OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Can anyone compare these two?

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One is a lot cheaper than the other one.

Iskandar

I was hoping for a helpful comparison...


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Leaving this comment for future reference: I got the XVT a few months ago and the construction quality is poor. Both the balsa core and the hinoki ply are made of several pieces which you can see from the glueing lines. It is not worth the price because it's made out of scrap.

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This is actually pretty common and is not a sign of bad quality. Cores and veneers often are butt-joined together from narrower pieces of wood. And the rules specifically allow it. Pretty much everyone does it, since veneers used for blades are flitch-cut rather than rotary-cut, and the individual strips are often narrower than a blade. On the Yinhe forum on their web site was a photo (I wish I'd saved them when I could) of the machine they used to join veneers - it would lay a zig-zag bead of hot melt glue across the seam. Blade blanks are assembled in a heated press, using hot melt glues - in the press the bead flattens out and the glue soaks into the wood surfaces.

Iskandar

With all due respect you're wrong, and you don't know what you're talking about Only balsa cores are more routinely made of 2 pieces because it is hard to find boards that are wide enough. In my case the core is made of at least 5 pieces and each of the top veneers is made of 3 different pieces. That is junk. Glue does not substitute the continuity of wood.

Hi,

I've been playing with the XVT Balsa Carbon Hinoki blade, for around 2ish years, now... If I remember correctly, I bought for just under $20, from the official XVT store on AliExpress... I have subsequently, bought another 2 units (for friends), of the same blade, this time, for around $23 ... The quality of all the blades is well above decent .. I mean, I've seen better quality blades, but those cost a lot more .. Didn't notice any multiple pieces, on the balsa core, or any other layer... However, one of the blades, had wings that ran lower than the others, which, for me, is a negative. But, the guy who plays with this blade, does not seem to mind. So, there may be some manufacturing inconsistencies .. All the blades, are <= 69gms.

• The blade is around OFF or depending on the rubbers could be OFF-
• Blocks like a dream, with both, inverted & LP
• Has pretty good shock-absorbing properties.
• Excellent for flat-out hits, but with some technique adjusting is good for top-spin too
• Super light-weight (A big plus-point, for me)
• Pairs-well with Medium-to-hard'ish rubbers
• On the LP-side I found it difficult to control, initially .. Even today, I find it hard to return power-loops (LP-side).. Although, I don't find the same, with the inverted side..
• The blade-head is a tad smaller that average
• The Sweet-spot (in relation to the surface-area) seems just a wee bit smaller than avg.

All-in-all, a complete joy to play with ...

As I said, veneers used in blades are often available in strips narrower than 6 inches because they're flitch cut (like most decorative veneers), as opposed to the rotary cut veneers they use for making plywood. Six inches is fine, but remember that the cross-grained plies have to be as wide as the bat is long, including the tang - that's what, 10 or 11 inches? As I've said, Yinhe posted photos of their veneer joining machine on their website. "Continuity" of wood is overrated - the glue seam you end up with is a few microns thick, and when a veneer is 0.5mm thick the amount of glue doesn't amount to much. The stiffness of the wood isn't affected (the seam is along the grain, after all), besides, there's additional layers of wood with the grain crosswise supporting the layer you're looking at. You might even have a layer of impregnated carbon fiber cloth on one side of the layer. You'd never be able to tell the difference in play.

What really impressed me about Yinhe is that they make their own veneers (and probably supply it to other blade makers who don't). Flitch cutting veneers requires what amounts to a huge plane with a very sharp blade, and they had a photo of the contraption. The wood is cut when soaked, so there was a big cement tank of water underneath.

Iskandar

That logic is flawed. "Flitch cut" just means "lengthwise" or "the length of the log". The width of the veneer is only limited by the diameter of the log. The width of a table tennis blade is around 15cm and most species of trees grow to be more than 15cm in diameter. There is absolutely no problem to find veneers wider than 15cm.

Pardon my complete lack of knowledge on this issue ... How can you make-out that the core, or even the inner layers are made of several pieces of ply glued together... I can understand if you say this about the top-layer - that's obvious ... but, how would you know this about the inner and core layers...

I have X-Ray vision

You can actually see the seams and difference in color on the racket edge. From that I counted that the core is made of at least 5 pieces - that I can see.

Julian

oh .. From the photo, I cannot find any discernible difference... TBH, I would not be able to find one, even if I saw the blade, in-person..

Interesting picture. Core aside, how did you managed such a clean and stright cut of the rubbers?
Yenda

I use an utility knife and follow the contour. It takes 2-3 passes depending on the rubber.

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