Ping Pong Paddle

Creating a Ping Pong Paddle
After Playing for about 2 years, I decided that I should upgrade from the cheaper paddles to a better one. I looked at paddles online and I couldn't decide what to get. I eventually thought of creating a paddle from scratch. Using Autodesk Inventor, I created an image that I will later use on a laser cutter to cut out the wooden section. Here is the image.

I am planning on cutting this out tomorrow. After which, I will use fiberglass, basswood, balsa wood, and a sheet of insulation to create the rest of the blade. This is just a prototype to see if my configuration of materials and choice of materials works. If it does, I will use better more expensive materials for my next model. (Carbon Fiber, Sorbothane, polyurethane, etc)

Update: After an attempt at making a composite board from bloodwood, carbon fiber, and balsa wood, we have run into some issues pertaining to the outcome of this composite. In order to make this composite, we layered the bloodwood on the outsides of the composite, balsa wood in the middle, and a layer of carbon fiber in between. (bloodwood-carbon-balsa-carbon-bloodwood-> 5 layers).

The issues that we ran into were significant enough to hinder the performance of the paddle considerably. The process that we used was layering thin sheets of balsa wood perpendicular so that the grains would cross, hindering warp in the soft wood. There was a small layer of wood glue keeping these pieces together. This was placed on top of wax paper and a large piece of plywood. The paper kept the glue from sticking to the plywood.
After this was done, and the glue had set, we removed the balsa composite and placed a piece of new wax paper and a piece of bloodwood. Then, we placed a layer of resin and carbon fiber to bond he two pieces. Lastly, we placed the balsa composite sheet onto the still uncured carbon fiber sheet so that can bond, then the next carbon fiber, and so on. Each sheet for the balsa was 2' x 6" x 1/32". The bloodwood sheet was 2' x 6" x 1/16". With the carbon fiber, the total thickness of the blade would come to a little under 1/4".
In order to make sure the composite did not have any gaps within itself, we placed another piece of plywood on top of the composite to evenly apply a pressure. This helped with releasing excess resin and air pockets.

The Problems: After using this method of compressing the composite between two wooden plates, the problems became evident very quickly. Once the  plates were removed, we noticed 2 problems. The first problem was that the pieces of carbon fiber and wood have shifted from the center slightly. The shift was only about a sixteenth of an inch, but the widest part of the paddle was 5.99... inches. The shift was too great and therefore the composite will not be used for the final product.
The second problem was that when we used clamps to compress the boards, we used too much force. As a result, the balsa in the middle became compressed. This means that the mechanical properties were altered. The bounce of the ball during the hit would be different. However, a different paddle can be made that is slightly smaller.

What We Learned: During this experience, we realized that we should have thought out the manufacturing process more. We could have done simple stress analysis calculations, and used a torque wrench in order to find how tight each clamp had to be. There could have been side guards in order to prevent the shift.

09-24-15
After taking some time off to focus on schoolwork, I have decided to try creating an experimental paddle. The plan is to create a 3D printed skeleton, fill it with foam in order to create more structure, and cover this skeleton with carbon fiber.

Update: I have created the skeleton which consists of the paddle outline and a mesh consisting of octagons and squares.

The 3D printing was done on an Airwolf 3D HD printer. The material was PLA plastic.

The next step was to fill this paddle with foam. Great Stuff insulation was used for this due to the small shapes.

The process was repeated in order to get a uniform fill.

This was the result after filling it further and sanding off the excess. When attempting to bend the piece, I noticed that the paddle structure was about 3 times more stiff than without the foam.

After making this structure, I decide to test one of the handle that I made. An earlier prototype looked like the following:

However, I ended up changing the design to make the ends wider and the middle wider and shallower. A CNC machine was used to carve out the handle from a piece of poplar.

This was just to test fit the grip and how well it handled the paddle. The final handle will be made out of a wood that might look slightly better.