestions! If anyone knows of specific thicknesses (as to whether the ITTF bans certain msterials, and whether they are considered "fibrous"), then don't hesitate to let me know!

Here's the current list:
All-acrylic blade / acrylic layer
Felt, or cloth layer
Metals (thin ones!)
Fibreglass
Carbon
Kevlar
Arylate
Zylon
Cardboard
Cork
Bamboo
Silicone rubber

_________________
Main Setups: Giant Dragon Kris II, DHS H3 Neo, Yasaka Anti Power or Giant Dragon Kris II, DHS H3 Neo, Dr Neubauer Bison
Backups: Yinhe N-9, DHS Hurricane 3 Provincial (Blue Sponge, no. 22), Yasaka Anti Power or Yinhe N-9, DHS Hurricane 3 Neo, Butterfly Super Anti

Help me find a new blade please!

Only self-proclaimed unofficial spin doctor of OOAK. Call me Joe or musicfreak
The author of How Spin Works. The Official How Spin Works Thread. How Spin Works goes to India! See my 3D Printed/Laser Cut blade experiment blog.

A thin layer of metal could work. Aluminium is quite light, and I do believe it was used before in some Stiga blades.

_________________
OOAK Table Tennis Shop | Re-Impact Blades | Butterfly Table Tennis bats
Setup1: Re-Impact Smart, Viper OX, Victas VS 401 Setup2: Re-Impact Barath, Dtecs OX, TSP Triple Spin Chop 1.0mm Setup3: Re-Impact Dark Knight, Hellfire OX, 999 Turbo
Recent Articles: Butterfly Tenergy Alternatives | Tenergy Rubbers Compared | Re-Impact User Guide

Thanks haggisv! Any other ideas, people?

_________________
Main Setups: Giant Dragon Kris II, DHS H3 Neo, Yasaka Anti Power or Giant Dragon Kris II, DHS H3 Neo, Dr Neubauer Bison
Backups: Yinhe N-9, DHS Hurricane 3 Provincial (Blue Sponge, no. 22), Yasaka Anti Power or Yinhe N-9, DHS Hurricane 3 Neo, Butterfly Super Anti

Help me find a new blade please!

Only self-proclaimed unofficial spin doctor of OOAK. Call me Joe or musicfreak
The author of How Spin Works. The Official How Spin Works Thread. How Spin Works goes to India! See my 3D Printed/Laser Cut blade experiment blog.

The problem I see with a lot of these materials is:

1) You have to be able to get them as thin sheets. Easier said than done in a lot of cases. Try getting 1/32" bamboo sometime!

2) For Kevlar/aramid, carbon fiber, glass fiber, etc. you CAN get them in thin, cured sheets but not very thin (not 0.1mm, for instance). And in such form it is expensive (check out http://mcmaster.com). It WOULD be interesting to see how a 2mm solid carbon blade plays like (probably like thin steel!), talk about flex! But if you're going to mess with the uncured cloth then you're talking a huge mess - you'll need epoxy resin, release films, probably some sort of vacuum bagging system. Ugh. Or you could use prepregs and an autoclave (expensive). And then you might consider some other materials for the core - balsa (of course), end grain balsa, Rohacell, plain old blue Styrofoam (or the pink FoamulaR).. Once you've made the sandwich then you can cut it with a CNC router (better use carbide bits!) or a laser or a water jet. But making the sandwich.. ouch. And in the end - it's all been done before..

This is why I've been suggesting to print the whole blade - face surfaces, core and all - out of ABS or PLA in a 3D printer. Much easier, less mess, LOTS of parameters you can play with.

Iskandar

Thanks for the thought, Iskandar. In regards to price, hopefully things like this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/High-Quality-3K ... 1868847190 will continue to pop up over time. Thanks for the link, by the way - that gives plenty of ideas (especially the fabrics)! I reckon as soon as the maple filament arrives (I do want to keep the blades arguably-ITTF legal!), then I'll play around with the printer itself.

EDIT:
Look at that link. Scroll down and you see the one and only review:
5 stars - "Only Problem I had was False Advertisement".
Just as well I hadn't bought it - thought it looked way too cheap.

_________________
Main Setups: Giant Dragon Kris II, DHS H3 Neo, Yasaka Anti Power or Giant Dragon Kris II, DHS H3 Neo, Dr Neubauer Bison
Backups: Yinhe N-9, DHS Hurricane 3 Provincial (Blue Sponge, no. 22), Yasaka Anti Power or Yinhe N-9, DHS Hurricane 3 Neo, Butterfly Super Anti

Help me find a new blade please!

Only self-proclaimed unofficial spin doctor of OOAK. Call me Joe or musicfreak
The author of How Spin Works. The Official How Spin Works Thread. How Spin Works goes to India! See my 3D Printed/Laser Cut blade experiment blog.

Yeah, that's 3K carbon cloth, fairly heavy stuff too (200 g/sq. meter) - mind you, that price is for a foot of it. And it's just cloth - you'll need to impregnate it with epoxy resin and cure it under pressure, very messy. Here's some 0.5mm cured plate:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/200-300-0-5mm-W ... SwYmZXGPs0

That's a foot by 8 inches for $10, you could cut blades out of that, but you'll need carbide tools - run that through a bandsaw and you'll likely destroy the blade. You'd glue two of these plates to a core and then cut out the blade.

Iskandar

It'd be laser cut (assuming the laser cutter is strong enough to handle it). Anyway, I'm not quite up to that stage, yet: I'm just gathering ideas. Once again, thanks for the feedback.

_________________
Main Setups: Giant Dragon Kris II, DHS H3 Neo, Yasaka Anti Power or Giant Dragon Kris II, DHS H3 Neo, Dr Neubauer Bison
Backups: Yinhe N-9, DHS Hurricane 3 Provincial (Blue Sponge, no. 22), Yasaka Anti Power or Yinhe N-9, DHS Hurricane 3 Neo, Butterfly Super Anti

Help me find a new blade please!

Only self-proclaimed unofficial spin doctor of OOAK. Call me Joe or musicfreak
The author of How Spin Works. The Official How Spin Works Thread. How Spin Works goes to India! See my 3D Printed/Laser Cut blade experiment blog.

Yes, I know someone suggested carbon fibre, but read it anyways!

Carbon Fibre
I have 3D printed tennis racquets with carbon fibre and they work great.

The advantages of carbon fibre would be stiff, light, hard, extremely durable, etc... Although the stiffness could end up hurting you as a player.

In addition, carbon fibre can be modified from its core (like they do with carbon fibre tennis racquets) and you can change the structure of the material to fit different durabilities, stiffnesses, and weights. I saw someone already suggested several types of carbon fibre, but keep in mind it can be modified for a table tennis player. I believe the MarkForged Mark V can do this (but I don't think $5000 USD for a printer is really worth it).

What I would be interested in seeing is a base layer of carbon fibre with a layer of mahogany or some other wood or ZLC as the outside layer, so you have an extremely stiff blade with a slightly less stiff contact point. But with this idea you have the potential of the mahogany (or whatever you use) breaking on the carbon fibre, so you might need a filler or a small pad of some sort in between them.

** Also see the next post for more ideas I had from a little research! **

EVEN BETTER! I made a short list of cool ideas for paddle materials. I would pay a lot of money for these paddles if they actually worked....

Amorphous Metals

I did a tiny bit of research, and found something quite interesting: Amorphous metals.

"The impact of the bearing actually leaves many small “pits” in the steel, meaning the steel absorbs and dissipates the energy of the impact. The amorphous metal is smooth however, meaning that all the energy of the impact is transmitted back to the bearing, causing the higher bounce."

Basically the structure of the metals are not repetitive like crystalline structured metals, which means the shock changes the form of the metal temporarily, causing the metal to react with greater force, then recalibrate itself.

Here is a video example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_51frrQzCYM


Aerogel (EDIT: sponge idea)

This one is cool also. It is commonly used as an insulator because it is porous and soft and light. Well, it is more than light, it is the lightest material that you can buy right now (other than frozen smoke lol). And why does it matter that it is porous and soft? Well sponges are used on rubbers because they are porous, so they can use the air pockets to bend the form of the sponge and allow the ball to bounce back with greater speed than without sponge.

So potentially, this could be a paddle that is just a giant sponge. Obviously you could need to find a way to tack on some weight if needed (maybe lead tape?), but the pieces are there. If not Aerogel, some other porous materials might help. And Aerogel is 99.8% air, so it would be one hell of a sponge. Hm, now that I think about it, maybe this would be a good idea for a sponge rather than a paddle?

"It has a spongy texture, and can be made simultaneously hydrophobic (repels water), and lipophilic (absorbs oil). For this reason it is being hyped as a method to mop up oil spills, because its massive internal surface area means it can absorb 900 times it owns weight. And its spongy texture means that once filled with oil, it can be ‘wrung out’, slung back in the water, and filled again. And you thought carbon was totally useless."


D30

"[D30 is] a material made of ‘intelligent molecules’ that move freely (like Play-Doh) under gentle pressure, but lock up when struck hard. Jackets are already on the market containing D30 pads that offer flexibility, as well as protection from the tarmac, baseball bats or fists you might accidentally walk into. The pads are low-profile, making the jackets suitable for stuntmen or even police."

This would be INCREDIBLE for modern defense. Imagine this: You are playing defense. The opponent hits the ball extremely soft, so you touch it with lots of power because of the the low impact speed.... THEN SUDDENLY, your opponent slams it at you! The impact of the ball will be of greater strength, so the material will tighten and the power will have less effect on the paddle, so the ball floats easily back onto the table. (And so on)

This one would be a really hard one to make, since D30 isn't technically a solid, but it would be an interesting concept since it doesn't change shape unless acted upon by an outside force (so possible, but hard and wold require some extra work). I have no idea how much it weighs, but you would only need a thin, thin layer.

Here is an example of D30. As you can see, the harder the guy hits it with his hammer, the more it resists (and the softer, the more it bends).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5_n6bOuXkY

Sadly, I could not find anywhere that sells D30 putty or sheets directly to consumers.

EDIT:
Here would be an idea or two for combinations of these:

-Amorphous metal paddle (maybe with a wood outer layer?), Aerogel sponge on rubber, D3O layer too.
-D3O, a large defensive paddle, D30, long pips rubber

Thanks for that, spencer_r! Those materials look a tad expensive, but it's definitely an interesting read, and has given me some ideas!

_________________
Main Setups: Giant Dragon Kris II, DHS H3 Neo, Yasaka Anti Power or Giant Dragon Kris II, DHS H3 Neo, Dr Neubauer Bison
Backups: Yinhe N-9, DHS Hurricane 3 Provincial (Blue Sponge, no. 22), Yasaka Anti Power or Yinhe N-9, DHS Hurricane 3 Neo, Butterfly Super Anti

Help me find a new blade please!

Only self-proclaimed unofficial spin doctor of OOAK. Call me Joe or musicfreak
The author of How Spin Works. The Official How Spin Works Thread. How Spin Works goes to India! See my 3D Printed/Laser Cut blade experiment blog.

Yeah... not exactly a budget friendly experiment. I think they could be a cool concept though!

Yeah, definitely a cool concept. I was only thinking a couple of days ago about the old cornstarch experiment where you can mold it with your hands, but hit it and it goes hard! I wonder if there are any other materials going around that could do that (something a little more solid than cornstarch and cheaper than D30!)? Also, have you had a look at the main thread of the blade experiment? If you're interested in this and havent seen it, it might be a good read. Link is in first post and in my sig.

_________________
Main Setups: Giant Dragon Kris II, DHS H3 Neo, Yasaka Anti Power or Giant Dragon Kris II, DHS H3 Neo, Dr Neubauer Bison
Backups: Yinhe N-9, DHS Hurricane 3 Provincial (Blue Sponge, no. 22), Yasaka Anti Power or Yinhe N-9, DHS Hurricane 3 Neo, Butterfly Super Anti

Help me find a new blade please!

Only self-proclaimed unofficial spin doctor of OOAK. Call me Joe or musicfreak
The author of How Spin Works. The Official How Spin Works Thread. How Spin Works goes to India! See my 3D Printed/Laser Cut blade experiment blog.

Back! And yes, I have read that post (the one you linked in your sign about the blade experiments). I was particularly interested in the fiberglass paddle, and thought it was a good idea for future concepts.

On topic, I think there is potential in table table for material that changes density and characteristics during play, and I think it would be a really cool concept to research for now. Maybe you could put a more dense cornstarch putty into the sponge and let it sit there? Or maybe add it to a water based glue? I think it has a lot of potential and could be really unique

And on another "unrelated idea" note: What if you made a paddle where the sweet spot had a harder wood then the edge, thus making it a constant paddle. AKA No more reactions between off and on center strokes.

Once again, thanks for the ideas - a few more things for me to think about...

_________________
Main Setups: Giant Dragon Kris II, DHS H3 Neo, Yasaka Anti Power or Giant Dragon Kris II, DHS H3 Neo, Dr Neubauer Bison
Backups: Yinhe N-9, DHS Hurricane 3 Provincial (Blue Sponge, no. 22), Yasaka Anti Power or Yinhe N-9, DHS Hurricane 3 Neo, Butterfly Super Anti

Help me find a new blade please!

Only self-proclaimed unofficial spin doctor of OOAK. Call me Joe or musicfreak
The author of How Spin Works. The Official How Spin Works Thread. How Spin Works goes to India! See my 3D Printed/Laser Cut blade experiment blog.

Hmm!!! This is interesting. I've heard of all sorts of materials used for 3D printing but wasn't aware that you could print with carbon fiber. How is it done?

Iskandar