Nexy Designer's diary

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Common Materials For the Blade Surface:  Hinoki, Limba, and Koto.

 This topic will be very interesting for members on this forum. I'm not sure how much you will agree with my analysis because it's about more than mechanical calculation. In some ways, this part should be about considering each player's style, e.g., type of swing, what angle is comfortable for a backhand and forehand stroke when looping, how long the ball remains on the blade when making a spinny shot, the impact of the swing movement when generating powerful topspin, ball friction when maximizing a pips-out rubbers' effect, and so on.

 So, this article will be a general one — please don't expect me to be a fortuneteller for table tennis blades. 

Ok, let's start with the "staying moment,” which is the term I use to explain my thoughts about surface materials. When making a topspin shot, some players keep the ball on the blade for specific amount of time, which is long enough to help them generate a massive spin on the ball. Normally for beginners, this movement goes slightly around, grazing the ball without penetrating deep. The blade draws a big round circle. But as players become faster and more powerful, the movement becomes easier. Some players use their wrist when they make a topspin shot, from backward to forward, not only from downward to upward. If this movement occurs at a short point of impact, the loops will be more extreme and difficult for an opponent to return.

When playing against top players, you will often experience having to return a faster, spinnier ball than what you normally would encounter. Watching high-level players play is much different than actually playing them! You will need to keep your blade tight and be stable when you block because the ball seems to shove your blade back. And you may be thinking, “Why isn’t my topspin like this?” “How can I make my topspin this fast and spinny?” And some of you might have tried to make a faster swing movement, but only to discover that this is not the practical answer. As previously mentioned, sometimes it's about wrist movement, arm folding, or other factors. But, I can say one thing for certain — It's about impact! When you hit the ball with your blade, the blade is at the highest speed, and the ball needs to be smashed both ways, from down to up, and also from back to forth. It may seem like too simple of an answer, but consider what will happens to the ball and rubber when you make that powerful shot. In that moment, the ball goes into the rubber, from top sheet into sponge, and finally into the wooden surface. For strong loopers, this impact happens all the time. They know how to make the ball sink deep even into wood. So, when you make such a powerful shot, even if you are not looping, you can still hear the loud sound of the ball's impact on the wooden surface of the blade. If you don't hear the sound, which normally happens when you smash without a spinny movement, then it means that you are not effectively doing a high level shot. Anyway, it's not the most important factor in table tennis. As far as I know, there are some good players who cannot make this "bang" sound when they loop, but still they are really powerful and win many matches.

By the way, whenever I make a blade, I discriminate the "staying moment" for general swing movement from the "bang" looping movement. Some blades can be good for a general swing, but not good for a "bang impact".

Often, when you land a bang impact shot on the table, your opponent will not even see the ball because it is too fast to be recognized. The ball seems to disappear. The impact generated by this kind of shot distorts the top sheet of the rubber and also distorts the sponge upon to the blade surface, making a loud BANG!

I don't want to degrade Chinese blades, but many of their blades are not good for a bang impact shot. They tend to focus on the feeling and power onto the table movement, which is about a small, but quick swing. So, they don't believe a blade has to be powerful with that bang impact shot.

Ok, now let's get to the point. From my description, you know there are two different kinds of loops. I will now explain the general differences between the three most popular materials.

1. General Hardness

Hinoki is normally very soft. It becomes damaged easily, so you need to be careful about it. Limba is still soft, but harder than Hinoki. Koto is hard and solid.

2. Feeling

I’m not sure how to express this part, but I will try. Hinoki feels sticky. When you loop, the ball seems to follow the movement of the wood. Limba feels like it embraces the ball, but this depends on how thick the Limba is that you use. Generally, most blade uses thin Limba that is less than 0.7mm, and you will feel it holds the ball into the center. Koto is hard, and normally we use a thin ply for the surface. Koto is also heavy, so we don't use it for the center ply. Generally, blade designers believe that hard surfaces would not be good for generating a big spin. But recently, they are using Koto in many blades, because with Koto they can make full use of rubber’s effect. If you use Koto on the surface, it should be very thin, if not, the blade’s overall feeling will be too solid, resulting in a dull blade. A thin ply of Koto works like a metal plate that has a positive effect on the rubber.

Now we have two factors — Hardness and Feeling. But this cannot be mechanically simple. For an example, many blades are using Koto on their surfaces, but most of them use very thin Koto, and in that case, it becomes like a very thin metal plate, which affects on the ball directly, but also helps the ball go into the second or center ply. The feeling of those blades also comes from the second ply, not only from the Koto surface.

Someone on this forum mentioned that Koto is a soft material, and I think it's because of this reason. The general feeling of Limba is embracing, but when I used it thick or doubled the feeling was not too embracing.

And also Hinoki, when I used very soft ones, the unique feeling became weak, and the second ply affected on the ball more directly. So, it also depends on the thickness of the material.

Any way, if you ask what will be the moderate thickness for them, I think for Hinoki, it will be from 0.8mm to 1.4mm. For Limba, it will be from 0.3mm~0.7mm. For Koto, it will be 0.3~0.5mm. This is my personal conclusion.

Ok, let's move on a little further.

When I design my Hinoki surface blades, I use high quality Japanese Hinoki. Hinoki has many grades. If you look into the surface, you will notice that there are lines. One line represents one year of tree growth. So, if you want to use Hinoki for a blade, then it has to be at least 200 years old. If not, the width is not enough to cover the entire surface of the blade. And generally, players don't like a blade that has several Hinoki fragments. If the line is wide, there could be two possibilities. That wood is not good. If the mother tree were young, then the lines would be wider because they are new, and the feeling is soft and speed is not very fast. Another possibility is that the material has come from the core part of a big old tree. In that case, the wood is also soft, and the speed is not very fast. But the prices of these two materials are much different. If the material is from the core of a very old tree, it's extremely expensive.

I use soft Hinoki for all the Nexy blades, and I prefer to use thick plies. Generally, many Hinoki blades' surface are 0.5mm thick, but I normally use thicker than that. When using hard Hinoki, 0.5mm will often be ok, but with soft Hinoki it has to be thicker. If not, the ball will be overly affected by the second ply, and players will not get the full effect of the Hinoki surface.

Let me give a practical example. Here are two blades, one is DEXTER and the other one is HANNIBAL. For DEXTER, my purpose was quite simple. I wanted to make a 5-ply blade, which was faster than a normal carbon blade.

So, I had to make the center ply thick and use fast spurs on the second. But if I made the blade too fast, then I was worried it would be too bouncy. So, I had to find a material that made the ball spinny, even though the staying moment of a ball was very short. In that case, Hinoki was the best choice. This blade was like an announcement for my brand. Nexy is different. It's a bold brand. And I wanted to prove it by showing the fastest 5-ply blade, DEXTER.

But for HANNIBAL, my purpose was quite different.

Carbon has been quite an attractive material for blade construction, but unfortunately, it often feels too artificial. So, some European makers tried to use it in the third position, or to use a very thin carbon layer. Some brands even claim to use it when in fact they do not. For example, they mix the carbon powder into the glue, and claim it’s a light carbon blade. But in that case, that carbon glue ply becomes shaken — little by little and eventually changes the character of the blade. Some makers tried to use only one line carbon, which meant they didn’t use carbon as one ply. While other makers mixed carbon layers with other artificial materials. Still, I still find a carbon layer to be a very attractive material, even with its potential problems. For me, the biggest problem is not only about feeling. I was more interested in how I can make it effective for a bang impact swing. As you might have experienced, many carbon blades are good when you practice basic skills, but in a match, they don't have good spin and feeling, and they lack power, even though they are fast.

I began to wonder how I could prolong the staying moment for a fast bang impact swing, and I discovered the solution. I used very light and resilient wood for the center ply. And I chose very soft Hinoki for the top ply, but thicker than most other blades. So, it's approximately 1.3mm thick.

With these two new factors, I could get very good stay​ing moment needed for a bang impact shot for HANNIBAL.

Someone recently asked me what blade would be good for short pips players, and I recommended HANNIBAL. This blade has a very powerful smash, but it also has enough staying moment needed for a player who wants to make use of the full range of pips-out play.

I have one Koto blade, IKARUS, and I'm going to release another, LABYRINTHOS. The reason I use Koto for these blades is I want to create a greater pips-out's effect.

Actually, there could be several different styles of pips-out players. And if I use soft material, then the staying moment can be longer than Koto. But in that case, the pips-out effect is also affected by that softness. Most push blockers prefer OX because that allows for maximum effect. Therefore, you can understand why I use the hard, solid Koto on the surface. If I use a soft surface, it would be like I added a thin sponge onto an OX rubber, which reduces the pips effect, i.e., reversal, wobble, dead ball, disruption, etc.

Regarding MUSIRO and MILARGE, I use Limba to add more control than other standard blades. This enabled more stability, even when using long pips rubbers. On the contrary, I use Koto for IKARUS and LABYRINTHOS, because I want to maximize the pips-out's effect.

OK, this was not a short story, but I hope most players have gotten something out of this passage. Some of my explanation will not be exact with the blade you have, because it's not that simple. Even if you use the same material, the effect will likely vary depending on several factors, including the weight of each material and on the total composition.

I don't expect you to accept my writing as a decisive conclusion, but rather as a way to understand your blade better.

Thank you for reading through this article.