OOAK Table Tennis Forum

OK, so I've got a chinese penhold blade coming (a 729 Super-1). This is going to be a loaner bat (one of the players who plays in the department "basement" plays penhold and so far she's been using one of the loaner shakehands rackets). Since no one here plays reverse backhand I plan to assemble this the traditional way - one sheet of rubber on the front side, paint sheet on the back. The paint sheet will be vinyl decal material.

Now, I notice that a couple of the blades I'd bought in the past - in particular my KTL Instinct - have the corners relieved on the blade where the handle meets the blade, on one side. This mystified me, until I realized that it was for penhold use (these were shakehands blades, so they must been doing that to ALL blades as a standard manufacturing step, for some reason). So I plan to do the same for this penhold blade. I'll just copy what was done on the Instinct - my Dremel tool will make short work of this, if it hasn't been done already.

I notice that the rubber is usually glued on so that there's a gap between the edge of the rubber and the top of the handle. How big should this gap be? The width of the tip of the index finger? I suppose players like to grip wood, not rubber. And the paint sheet - shoud this go all the way to the handle? (No, I don't think it really matters, but then again why do it the "wrong" way when I can ask?)

Lastly - if I ever decide to assemble a blade with a reverse rubber - how far up the blade should this rubber go? All the way to the handle, or should there be a gap? I'd assume no twiddling, I suppose..

Iskandar

I leave about 15 mm for the thumb and index finger to rest on.

I did some measurement on my pre-made bats:
-DHS 6006: 14 mm
-Double Fish (that I got in the early 1990's): 14 mm

BTY Senkoh 5 (not a CPen, but a "Kpen"), not a pre-made, but it has cork for the thumb and index finger: 20 mm of cork, much more than most would need.

BH: your preference.

I suppose there are no hard and fast rules, the main considerations being the comfort of the player's finger and weight of the setup (probably more relevant for rpb)

I leave about 10-12mm gap for forehand. My spare blades are all shakehand (because I'm the only penhold player) and I leave a minimal gap so I can still change rubbers between the blades when I want to.

The backhand usually goes all the way to the top. I used to put pimpled rubber before trying to learn rpb so that may be an option if you have spare pimple rubbers lying around.

Not bad looking, if I say so myself! Played with it some, too. Now my arm hurts - I forgot how much arm-twisting you have to do to get that backhand block or drive. Forehand drives and flat hits are like a dream. You can just whack the heck out of the ball and it doesn't miss. That "paint sheet" is what I described here:

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=26603

Rubber is the "heavy" 69g Corbor. viewtopic.php?f=44&p=285683#p285609

The person I assembled it for (the only one who plays penhold in the department's basement, er, lobby) didn't like it, though, said it was too light and went back to the prebuilt Butterfly Addoy!


Iskandar



Bare blade:

Incidentally, a couple years or so ago I sold this bat to someone who attends our weekend social doubles - and he uses the "paint" side quite often these says, confounding most of the others. It give pretty good control and massive spin reversal. Whenever he uses it the return shot is almost always missed because the other players haven't figured out spin reversal yet. It even gets me about half the time. He hasn't started serving with it yet.. Lots of complaints about "illegal"..

Iskandar

Yeah, I played a penhold player last night who I have played before, with black paint on his backhand. Last night he used it once in 3 games. I told him last time we played that it wasn't legal to hit a shot with it.

_________________
Retriever (sometimes golden, but often leaden)
Moderator, Inverted Retriever Technique sub-forum - http://ooakforum.com/viewforum.php?f=74

It used to be common back when it WAS legal. In the old days you didn't even have to paint the blade on the non-covered side. In Social Doubles there's a lot of complaining about it but no one really cares.. The complaining is from the opposing side, I've never seen his doubles partner (whoever it is at the time) complain about it.

I guess the only useful observation here is that the vinyl "carbon" decal seems to give pretty good control. Slows the bare blade down a little, but still produces a lot of spin reversal.

Iskandar