OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Cypress- good, cheap and readily available. Tends to work best with woods similar to itself in playing quality such as ayous, ash and varieties of pine. Smells nice, though the mythical Kiso Hinoki variety is both rare and extremely valuable.

Ayous- soft, tends to tear easily in thinner plys. Mainly an outermost ply wood. Pairs up well with many woods.

Balsa- soft, porous and extremely light. Readily available but not usually in widths required for blades, so gluing will most likely be required. Useful only as core and in rare cases second plys due to its fragility. Deteriorates very quickly unless sealed.

Walnut (any variety)- outer ply material, hard and expensive. Pairs up well with a soft core.

Movinge- also outer ply material, hard and expensive. Pairs up well with a soft core.

Poplar- readily available, capable as a core wood and as an outer ply providing skill in matching thicknesses up.

Ash- Cross between Cypress and Ayous, needs hide glue to fully bring out the playing characterstics.


Yellow Aningre Wood: Yellow Aningre is the ultimate control wood. Providing a soft feel on contact, this wood is favored by many all-round styles of players.
Grubba Pro blades use Yellow Aningre Wood for the outer and secondary plies.
There was a previous thread that was a little similar to this here
about BTY's description of woods.
Just looking at my blade, I look to have a balsa centre - 1 thick ply, two plys of carbon and two plys of what I presume is aningre wood. Well its a very yellow wood so thats what I presume it is.


Mahogany,Walnut, Koto, bamboo, Kiri /Pauwlonia( spelling?),Maple, Birch, Paduak


Abachi, Ayous, Samba, Obeche are all the same species. They are from different parts of Africa though.


I believe the violin outer plies are ash, or so I've been told. I believe bass is a harder wood, but still used in lower end allaround blades. I've heard mohagany is soft, but it seems like a hard wood to me. I was just told of tung used as inner plies for the instinct blades. I think ttman's custom borko's used some form of african rosewood whatever that is.

Balsa has the distinction of being very light and very soft, although it also makes the blade stiff...or maybe that's just because it's often used thick because you can do that without jacking up the weight. It's also very fragile though. If you buy a thick balsa blade you absolutely must epoxy the outer edge or it will completely crumble away on you.

Limba and ayous seem very similar. They both are soft and have heavy grains. Typically the limba blades are a bit more expensive, so you'll find them more commonly in the japanese and euro blades and the ayous more in the chinese, although there are exceptions. From my experience limba grains are a bit tighter and don't shed as badly. As a result I think it's just a touch harder. Both should be sealed before gluing, but ayous MUST be sealed or it WILL strip off with the rubber.

Hinoki is considered the "golden" wood of blades. Hinoki is a form of cypress, and I believe much of the hinoki used just as outer plies is really cypress. Hinoki is called "false cypress." I've read a history where during WWII the japanese sent crates to china made with hinoki. (Apparently not as rare back then.) Some folks tried cutting it into a one ply blade and the rest was history. Hinoki has the property of being very soft with a nice soft touch in short, but very fast when hitting. The biggest drawback is probably weight. Well, and now it's scarcity and cost.

Great stuff Silver!

Only 3 of the pics seem to load for me... not sure if it's the syntax or a limit on size perhaps?

haggisv


I think it would be a good idea. A lot of work however
to list blades made of specific wood, at least the more
common woods.

I am always experimenting with different woods and
always try to get feedback/reviews on the wood from
customers. You are welcome to use this info.