OOAK Table Tennis Forum

After a few sessions of testing Yinhe 896 I can tell:
This is not what I call a serious blade for advanced player. It feels a bit like a toy paddle. It is pretty slow, and it has certain amount of unwanted vibration (not the good kind that gives you positive feedback). When you hit slow loops it is ok, but in fast and powerful rallies this blade losses control (and you can get frustrated and wish for another blade).
Chop and push need adjusting angle and even then stroke is kind of insecure. Not too happy with flat hits also.
I like testing these cheap blades but this one is a bit of disappointment ...

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Blade: Yinhe (Galaxy) W-6 (flared)
FH: Friendship Cream Transcend (2.0 mm)
BH: Friendship Cream Transcend (2.0 mm)

The 896 and N11 are mostly pretty similar (as are most 6.x mm cheap-ass blades from china):

http://i01.i.aliimg.com/wsphoto/v0/2034 ... -blade.jpg
http://i01.i.aliimg.com/wsphoto/v3/1076 ... -blade.jpg

It's not necessarily easy to tell which is which.

They perhaps aren't quite like Woodhouse blades or even Stiga if you're used to thin swedish ALL's, but certainly no more "flexy". The surface layers are often softer Ayous or such instead of limba, but in expensive blades a soft "hinoki" face is considered a feature. Though upon further examination the N11 might be limba so... hurray.

The best way to describe most of them is perhaps a thinner/softer Clipper (all ayous).

Obi-wan,

I fall back on this blade when my expensive blades or unserviceable or sent out to other players for testing. In stock form, it is pretty much what you describe, but I think it is perfectly serviceable for a wide range of players. I agree, a nation's top 100 wouldn't get caught dead using it, but it works great for me and even better when I modify it to add weight to the handle. That puts it in the OFF- to upper OFF - range and it plays a lot better heavy.

I took a lot of pics of this mod and made a thread about it at another forum.

I prolly said this before, but the 1st 896 blade I ever bought, I bought it from OOAK shop (a LONG time ago) to make my first ever inverted/LP chopping bat.

The thread title was similar to a thread Haggisv did here recently about making a Spin oriented bat.

http://www.tabletennisdaily.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?8732-Building-a-Monster-(Bat)

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Goof-off chopping bat
Gambler All Rosewood
Aurus Soft / Gambler GXL .6 sponge

Status - Out of Business Janitor/Babysitter

Moved this from the other thread.



According to Yinhe's web site (look under the Yinhe catalog thread) the 896 was one of the two designs introduced in (duh..) 1989, the other being the 898. They both use paulownia (a.k.a. kiri, if I'm not mistaken), not ayous/obeche (there's a whole 'nother thread about their trials and tribulations FINDING ayous a couple years later - it apparently wasn't easy) and meranti (a.k.a. lauan). Since the 896 has a light colored outer skin and a light colored core, the meranti must be in the second and fourth layers. The photo posted by agenthex shows this - the second and fourth layers are a dark brown.



Iskandar

(from the other thread)



I noticed the similarity in construction when I first unpacked my 896. I thought, hmmm... this might play very much like a N11. It feels more like other blades, though. Slightly slower than the N11, perhaps, and more vibration.

According to the vendor (Eacheng) the 896 is 6.0mm, the N11 is 6.4mm. Both are "+/- 0.2mm", though, which theoretically means you can examples of both which are 6.2mm. I'm pretty sure the outer ply of the N11 is meranti - it's a LOT darker than the photos show on the web, and it looks exactly like the meranti furniture which was very common around here when I was growing up (it's ALL chipboard now, grrr....). And Yinhe's catalog has a photo of it (meranti), too. I don't know what the rest of the blade is - I suspect since this is a lightweight cheap blade (in fact, along with the N10, among the cheapest two in the catalog) I suspect paulownia. So if it is meranti-meranti-paulownia-meranti-meranti, then it's an "896 with meranti faces" (paulownia-meranti-paulownia-meranti-paulownia). Meranti is technically a hardwood but is fairly soft as hardwoods go, more like spruce, perhaps a little harder than white pine or basswood. I'll do the dig-the-thumbnail-in-the-racket-face test this week on both (and other) blades and report!

Pretty much all the other blades I have have much thinner core layers and thicker outer plies compared to these two Yinhe blades. All the really cheap-ass blades (the 729 Super-1, the Huichuan, and especially those cheap Chinese rackets from the bookstore) have plies that are more or less the same thickness.



That's the thing, though - unless a lot of people are barking up the wrong tree there HAS to be something about this "flexiness", and there have to be some truly flexy blades out there, that I can visibly bend with my fingers. And the names Stiga and Donic are often bandied about when people talk about looping, especially for beginners. I want to see if this is true or not, if I can't find a Chinese blade that behaves like this I'll have to plonk some cash down on one of the Euro blades. Don't want to plonk TOO much cash down, though.

Iskandar

> Pretty much all the other blades I have have much thinner core layers and thicker outer plies compared to these two Yinhe blades.

These two, esp the N11, do seem to have thin outers within the realm of cheaper blades. This can only be a good sign since I suspect it takes a bit more effort to make thin layers.

Also, frankly with these soft woods it hardly matters the exact species. They're all within the same range Janka/modulus.

> unless a lot of people are barking up the wrong tree there HAS to be something about this "flexiness",

I'm pretty sure it's just slow speed. On hard loops (very fast contact) the rubber deforms FAR more than the blade, and you get this feeling of the ball digging in that seems like the bat is moving underneath you. It's just technically difficult to loop as hard with a stiff blade so the same feel is more rare. For those who don't do hard loop I suspect they just parrot what others say. If the blade were to significantly deform it would be far more obvious on hits than topspin.

Similarly for "catapult". Nothing material acts in such a counter non-linear fashion, at least not in TT. Folks just feel that (rubber) deformity and see that massive arc, and divine something which isn't there.

> According to Yinhe's web site (look under the Yinhe catalog thread) the 896 was one of the two designs introduced in (duh..) 1989

That doesn't necessarily mean the current blade is much like the old one.

Thanks man. Your guess is certainly better than mine so I'll go with this.

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Blade: Yinhe (Galaxy) W-6 (flared)
FH: Friendship Cream Transcend (2.0 mm)
BH: Friendship Cream Transcend (2.0 mm)

The old 896.



The new one.



Aside from all that varnish (if we were talking people, people from that era would have lots of HAIR, blades from that area lots of varnish!) the wood arrangement looks the same, but the core seems thinner compared to the thickness of the outer plies.

Iskandar

OK, I've got the W6, N11 and 896 in front of me. The W6 face plies are supposedly limba, it's definitely different than the face plies on the 896. The 896 face plies are reminiscent of balsa, but are harder - this is exactly what paulownia (kiri) looks like, and it's quite soft, based on the dent-it-with-the-thumbnail test. There's definitely two very dark brown layers one in from the face, these must be meranti. The 896 blade overall is slightly thinner than the N11 (I'm too lazy to go get the venier calipers out right now) but I can see that the outer two plies on the N11 are markedly thinner than those on the 896. The W6 blade is thinner yet, the outer plies are slightly thinner than those of the 896 but not as thin as those on the N11. Yinhe has the capability to flitch-cut its own veneer, unlike some other companies, perhaps that is why it likes these ultra-thin face plies. Maybe this is because blades like this play a certain way, but some cynics might say paulownia is cheap and imported (especially African) woods are expensive. However, not all Yinhe blades are like this - I have a N6 in front of me. It's rated "Fast" by Yinhe, has very, very thin (N11 thin) faces which look like Limba, but the next two layers in are thicker - maybe 1.5 mm each, and the core is maybe 3mm. I can confirm it's faster than a N11 - flat hits are very crisp, and pushes tend to pop up higher.

Iskandar

i measured it with a linen tester ,it is around 6mm and to me feels stiffer than others have found it,for a 5.5 looping blae samsonov alpha,also bazelart is in this range

outdoor gear

I've been looking at the this blade for some time and wondering how it plays. I've recently ordered one in with Venus II(2.2mm) for one of our lower division players so thought I'd give it a go.

Only had a hit for a few minutes and was mainly interested in how it looped. One thing I was surprised at was how fast it was. Not rocket fast but perhaps a bit faster than and ALL or even ALL+ and no wonder the player is having a bit of trouble adjusting from his 20 year old premade with no grip.

I was able to keep the ball on the table easy enough when pushing and doing passive shots but it had do adjust from my Applegren which I've no doubt is slower. When looping I was able to do this fairly easily and speed was no problem. If I hit a good one, it was fast enough but also the bat could generate enough spin to keep the ball on the table.

After using this bat, I'm convinced that a beginner / developing player at our club does not need to go any quicker than this, it has ample speed I think for even players in our top division which tops out around US 1700 (RC 1200).

I didn't notice any great vibration. The feeling wasn't soft like an Appelgren but nor was it harder or crisper like an N11 or Yasaka Extra. Somewhere in between. Maybe like a Waldner Allplay.

The handle was comfortable but this is normal for a Galaxy blade as they do feel quite nice in the hand. More of a smooth glossy finish than woody.

My view that of all the Chinese blades, just choose between the N11, 896, W6 and Instinct as these tend to be the slowest (at least of the cheaper blades). This brief test has confirmed this. No need to go faster.

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Donic Waldner Senso V1,FH Baracuda Big Slam 2.0mm ,BH Victas Triple Regular 2.0mm

I bought my first one from OOAK almost a decade ago.

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

_________________
Goof-off chopping bat
Gambler All Rosewood
Aurus Soft / Gambler GXL .6 sponge

Status - Out of Business Janitor/Babysitter

My 896 is 6.8 mm thickness and weights 86 grams . For me is a hard crisp blade something like Clipper as I posted years ago. Everybody talked about a "looping machine". Maybe was in 5.something thickness range

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Xiom Strato , St
FH: DHS H3 prov, max
BH: Butterfly Tenergy 05FX, max