Hi everyone,
A while back, I received a package of 5 blades from our dear member Adyy. As you can probably guess, I felt like a little kid during Christmas! This review is now long overdue.
As a background, I've been passionate about TT for about 10 years now, but my EJ journey really only picked up around middle of last year. My interest in blades started when I posted here looking for "stiff, hard, fast, linear" blades AKA the short pips holy grail. It wasn't long before a new Romanian OOAK member contacted me offering one of his prototype blades for testing. It would take about 100 back and forth messages before I received any blades but it felt like I found a travelling companion on sort of a discovery journey about materials, composition, technical measurements and most imprtantly "feel". We've shared many resources on wood charateristics, construction types and theoretical effects on playing properties.
I'm sure he wouldn't mind me revealing, but Adyy isn't much of a skilled player
. His interest in TT only came about when his work colleagues challenged him to create a replacement for a broken blade. He is however, a very technically inclined engineer and at the same time a skilled woodworker. Our interest aligned when he started dissecting JRSDallas (MyTT) theories on blade stiffness/frequency (in fact he built a revised model for measuring potential characteristics from a blades composition and thickness). Our discussions have since progressed to testing, from November of last year to now, I've bought and tested 8 blades many of which I consulted him and then given feedback. Unbeknownst to me, he took to time to build 42 prototypes!
The idea of my perfect short pips blade WAS something stiff, hard, fast, but delivered power on a linear basis. A lot of seemingly fast blades with hardwood surface layers (ie Ebenholz, Gatein Absolum etc) delivered snappy flicks and crisp blocks but suffered severe power loss on high impact shots. Over the past 6 months, my preferences have matured and can be summarized in a blade that is moderately stiff and fast, but not necessarily hard as much as "solid", and mostly importantly crisp. Ie a blade that feels soft on touch but dense on very high impact, and at the same time, not hampered by vibration dampening properties from using composite materials. Most modern designs are hampered by weight restrictions and almost unanimously choose hard surface+soft core constructions. This will give an impression of high speed, but the soft core materials almost always makes the blade feel hollow (or matchbox like ad Adyy describes them), thus the opposite of "dense". I have since found my holy grail in the form of long forgotten mono-material basswood blades (old DHS 08 types). Thick, heavy blades that provided above average speed, yet maintains linear power output across all stroke types all while not sacrificing crisp feedback. This ofcourse came at ~110g of weight. Adyy's blades also err on the heavier side at ~100g, but IMO given that short pips are on average 10g lighter when cut that inverted, this (to me) is an acceptable weight gain.
Life has been busy lately, but I've had quite a few good sessions to fine tune a relative benchmark for these blades. I know quite well what I like and but I'm far from an expert reviewer. Nevertheless, I'll try to be as technical and objective as possible. Below is a table comparing Adyy's designs to a few more well known ones:
Stats TableI took the classic pips blade (Clipper Wood) with 5 attached to all catageories and used that as a benchmark for everything else. Note, any numerical assignment is based on my relative testing, but other than stiffness, numerical measurements are not always possible. Example: speed 6 means slightly faster than clipper, 7 means noticeably faster etc...a 1 in density does not mean marshmallow-like, simply very "boxy" and insubstantial in respect to Stiga Clipper, but may very well be much more solid than someone elses balsa blade. I hope this format is understandable, but feel free to suggest better objective comparisons.
Being a penholder, all of these blades are tested with single sided short pips as not to unduly interfere with the feel by having another sheet on the back (yes your forehand feel will be impacted by your backhand rubber). As I have quite a few sheets of 802/802-40s laying around, they are what's used for all tests. Although I did play with other rubbers on a few blades I specifically enjoyed.
Note, these blades are designed for single-minded short-pips attacking. If you are looking for flex, dwell or any other subjective features, these will not be a good fit.
The Blades002.2 Valiosaurus Mk IIFirst up is Valiosaurus Mk II
When we first started talking, Adyy came up with a hardwood blade with thick outer veeners. The idea was to have something stiff, hard, low dwell, and unform response regardless of shot effort. I think this was the 43rd blade Adyy made and the second iteration of his first custom blade and if nothing else, I can see the improvements in workmanship through the numbers.
The blade feels very stiff, fairly hard and crisp. Easy access to low impact speed (flicks) and maintains power on high impact. Not too springy, not too dull, stable response on all shots. A fast blade that achieves a balanced linear feel. A little bit hollow on medium impact, but not enough for me to not like it, and certainly not "matchboxy" (in fact, still more solid than 90% of mass market blades). Very crisp smashing feel. Seems to share some common characteristics with the Mazunov (guessing from the thicker, hard outer+thin core construction). This is the only blade where Adyy can achieve high stiffness and speed, using all wood, and not at excessive weight (90g is featherweight in this batch).This is also a refinement of the first blade that Adyy came up with when we started talking about stiff, hard, fast, linear blades and it ticks all those boxes. This is actually an excellent blade that suits hitting+agressive looping and would be perfect for a combination player. But I am a single sided penholder, and somewhere along the line of trying blades, I discovered that I like the sense of high-density reinforced repulsive feeling, and for that, he came up with better options. Personal rating: 8.
012: 7-ply all spruce bladeSecond up is a 7-ply all spruce blade. Reading up on Wood Database, spruce is one of the best strength to weight ratio wood around and IMO a technically superior material to the fabled Hinoki for mono-material designs. This blade certainly lives up to expectations and I'm surprised why there aren't more blade makers using this material.
Very stiff, medium soft, VERY springy, ridiculously fast on all gears. Very lively and a little hard to control on over the table play, however maintains an extremely stable feel on moderate to high impact. The stability really reinforces attacking confidence, there are no "inflection" points in power delivery so once you get used to it, the blade is fairly predictable and an absolute top notch tool. Slightly harder and much faster than 7-ply hinoki blades but maintains generaly similar playing characteristics. No dampening feeling at all and keeps giving the harder you hit. Easily the fastest blade in this batch, and I would dare say it rivals if not exceeds the T1S in top-end power. Personal rating: 9.
020: 7 layer hardwood surface+spruce backboneAdyy and I had very high hopes for this blade. The intention was for something that provides the same strength/stiffness as an all spruce, but having hard wenge outer veneers to give a more crisp feel. However, I felt that the hardness was a little excessive and instead of crispness, the blade simply felt "jarring". It is a very fast blade but the it became so hard that it was nearly impossible to achieve the penetrating crack feel on smashes that makes all wood blades "crisp" in the first place. Nexy's Deigner Diary series mentioned the effect of "dulling" from using very hard outer veneers and I generally agree with they thesis. To be honest, this is my least favorite blade in the batch and I'm not sure what kind of style it would suit. It doesn't have nearly enough feedback for a direct hitting style and the hard+stiff low dwell nature aren't suited for loopers either. If it can be slowed down, perhaps choppers would like it, but so far, this is the odd one out. Hard, hard + hard combo may be something Samsonov would enjoy, but both me and my club mates feel this is too excessive. Personal rating: 4.
041: Hard Zebrano wood surface + dense wood coreA Unique design combining hard surface AND dense core but separated by springy spruce intermediate layers. Very loud sound that rivals my Gatien Absolum. Feels similar to the Absolum in low impact feel (hard, sharp). Easy access to low impact speed like the Absolum, but unlike that one keeps high end power. Slightly hollow feel on medium impact, but the dense core kicks in when hitting hard. A bit complex in feel in that power delivery is an S-shaped curve (Fast-medium-fast-medium depending on effort). Despite using hard materials, the relative thiness provide ample feedback. Very fast flicks, moderate speed on drives, fast hits, but starts flexing and tops out on very hard smashes. I suppose that's to be expected from a somewhat thin construction. The Zebrano surface of this blade was damaged during the glueing process (this no close-up) and may be responsible for the "complex" response/feel during play. Personal rating: 7. If this design can be improved, I would recomend and intermediary layer (currently spruce) to be replaced with something harder than ash, but softer than Zebrano.
042 - An improve OSP UltimateLove at first sight! Slightly harder, slightly stiffer, slightly denser, and slightly faster than the Clipper on all gears, yet maintains stable and predictable power delivery. An all round improvement on a fan favorite! Plays very similar to classic 7-plies but with added density that "kicks in" only when you need it. To me, this is a direct upgrade to the Clipper types with no noticeable sacrifices. This is the slowest blade in Adyy's batch, but nevertheless an OFF+ (the others are just very very very fast). I would happily keep this as my only blade. Stable, crisp penetrating feeling, good control, low hollowness, no high end power loss. The original OSP Ultimate had a good idea, but I think they fell short by sacrificing blade thickness (and thus had excessive flex). No compromises here, a better 7-ply hitters blade period. Personal rating: 10.
I have quite a bit of jot notes and will be adding comments. However, as a new blade designer, Adyy is always interested in new testers. If anyone is interested in a PIF I'll be happy to forward the package at my expense. Please post if you are interested, and I'll let Adyy decide who gets them.
Cheers,