RC David,

As you may have read, there is more going on with blade balancing than just making sure the weights are equal. You don't need a high priced balancer to do the job, a couple of glasses and a piece of threaded rod with two nuts to pinch the blades works just as well as most of the balancers I have purchased since I started with helis. I mainly use the cheapo helimax balancer for blades, for the price it is decent. Check out the finless videos on balancing if you haven't yet seen them.

You can run CF blades no matter your headspeed, I had excellent results with the radix blades but they are pricey. I've got a friend that runs the no-name carbons from helidirect. He tells me they are unbadged hyperions and they seem to fly just as well. I just finished setting up another MT for my bro and forgot how nasty those stock tt woodies are. I would do whatever it takes to ditch them. You will get more flight time (I would think at least a minute more) and it will be much less stress on your electronics. His motor was very hot after I hovered it for setup and tracking adjustments. I immediately yanked his stock blades and gave him a set of spacers and align carbons (the cheap 14 dollar set). Much better after that.

Oster,

Yep, it was the Kasama. Boy did I have to fight to salvage the head from the left over scrap! I couldn't get it off the main shaft without some torch action to heat it up good but it finally let go and now is in a ziploc bag with the other leftovers. The head really stood up to the impact well, I was surprised to not find anything bent. I'll be going over everything real well when I get another kit and reassemble, I'd prefer to avoid another one of those crashes.