OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Greetings,
I'm a beginner-intermediate player and prefer to loop the ball with FH and flick/loop with backhand. I'm looking to buy a new wood paddle and am looking at the following options.

* Gambler DJ Fly
* LKT Ayous Hinoki
* Yinhe N11s
* 729 C-3
* 729 C-5

I'm thinking of pairing it with Gambler Burst Thor's hammer on FH and Gambler Mech-Tek 2.1mm on BH.

Which of the blades above would be a good choice for my purposes? I haven't found any reviews of the DJ Fly and don't know if I can handle the speed considering it's an OFF blade. I currently have an ALL Carbon blade but would prefer not to use a Carbon blade. I'm looking for something that would have decent weight (~82 +/- 3), flex and feeling to allow for good looping. All of the above have their pros and cons with some of them not having any reviews available online.

The reason for these choices is that I'm looking to get something cheap now so that I can upgrade in the future when I'm a better player. I'm open to other suggestions as well.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

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Paddles
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Primary: Sanwei M8, Gambler Burst on FH, Gambler X3Diamond on BH
Backup: Pre-assembled Gambler Silver Dragon with Sevens Rubber
Motto: Always Learnin'

Before you spend a lot of money on anything else get one of these:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/SANWEI- ... 01460.html

(Gee... there's a 50 cent discount for the next five days, too... )

Iskandar

Thanks for this link Iskander I will probably order 3 or 5 and make them up with 868 or similar for the office ping pong table growing number of players

How consistent are they in weight? Should I contact them and ask for a matching batch say within range 77-79 gm

Thanks Iskandar! I'll order one of these. I'll have to lacquer it to allow changing of rubbers in case I need to. I'm not an EJ so will probably require this for the next year or two till I'm ready to graduate to a faster blade.

Many thanks for the suggestion once again!

_________________
Paddles
---------
Primary: Sanwei M8, Gambler Burst on FH, Gambler X3Diamond on BH
Backup: Pre-assembled Gambler Silver Dragon with Sevens Rubber
Motto: Always Learnin'

I think they should be amenable to that... If you look around on AliExpress you will also find combos (blade + rubbers) for as little as $16 or $17. Either this vendor or XVT.



Yes, do lacquer it. No need for a thick coat, though... just wipe on and wipe off.

Iskandar

Wow.. M8 + 2 sheets of T88 (not sure which T88, you could always message them to find out - the photos do show red T88-I and black T88-Taiji, but you never know... not that it matters, probably..) - $13.41!!! Assembled!! If you want a bunch of club rackets, these should fit the bill. You might even (if you're perverse enough) get them to ship you the two sheets of rubber and blade, unassembled!

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/SANWEI- ... 74001.html

Iskandar

And a free bad cover.............................

Feels like Christmass.

What are these like weight wise - I find casual players like a lighter bat.

Quite light, but varies. As light as 70, and I have one or two that are over 80 (I'm saving those for hardbat, or for those special Huang big pips.. ). There was a time when these were less than $7 each, after discount, that's why I have 23 or 24 of the things (mainly to sell to others locally).

Iskandar

So I received my Sanwei M8 Junior and it says OFF+ on the blade. I don't believe that rating but was just wondering what the opinions are about the actual speed of the blade.

Unfortunately I do not have a kitchen scale to weigh it so I don't know the weight.

Thanks!

_________________
Paddles
---------
Primary: Sanwei M8, Gambler Burst on FH, Gambler X3Diamond on BH
Backup: Pre-assembled Gambler Silver Dragon with Sevens Rubber
Motto: Always Learnin'

If you believe the frequency chart, that suggests OFF- though I suspect it varies between blades.

You could download Advanced Spectrum analyser and test yourself.

_________________
Donic Waldner Senso V1,FH Joola Rhyzm 425 2.0mm ,BH Donic Baracuda Big Slam 2.0mm

Yeah, that's a well known typo. No one lists the blade as OFF+. Least of all the Sanwei catalog. The older version of the blade was marked ALL, IIRC.

Iskandar

I don't think it is a typo. I've been looking at the DHS PG7 recently and noticed that it was marked as OFF+ but reviewers often state that it is OFF- or OFF at best. Due to this, my suspicion is that Chinese manufacturers rate their blades too high for speed. Rating is a best guess and is not scientific anyway so no one can dispute that one rating is wrong and the other one correct. Due to this we cannot call out the Chinese manufacturers for overrating their blades.



It would probably speak to poor QC if different blades of the same model fall in different speed classes. I would expect some variation due to the properties of different batches of wood not being the same but I would still expect it to fall in the same speed class. I guess that is why you pay the big bucks for blades from the major manufacturers (Butterfly, Tibhar, Stiga etc.) since they do the QC necessary to ensure that different blades of the same model fall in the same speed class.

_________________
Paddles
---------
Primary: Sanwei M8, Gambler Burst on FH, Gambler X3Diamond on BH
Backup: Pre-assembled Gambler Silver Dragon with Sevens Rubber
Motto: Always Learnin'

Greetings,

After playing with the Sanwei M8 Junior for a while, I am of the opinion that it is definitely not an ALL blade. Coming from my previous premade blade (Gambler Silver Dragon Double Carbon) which was rated as ALL, this definitely felt faster and took me nearly 2 months to play confidently with it. My loops/hits would fall out of the table often. I initially attributed it to the new rubbers (it was a completely new setup) but now I'm not so sure. I would rate it as ALL+/OFF- at the least. Since I have no other point of reference, I cannot be more specific.

Iskandar,
Thanks again for the recommendation! I'm enjoying playing with it.

On a side note, the EJ bug seems to be taking hold. I'm starting to wonder how much of a difference (notice I didn't say improvement; I'm a realist after all ) a better blade would make. I have my eyes on a Tibhar Stratus Power Wood which is also rated as OFF-. Reviewers say it provides excellent feeling and I would like to see if it makes a difference to my game.

_________________
Paddles
---------
Primary: Sanwei M8, Gambler Burst on FH, Gambler X3Diamond on BH
Backup: Pre-assembled Gambler Silver Dragon with Sevens Rubber
Motto: Always Learnin'

I just had a look in the 2016 Sanwei catalog (they don't seem to have a 2017 or 2018 one on their website yet):

http://www.sanweisport.com/english/?page_id=15

The M8 is listed as "ALL+". So I'm sure it's a typo.

As to what exactly ALL+ means... I'm sure it means SOMETHING (in particular, "faster than ALL and slower than OFF-"), but I doubt it's actually been quantified, and I doubt if all manufacturers adhere to the same "scale", subjective as it is. All the M8s I've played with (maybe 4 or 5) play similarly, I haven't seen any noticeable difference in speed.

Iskandar