OOAK Table Tennis Forum

I have some sheets of the training Haifu Whale and Shark rubber. They're in vacuum packs, so I'm reluctant to open them up just to weigh them. What I'm wondering about is whether Whale II and Shark II use the same topsheets and the original Whale and Shark, since there aren't any explicit Whale II and Shark II topsheets registered on the ITTF website, although separate Whale III and Shark III topsheets appear.

If this is the case, the training rubber might indeed be Shark II and Whale II.

They're "factory tunned", it claims on the piece of paper attached behind the sponge. Some interesting instructions about how to attach them to the blade, also. Kinda looking forward to trying these out, it's the first time I've had any "factory tunned" rubber to try. But before that, I've got lots of other things to try - some 999 44-45 degree sponge, for instance. I'll go scan these sheets later, inside the packets.

Wonder why Whale III costs so darned much.

Iskandar

Another 1+1 package from the 999 company! (Actually they're called the Tianjin Chang Xin Sports Goods Co. Ltd.)

XiYing 999 44-45 degree sponge. 2 sheets in one package.






Comes in a printed manila card pack, two sheets to a pack, in a fold-over cellophane bag. Not sure why this "XiYing" brand exists, it's made by the same company that sells "999T" rubber. It's printed right there on the topsheet so the topsheet MIGHT be different from 999T. The sponge looks the same as the 999 44-45 sponge.

red 67.53g 168.5x169.5mm 0.236 g/cm2
black 67.89g 167.5x165mm 0.246 g/cm2

So far the only exception to the "red is heavier" rule! The rubber IS fairly heavy, in general. We'll see how it plays. I wonder if I can get this same rubber in the softer 40-42 sponge.

Iskandar

Yes that's pretty heavy! I've never seen that packaging...

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Scans of the Haifu Whale and Shark training rubbers. The Whale is the most expensive sheet I've bought thus far, the result of that 15% off everything for a day sale on AliExpress last month.

Topsheets (red)



The topsheets look different - Whale is darker, and it's harder to see the pips under the topsheet. They've got corners cut off (I always thought only EXPENSIVE rubber had corners cut off). Comes in vacuum pack, so I'm not opening and weighing these until I put them on a blade.

Back side. This isn't the sponge, there's some sort of sheet over the sponge and the glue layers (yes, these are "factory tunned", according to the sheets!). Whale comes with a red sponge, Shark with yellow. It's kinda hard to read what's on the covering sheet for Whale, hopefully it's the same as what's on the Shark.




Iskandar

Don't want to distract from the great thread, but the long-time well known 729OEM might be no more. He might have clearanced it at $3. I bought four. He now stocks 729FX OEM 2mm at $5.

Would be interested to hear how these training rubbers play.
How they would compare with Donic Traction MS Soft which are currently discounted at pingpongonline ?
Is it worth upgrading to the II National version ?

Eacheng's got some deals on 729 OEM and 729 Super FX OEM in 10 packs:

http://eacheng.net/index.php?act=product&CategoryID=603

The cheapest would be 24 sheets of Batwing at $70 ($2.91 a sheet). So I don't think $3 a sheet for 729 OEM is out of line - the stuff really is that cheap. These prices don't include shipping, no idea what shipping costs. Eacheng's AliExpress outlets don't have these big bundles for sale, but others do, Batwing goes for about $5 a sheet, there are other rubber sheets that go for as little as $3.50 or $4 a sheet - including shipping!

The CHEAPEST rubber deals you'll find on Alibaba.com - which is AliExpress's parent. Eacheng's on there too! Rubber for as little as $2 a sheet. Problem is - minimum order 200 sheets!

http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/7 ... 03865.html

Don't know if I'm reading this right, but this might be for $1.56 a sheet!

http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/R ... 00893.html

Or $1.20 a sheet....

http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/K ... 44161.html

Since you're getting 2 sheets/pack...

Even fake Tenergy!!

http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/B ... 67782.html




(Do the photos actually look real? I don't know, I've never seen a sheet of Tenergy 05 before...)

Iskandar

Yeah, I'm curious myself. Once I open those packs I'll be straying away from cheap rubber, and I'm curious to see how these differ (factory tuning and all) from the plain vanilla cheap rubber I've been trying out so far. The thing is, you can get a couple sheets easily enough.

http://www.aliexpress.com/store/group/T ... 05477.html

Shark is about $9, Whale $13 including shipping. (Eacheng has three Aliexpress outlets, this one has the cheapest price for these particular sheets, and it pays to check all three!) They ship next day, it takes roughly two weeks to get to where I'm at, shouldn't take much longer elsewhere. Packages are registered, I was worried since the post office here tends to "disappear" packages, haven't had one disappear yet.

Iskandar

For the last couple of weeks I've been playing (with the rec players in the lobby) with the Yinhe N11 blade, with seamooned 999T (40-42 sponge) on one side and Corbor on the other. I also seamooned the Corbor. The combo now feels quite natural (it did NOT in the beginning), I can easily loop with it on the forehand, flat hits feel especially nice. The 999T is pretty tacky, and it remains so. The Corbor is relatively light weight, non-tacky and slower, and feels nice on the backhand. Perhaps on Friday I'll get to play with some better players and I might change my mind! I've been teaching one of the rec players to counter and loop, we spent a lot of time this evening doing loop-and-block drills with him looping (those T88 sheets..).

The N11 blade felt radically different from the other Chinese blades I have, perhaps it's the construction. It's got a 5mm core, not sure of what - probably Paulownia (there's a lot of Paulownia in China, after all), and four VERY THIN (maybe 0.3mm) face plies (two on each face). Again, don't know what wood, but it was sanded so smooth running your fingers over the blade face just felt so good. So it's sort of built like a balsa blade except the core isn't balsa. Fairly light, too (under 80g). Maybe tomorrow I'll go back to my 729 A3 blade and see if I can feel the difference again - that was the blade I was using before the N11 and IT felt very nice after I'd been playing with it for two weeks!

Next week I think I'll try the 999T with the harder sponge (44-45 degrees). Maybe replace the Corbor, move the softer 999T to the backhand.

Iskandar

Got around to trying a sheet of the Super 999T with the 44-45 degree sponge. I put this on my 729 A3 blade (the one with the cork center) that already had a sheet of the 999T with the 40-42 sponge on it. This blade is rated OFF+, but in truth, it only seems a little faster than my ALL blades (the N11 and the Instinct). No big surprise, it feels a little harder than the 40-42 (which I've been playing with the last two weeks on a different blade), and just slightly faster, no problems (other than the usual ones) with loops, counter-drives, kills, pushes, even chops. I do like the way it feels, counter-driving, especially, is easier with the harder sponge.

I've seen comments that (usually Globe) 999-type rubbers are too slow, I don't find that's the case at all, then again I'm only a 1200-level player. It's definitely no slower than 729/729 Super with the 40-42 sponge, and no slower than, say, Corbor or 868. But if you think it's too slow trying the harder sponge might be an option. I notice the 999T topsheet is sold with this sponge in several different packagings, perhaps there's a reason why that's the case. In any case.. it works very well when it's humid. Last week, I had the Instinct out (lent it to someone else) with two sheets of 729 Batwings on it. When time came to put it away I noticed the rubber was SLICK - I couldn't believe that it collected that much condensation. It was practically WET. Don't know why some rubbers do this and 999T does not.

This coming week - the same sheets, the same blade, only Seamooned.

Iskandar

Finally got around to trying the Emperor Dragon. Scroll back a few posts, you'll see I got it cheap, it's some sort of "training version" that comes without the usual packaging. Got it from here:

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Free-shi ... 68860.html

(Still fairly cheap, it's on sale for a little under $8 a sheet at the moment - including shipping - though I must say the vendor isn't one of my favorites - it took him something like two weeks to get the sheets out the door and then China Post took another three weeks to deliver it.) Apparently you get Random Dragons - in my case I ended up with Emperor Dragon. Sponge is the usual 2.2mm, and medium hard (no idea what degrees). Checking my favorite vendor's website, Emperor Dragon doesn't seem to come with the Biotech sponge (though there's a green sticker with Chinese writing on it that, on other Dragons, seems to indicate Biotech sponge because the vendor displays two packages - one with the Biotech sticker and the other with the green Chinese sticker). So I've no idea if mine is Biotech or not. Usual market price for the Emperor Dragon is under $13 a sheet (including shipping) so you save $5 a sheet in this packaging. If anyone else decides to buy stuff from the link above, I'd be interested in what you receive - some of the other Dragons are considerably more expensive than Emperor. I really wonder why they exist - surely the CJ8000 line is extensive enough to suit anyone. Maybe they're the same as CJ8000, just sold under a different name for marketing purposes.

ANYHOOO..... I mounted the black sheet (has a cream colored sponge - the red one has a mauve colored sponge) on my N11, keeping the seamooned 999T on the other side. I really like the 999T (40-42 sponge), but the minute I hit the ball with the Emperor Dragon I could feel the difference. Mainly loops against backspin were easier. Balls flew flatter and dipped towards the table towards the end. Flat hits weren't as nice, chopping and pushing a little easier. Anyhow.. I do like this rubber. There's been all sorts of reviews of other Palio rubber on this forum, but no one's been looking at the Dragons yet. It's too early to tell if this is going to end up my favorite - I've still got some sheets of CJ8000 to test, and Whale and Shark tuned training rubber. I was hoping one of the cheap $5 ones would turn out to be really outstanding and then I'd settle on it, but I suppose I could like with a $8 rubber. As it is.. the differences between all the rubbers I've tried so far (including this one) are subtle, I haven't found anything I haven't liked yet (other than, perhaps, the 44-45 degree version of 999T, and that's just a mild dislike).

Iskandar

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No, that's a different rubber (Three Swords brand). The one I was talking about it made (or at least, sold) by Palio.

Iskandar

OK, this one's a little different. For one thing it's not from a table tennis vendor, instead, I got it off dx.com. Dx.com used to be dealextreme.com, it's a favorite web store of mine because you can get practically ANYTHING made from China on there. Whether you need it or not. Especially if you like to tinker, like I do, and want hard-to-find tools and bits and pieces:

http://www.dx.com/p/spiral-groove-step- ... tem-308192
http://www.dx.com/p/icon-current-flow-v ... 500ua-6901
http://www.dx.com/p/trustfire-18650-3-7 ... pack-19770

A little pocket scale to weigh your rubber?

http://www.dx.com/p/pocket-flip-open-di ... step-14386

Anyhow.. I thought, one day - since they sell EVERYthing, how about table tennis stuff. Indeed. Search for "table tennis", this comes up:

http://www.dx.com/p/winmax-wmy06609-hig ... ack-207456

What about the red sheet????? Well, search "ping pong", the red sheet shows up...

http://www.dx.com/p/weimasi-wmy06609-pi ... red-198122

Well! I'd never heard of THIS brand before. I'm pretty sure it's not on the ITTF approved list. Does it tell you how thick the sponge is? No, but it does say the RUBBER is 4mm thick! And it helps you win the game, apparently.

Photos:





Yeah, I actually did buy ONE sheet (black). Only one - it was too expensive to waste more money on.

Winmax Double Power
black 67.81g 167x172mm 0.236 g/cm2

Not terribly heavy.

A few things to note - it actually SAYS "ITTF approved rubber" on the pack, and there's a ITTF logo on the topsheet. I suppose you can't really trust stuff in China! The packaging is nice, cardboard - the front and back is the same (so there's no silly blurb on the back like there usually is). On the bright side - the website mentioned on the cover DOES work (unlike what you find with some other rubber brands). When you get there you find they sell all sorts of sport equipment, table tennis is just a small corner of the website. There are two kinds of rubber, even a couple of blades. Everything else is, well, rec-grade.

Turn the rubber over, hey. We've seen this before, right? It looks just like the markings on the back of 999T rubber (and it says it's 44-45 degrees). The newer 999T sheets I have have better printing - all the letters are in a row. This one? Naah - but I do have an old sheet of 999T that's badly printed like that. So it looks like we know who OEMed this sheet. Or maybe not - the sponge seems to have big pits (or bubbles) in it here and there, you don't see that in the 999T sponge. Like the old sheet of rubber I have, this isn't particularly flat, either - in fact the photos on dx.com show pretty curled up sheets.. And the topsheet is beginning to come off from the sponge.

One day I'll mount this on a blade just to see how it plays. My guess: like an old sheet of 999T with 44-45 sponge.

Dx.com allows people to write reviews on products. Oh boy, am I going to have fun with this. Maybe I'll make it out to be the equivalent of Tenergy. Then again, mebbe not..

Iskandar

I've never heard of that brand either. It says ITTF on the cover and the rubber... that should surely be enough to convince most umpires?

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Setup1: Re-Impact Smart, Viper OX, Victas VS 401 Setup2: Re-Impact Barath, Dtecs OX, TSP Triple Spin Chop 1.0mm Setup3: Re-Impact Dark Knight, Hellfire OX, 999 Turbo
Recent Articles: Butterfly Tenergy Alternatives | Tenergy Rubbers Compared | Re-Impact User Guide