OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Reading through many of the threads and posts here where advice is asked for and given to beginners and improvers about what blade to buy, many are of the opinion that they/we should not be buying anything but all-wood, allround blades - no carbon layers etc etc. As an improving player myself I'm inclined to take the advice offered here by players with much more experience than me, and avoiding blades which are too fast seems sensible.

However, there seem to be blades out there which are marketed, if not to absolute beginners, then certainly to modest club/league players which are composite blades. I'm thinking of the Stiga Allround Classic Carbon, Waldner Senso Carbon, Waldner Senso Diablo (glassfibre) to name three I have pondered over. I'm sure there are many others. Are the composite layers in these types of blades thinner to reduce speed/stiffness?

Apologies if there's a thread for this conversation already.

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"The journey of a thousand miles starts with one step" Lao Tzu

Yasaka Sweden Extra FH: DHS Skyline Neo 2 2.15mm BH: Donic Acuda S3 max
Donic Waldner Exclusive AR+ Palio Hidden Dragon 2.2 x 2

My inclination is - if you're curious, buy one and find out. And tell us about it. They're not terribly expensive and you can always sell them or give them away if you don't like them. Plus, there are lots of Chinese ones that cost even less - check out the Yinhe and HRT lines, for instance. I think if you stay away from the OFF+ and OFF++ blades you'll have something usable to a degree. I'm fond of saying the differences between rubbers is subtle - you often have to stop and think to figure out what the differences are even if you've got them mounted back to back on the same blade. The differences between blades, however, can be dramatic. You can tell immediately one blade from another. Faster blades are harder to play with, that's all there is to it - and it's true even for all-wood ones (e.g. Yinhe N6, HRT Clipper).

Iskandar

So really the advice should be don't buy anything too fast rather than avoid composite blades at all costs? As you say, some wood blades are faster/stiffer than some composite blades.

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"The journey of a thousand miles starts with one step" Lao Tzu

Yasaka Sweden Extra FH: DHS Skyline Neo 2 2.15mm BH: Donic Acuda S3 max
Donic Waldner Exclusive AR+ Palio Hidden Dragon 2.2 x 2

I have a TSP Black Balsa 7 that is supposed be having a top-ply treated with Glass-Fiber. Fiber-Glass is ROCK HARD. So be warned while Balsa is a very very soft and springy wood, with the super hard top-ply, every medium pace ball or spinny ball WILL NOT STAY on any rubber you use with this blade. Excellent for close-table and mid-table aggressive attackers.

Fiber-Glass top-ply benefit close table quick-attack and quick-block. Disadvantage due less effective pushing and unable to do extremely heavy looping / counter-looping almost everything will be a touch / block / drive and not enough cut / push / loop.

The soft core of balsa helps the hard top-ply but it slows down the ball too much away from the table. Balsa helps keep the ball inside and allows a more loopy game, but not enough power rebound effect from the blade far-table.

1. Hard top-ply reduces dwell time of the ball.
2. Any kind of inner ply either soft or hard does not compensate enough against the weakness of the hard top-ply.

I ended up liking Koto wood as top-ply since it is a harder wood and not a slab of rock. Combined with balsa it makes any all-wood blade quite speedy and yet with decent characteristics. Which I found in the TSP Versal blade

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Backup C-pen blades:

• TSP Black Balsa 7.0 :
  1. FH/BH-YRakza9/XOmegaVT
  2. FH/BH-TSP Spectol/Yinhe Qing OX
• 729 Bomb C-P : FH/BH-DHS H2 Orig/DHS H3 Orig
• TSP Versal :
  1. FH/BH-XOmegaVA/YJupiter-II
  2. FH/BH-*blank*

Fun blades:

• Yasaka Battle Balsa(ST) : FH/BH- DHS TG2Neo/Gewo HypeXT 47
• Dr. Neubauer
  High Technology
  Cypress-Carbon(ST)
  ***************************** : FH/BH-YRakza7/YRakza7

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No, what I'm saying is, within reason, and within the confines of your wallet, just buy what you're curious about and find out.. I did the same thing a year or so ago when I bought several 7 ply hinoki blades (these WEREN'T cheap) because I'd tried one and liked it. If you're curious about composite blades and have a theory, try a couple and see if they fit your ideas.

Iskandar

Maybe look at a T.B.S. in an 88-90 gram weight. It uses Arylate Carbon. Or a more expensive Zhang Jike ALC. A cheap clone would be a Yinhe V14, V15 V16. Used the V14 and it was really good and cheap.
The older carbon tended to be a bit thick and it numbed the feel of the wood e.g. on the old Donic series. The newer blades of the same name don't play as well. Team mate has switched to a Donic Crest from a BTY Zhang Jike ALC and surprisingly prefers the faster setup.
Personally I found the all wood 7 ply too heavy and a faster 5 ply was too stiff. Nittaku Violin with a MX-P on the FH compensates for the lack of carbon.

And what exactly is a TBS? (We love acronyms... )

Iskandar

"Timo Boll Spirit" is the favored expansion of that acronym around here, I believe.

This is a complex subject and I wrote a long post on a new thread with the thought that maybe haggis might find it useful enough to sticky it. I hope you can find it useful.

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Butterfly Viscaria Black tag
2.2 mm Nexy Karis M on FH and BH

Link to Baal's excellent run through.
I was just getting started on something similar when I noticed it. Better overview than I could have made in a hundred years. Good job, Baal!