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Nexy View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Nexy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01/01/2022 at 6:40am
Why did Stiga use “Tube”, not carbon layer?
The blade is not carbon layered blade as what other brands traditionally producing. 
Stiga could not. 
They just adopted names 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Nexy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01/04/2022 at 12:21am
Second article 

-------------------

Stiga and Butterfly are two major brands in blade development history.
I think the main factor to distinguish two makers was "gluing" process and material.

Stiga has long years of blade manufacture, and they had been using water based glue for all years.
They simply did not try to use Epoxy, as they have been successful with the old type glue.
But this glue became an obstacle, when Butterfly released carbon layered blades.

Carbon layer is not easy to glued well with the traditional wooden glue, and Buttefly took Epoxy, and many others followed.
Epoxy is stronger material and could guarantee the durability of the glued layers, but feeling of the blade became harder and more dull.
Stiga did not want to move to Epoxy glue, and they continued with their gluing process.

This resulted in less durability of the blade.
Traditionally, Stiga used Limba for many blades, and Limba was not strong surface wood, which aggravated this durability problem when ITTF prohibited "speed gluing", as water based glue left damage on Stiga blades, when players took off their rubbers.

And Stiga had to find a solution for this problem, and they started to use hard wood for their blades' surfaces, and we could beet Ebenholz, and rosewood blades.
Afterwards, they also took "diamond touch" which means that they brush the surface very well, and surface wood could be smoothly finished, which allowed rubbers' easy taking off.

However, Butterfly continued with composite layers, and they were lucky to use many new composite layers, as Japanese military business supported them with top notch new composite layers.
But this also became a reason why Butterfly stopped to study better and new composition with many new different wood structure.
As for me, Butterfly seemed to copying its own blades with new color handles and different players' names, not changing the structure of the blade much.

This is an example how blade makers can be different with their gluing materials and gluing process.
Each brand has different materials and methods. 

When we glue composite layer with wooden layers, we can use Epoxy, but it will lose natural wooden feelings. So, we have other options. 
For an example, we can try to minimize the quantity of the glue. Or we can try to use dense glue but thin. 
Or we can use glued paper in-between. 
Paper also cause some loss of feelings, but different feeling from Epoxy's somewhat plastic-like feelings.

And after gluing, we also need to press the glued layers, until they are well connected and dried.
This process also affect on the final character of the blade. 
Some brands use more pressure, to make the final thickness thinner, but some brands don't press much, not to change the character by too much pressure.

This is it.
I wrote this article in order to change people's simple guess attitude about blade's character, only with the structure information.
When I release a new blade, people ask what wood layer I used.
But I think we can not know it well, when we don't know how they are glued and how much they were pressed.
What glue, and what pressure worked on the final blade are important factor to decide the blades' character, but very few people think about those things.

However, with this care about "glue" / "gluing process", Nexy produced many blades different from what people may think.
5 ply, but faster than 7 ply. 7 ply, but softer than 5 ply.
Carbon layers blades, but very much wooden feeling.
ALC, but not dull.

Thank you for reading my article. 
I will try to write more often.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote ddoocc Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01/04/2022 at 1:32am
Very informative, Thank you! 
Did Stiga develop new glue or gluing process for their carbonado serials? 
I love carbonado serials, the feeling of them does not vary from pure wood blades, so I am just curious about it.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Nexy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01/05/2022 at 12:49am
Originally posted by ddoocc ddoocc wrote:

Very informative, Thank you! 
Did Stiga develop new glue or gluing process for their carbonado serials? 
I love carbonado serials, the feeling of them does not vary from pure wood blades, so I am just curious about it.

Yes.
I will share more information about Stiga's carbon blades later.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote adyy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02/13/2022 at 1:20pm
Originally posted by Nexy Nexy wrote:

Thanks for the question. 

Epoxy is the general glue for most brands, specifically after adopting carbon layer into blades’ structure. 
For Stiga, I can not specify what glue they use, but their way is different from most other brands. 
So, the feeling and sound are unique, but blades are not strongly glued. 
But I don’t think they had special philosophy or something, but just has been doing that way almost 80 years. 

During this pandemic I have done some experiments with some glues and some veneers and the results are "a bit" inline with what you wrote above. Also, from what I have tested:
- the pressure applied during glue hardening plays a role in the feel of the ply. A high pressure (offcourse with proper glue and ply structure) could make the blade feel sharper;
- glue used to attach the handles to the tang, could make a blade feel a bit stiffer or flexier;

Its nice that you nailed this topic since many builders/players do not touch this subject. Or intentionally avoid it.


Edited by adyy - 02/13/2022 at 1:26pm
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