OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Everyone pretends like they understand the difference. Do they really ?

You hear that Japanese top-sheets are more of a grippy type but Chinese top-sheets more of a sticky type.

I can somewhat see what sticky means when you look at runners like TackSpeed 2000 pr 999 but I really do not see what "grippy" means.

Butterfly Tackiness for example is a sticky rubber . is it not ?

TSP 730 (Japanese) for example used to be one of the stickiest rubbers

Conversely, what are some grippy Chinese rubbers

I am not talking about spin generated by sponge or spong regluing .

Most top non-Chinese professional who use Japanese , I believe use grippy rubbers.

Chinese pros seem to use sticky rubbers (of course in addition to creating massive reglued (illegal ?!?!) sponge spin on top of that)

no, it's actually grippy; but older users say that it used to be sticky/tacky at the beginning



when you look at current chinese rubbers production, i believe most is grippy and slightly tacky - rubbers which cannot hold ball longer than one second, but still hold it fraction of time, opposite to grippy topsheets which cannot hold ball at all



yes



sometimes they combine one tacky with one grippy rubber (tenergy mostly)

There are still lots of Chinese rubbers that are sticky

If the grippy topsheets cannot hold the ball at all, then why the heck would anyone call it "grippy" ? Where does the gripping come from then and hence what does 'gripping" mean in this context ? (Again do not confuse with dwell time or include regluing or any sponge effects , we ar talking about only top-sheets)

In my view, tacky means sticky, meaning it can actually hold the ball. Grippy just refers to a very high level of friction, so when you brush the ball it will not slip but grip and spin the ball.

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Tacky (sticky) rubbers are just that, sticky. You can pick ball up using rubber, with ball hanging upside down from rubber. Grippy rubbers are not sticky. They grip the ball (ball sinks into rubber) creating spin. imo the more it sinks in the more spin is possible with grippy rubber. If you try to brush loop (barely brushing the ball) it can just skim across grippy rubber (if ball doesn't sink into topsheet) and not go anywhere (or not far), but with a tacky rubber the tack will grab it when brushing much easier. Tacky rubbers are much more sensitive to incoming spin, so can be harder to control if not used to this.

I use Butterfly Tackiness Chop in black and it is slightly tacky. It will pick up ball for a second before ball falls. I think the tack is fairly close to regular Palio cj8000 (at least the sheets I have seem about the same). Slightly tacky is a nice middle ground imo (with soft sponge) .

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Donic Defplay Senso | Yasaka Mark V 2.0 | SL Dornenglanz OX

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interesting, when i used tackiness chop some 6-7 yrs ago, it wasn't tacky at all, only grippy, soft and slow as hell...there was not much difference in topsheet between tackiness drive and soft, but chop was spinnier because it was slower, with longer dwell time. obviously some things change over time

yes, grippy refers to friction. rubber needs not be sticky at all to have high friction

and i also like slightly tacky too tacky, well, i tried it, but it ruins my counterdriving style of game

Old post apparently... just wanted to say i have a sheet of Tackiness chop from 1993 and its still sticky as can be... SO yes the old version was indeed very very tacky....they changed the surface to a grippy one at some point ( i quit playing for a couple decades) and its just not the same...

Welcone RG, thanks for the input on your old sheet of tackiness chop. I haven't played tackiness for a while but it was a favorite of mine for a long time. Off topic but I still prefer slowish (new word ) rubbers in my game unless playing high speed offensive players. Honestly, one of my best performing games (imo) was with Tenergy 05 but can only perform far off the table with it. Anything up close I couldn't control well. Practice makes perfect I guess.

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"Success is on the same road as failure; success is just a little farther down the road."

Donic Defplay Senso | Yasaka Mark V 2.0 | SL Dornenglanz OX

Donic Defplay Senso | Butterfly Sriver | Testing

If you clean tacky chop the tack returns.The old version was slower than tc 21,not sure if the tack was different, more likely the sponge was made faster for 40 mm ball

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Tsp Black Balsa 3.0 Tenergy 05 1.9 388d ox black

If it was kept (for 10 years ) with a plastic sheet tightly attached, it will likely be tacky as well. Plastic seems to have the ability to increase the tack on a rubber.

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Recent Articles: Butterfly Tenergy Alternatives | Tenergy Rubbers Compared | Re-Impact User Guide

First Butterfly sheet I ever bought was Tackiness Chop 2.0mm, around 1980. When it was nice and clean, it would definitely pick up the ball and hold it for a fairly long time. Note the ball was 38mm and weighed less than current balls do. The first Chinese rubber I bought was a sheet of that plum-colored 729, that was tacky too, but it wouldn't hold the ball for anything near that long. It WAS sticky, and you didn't have to press the ball into the topsheet to get it to stick to the ball as you had to with Tackiness Chop. Again, to get the ball to hold it had to be a used ball (no dust) and the rubber had to be just cleaned. Back then everyone was marveling at it, it would be ultra-spinny and, due to the hard sponge, ultra-fast - no good for beginners... Yeah, right...

Where does the tack on the Chinese rubber come from? I think it's an adhesive applied to the topsheet by way of that "protector sheet" it came with. Note some rubbers (e.g. Sanwei A+) come in "tacky" and "non-tacky" versions, even though the rubber only appears once in the LARC, and both versions have the same number. The only way this can be legal is if the tackiness is some sort of post-production treatment applied at the factory.

Grippy? What rubber sheet do you know of (other than pips-out and anti) that is NOT grippy?? I think it's a matter of degree - there definitely are ultra-grippy sheets, and some that are less so.

As far as tacky goes.. there isn't ANY rubber that's tackier than "DHS Hurricane 4".



(though H8 is supposedly at least as tacky..)

Iskandar

I don't beleive that... if that was the case, there's no way you could keep it tacky.


Or they don't care about the legality and simply make 2 versions because there is a demand. I don't think within China many care about legality and anything goes. Hookshot tells us speedglue is still very common.

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Recent Articles: Butterfly Tenergy Alternatives | Tenergy Rubbers Compared | Re-Impact User Guide

The fact that the tackiness eventually (quite quickly in many cases) goes away supports my theory. If the tackiness is caused by something innate in the material of the topsheet it should last pretty much forever and can be restored by just cleaning the rubber. I've been able to keep rubbers tacky for months, but they never get as tacky as they were when unpacked.

Iskandar

The tack comes from tackifiers in the rubber mix,I think water or some cleaning products r.e spinmax will reactivate the tack when it fades

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Tsp Black Balsa 3.0 Tenergy 05 1.9 388d ox black

I haves used spinmax on an old tacky rubber, it could improve the situation a bit, but could never return to the original status.

I think the tackiness is from the rubber itself, however after it have been opened, due to oxidization, the tackiness will fade out gradually... the spinmax just help to reverse or slowdown the oxidization.

I am uncertain the truth, but this is what I think by experience.

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