OOAK Table Tennis Forum

How does the pips, their alignment, and the sponge effect the spin insentivity of pips out rubber?
Thanks in advance.

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https://thoughtsontabletennis.wordpress ... alignment/

I find those link inspiring,

They contradict yet agree with each other.

Thanks. Do you know if this applies for inverted rubber. As you said, its contradicting, do you know which alignment is for speed and which is for spin?

Thanks for motivating me to sign up to this forum BeGo .

You're right, my article is currently at best misleading/inexact or at worst false .
I'll rewrite and extend it in order to not confuse more people.

To avoid forcing BoBoBo to read it again, I'll state the clearer results of the then new article below.
I'll use the terminology of your linked pips article regarding horizontal/vertical.

In a nutshell:

For pips: horizontal provides more spin than vertical

Reason:

The pips get smashed during impact and then realign, horizontal setup has more realignining pips and thus gets more energy back (considered stroke: chop on topspin)

For inverted rubbers: Horizontal still provides more spin but isn't used.

Reason:

Here the pimples below the topsheet need enough energy to penetrate the sponge. The horizontal alignment has too many pimples per area and hence an incoming force is distributed among many pimples leading to small individuall forces.
In other words, you need an high incoming spin on countertopspin rallies and need to apply a strong spin aswell to get something out of the rubber.
Think of a T25 vs T05 analogy. The T25 a higher spin cap, but to get there you need high amounts of energy. The T05 demands less energy to reach its spin maximum(which is lower than that of the T25). In most cases people prefer using T05 because you can get to its spin maximum more often contrary to the T25 which only shines if you truely power through each ball.

Sorry for the confusion, I hope it's a bit clearer now. The updated article will also contain some extra applications (how to properly remove your rubber, hints to the drop shot).

_________________
My personal blog: https://thoughtsontabletennis.wordpress.com/

Thanks. Based on the way you explain the pips for inverted rubber, do chinese rubber tend to have an horizontal alignment and euro/jap rubber have vertical alignment? How does the length, size/texture, spacing, effect the way they play? Does the sheet of rubber that is attached to the sponge important?

Thanks Yoda!!!

I have been following Your posts for a while,

Yes, I read Kentyu article first, long ago, before reading Yours.

Bobobo question remind me, so I dig in.

I said contradicting before, because I thought

Kentyu said horizontal spinnier
Yoda said vertical spinnier

Yet both agree that vertical better for looping and horizontal better for hitting in inverted.

I guess I am also misintrepreting somewhere.

Thanks for explanation Yoda. Your new explanation explain it clearer.

Background from my experience,

This also explain why I can chop block with more open horizontal motion with Tackiness Chop 2 1.1 mm, around 60 deg.

More than 20 deg open with Pro Xp 1.5 mm, and the ball pop up.

Furthermore, the thicker my Tackiness (1.5 mm, 1.7 mm, 1.9 mm), the less open I can chop before pop up.

Then, just a while ago, I found out that Geospin Tacky and Dr Evil is the only Horizontal pips rubber I have own so far.

And both also quite less prone to pop up.

Suggestion.

Dear Yoda,

If I may suggest, and if You dont mind,

Your article could be expanded to encompass 4 basic stroke,

Block, drive, chop, and loop.

Thanks in advance. Looking forward to it.

Sent from my S5G using Tapatalk

Sorry for the late reply.

@BeGo: Nice ideas, I'll try to include it in the updated article.

@Bobobo: Independently of their origin(europe,asia), most inverted rubbers share the pip orientation. Which one, I'll leave open for you to explore .

The rest of your questions regarding the individual pimples and their effect are a bit hard to explain in one forum post, so I'll leave it open for a future article.

_________________
My personal blog: https://thoughtsontabletennis.wordpress.com/

Hmm. T25 sounds very Chinese.

Iskandar

The Karis cutoffs that I've been waiting for arrived, so I was examining them with a loupe, and since everyone was remarking on how short the pips were and how thin the top layer was, I decided to compare them directly with the other rubber I had with very short pips and thin top layer - KTL Super XT Green Dragon. Actually, the Karis topsheet turns out to be thicker and the pips longer (if smaller). The other thing I noticed was that the pip rows are oriented opposite to each other. The Karis rows were vertical, the KTL ones were horizontal. Which reminded me of this post.

So here I am, examining a few of my huge pile of cutoffs to see if the above statement - "For inverted rubbers: Horizontal still provides more spin but isn't used" is true, mostly true, mostly untrue, etc..

729 Battle II - vertical (this seems to have curled up into a pretzel - the sponge has shrunk something fierce..)
Reactor Corbor - horizontal
Yinhe 9000E (med sponge) - horizontal
Kokutaku 868 - vertical
729 (Batwings) - horizontal
Reactor Ckylin - vertical
Yinhe 9000 (generic red sponge) - vertical (!)
Yinhe 9000D (med sponge) - vertical
Yinhe 9000E (soft sponge) - vertical (!)
DHS H3 - vertical
729 Super FX - horizontal
Palio Emperor Dragon (generic) - vertical
DHS Tin Arc - vertical
999T - vertical
Haifu Whale - vertical
KTL Golden Star - vertical
Andro Rasant - vertical
Big Dipper - vertical
Wildish Dragon - vertical
Reactor Corbor - vertical
Reactor Corbor - vertical

So I'd rate this "mostly true". The exceptions seem to be mostly inexpensive rubbers. 9000 apparently is made in two orientations (!) like Sriver L and Sriver S. I suspect initially 9000E was one and 9000D the other, but over the years they've started just randomly using the topsheets, seeing that it made no difference anyway and no one was ever going to be able to tell.. I'm pretty sure I'm not mistaken, I looked at both sheets of E several times. Same with Corbor, I've got examples with both horizontal and vertical pips orientations. Looked at them several times.

If you plan on doing this too, use a loupe. Much easier to see.

Iskandar