OOAK Table Tennis Forum

it seems from looking at footage of traditional c-pen players there are many who have rubber on both sides of the blade but never twiddle, meaning they simply don't ever use an entire sheet of rubber. why is this? j-pen players at least save weight/money by just painting the backside black. perhaps they enjoy the extra weight?

may be it is more comfortable to hold it?

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Galaxy U2 Cpen - Galaxy Sun - Galaxy Moon
Banda Virgo Cpen - 729 Origin - 729 Origin
Galaxy W6 Cpen - KTL Pro XT - 729 Focus III Snipe

The extra weight helps with power. Cpen blades are lighter and thinner than jpen. Also for the emergency chop or fish.

Above is for me if i play single sided.

On forums people also say it protects the blade. You can use some cheap rubber or long pips.

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USATT 1433.
Long pips blocker/hitter, inverted RPB.

Blog (Ramblings of an ordinary penholder...): viewtopic.php?f=58&t=32694

I don't recall two sheets being common back when penhold (sans RPB) was the default playing style around these parts. The back side of the blade was usually bare wood.. and it used to be perfectly legal to strike the ball with it. You didn't even have to color it. So people would use the back side of the racket once in a while as a change-up. I suppose once bare wood became illegal (to hit with), some people started putting something on the back side of the blade - in most cases probably OX long pips rather than inverted, the closest legal thing to bare wood.

There is actually someone at weekend doubles who still plays with bare wood (actually vinyl faux carbon fiber decal) on the back of his blade - and he's gotten quite good at it, too. I assembled that racket myself. If you think long pips has high spin reversal you haven't seen what bare wood can do.

Iskandar

Mostly for comfort, I get painful fingertips on bare wood. Right now I have black paint sheet as well yellow sponge on the upper 1/3 closest to the handle as a lighter alternative. In the past used Rakza Soft to dampen the feel but a full sheet added too much weight and i don't use RPB.

The traditional material is cork. If you have a Daiso store nearby they sell 3mm sheets of it. Otherwise a car parts store might have cork gasket sheets. And there's always AliExpress..

Iskandar

Could it be that you're gripping too hard, making the fingertips hurt?
When a penholder adds some "cushion" at the back of the bat, it's usually to avoid the fingers slipping out of positions.

Maybe you are right, I get sore tips on both index and middle fingers after a long session . Recently I've been forcing myself to adapt to a more closely curled backside fingers, but I still like to feeling of sponge/rubber. In fact, I stick a small square of sponge on the front side too, just for the index finger.