OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Hi all,
I'm thinking ahead for a school project for my STEM subject (Science, technology, engineering & mathematics) for next semester's project. I'm planning something along the lines of 3D printing a blade (at least 85% wood, of course!), and I'm wanting to keep the project as low-budget as possible. So, the question is, what is the cheapest table tennis rubber I can get? I'm not too fussed about playing characteristics (a beginner rubber is fine (hopefully nothing too dead, though!), but I'm challenging myself to make a 2-speed blade, which means I'm looking for a cheap inverted, and a cheap pimples. I really don't care what type of pimples (I'm not going to use it for competition), but probably long or medium would be best. It doesn't really even matter if the rubbers are ITTF legal or not. I'm looking to spend less than $10-15 all up (including postage to Australia), so if anyone has any suggestions, that would be great!
Cheers,
Musicfreak/Joe.

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Main Setups: Giant Dragon Kris II, DHS H3 Neo, Yasaka Anti Power or Giant Dragon Kris II, DHS H3 Neo, Dr Neubauer Bison
Backups: Yinhe N-9, DHS Hurricane 3 Provincial (Blue Sponge, no. 22), Yasaka Anti Power or Yinhe N-9, DHS Hurricane 3 Neo, Butterfly Super Anti

Help me find a new blade please!

Only self-proclaimed unofficial spin doctor of OOAK. Call me Joe or musicfreak
The author of How Spin Works. The Official How Spin Works Thread. How Spin Works goes to India! See my 3D Printed/Laser Cut blade experiment blog.

You came to the right place...

viewtopic.php?f=44&t=25211

The cheapest rubbers would be Reactor Corbor, Kokutaku 868, maybe plain old 729 (comes in bulk or in various packaging). How many sheets do you need? If it's in the region of 100-200 sheets, you can get really good prices if you look on alibaba.com (rather than aliexpress.com) - maybe $2-3 a sheet. I've seen Corbor as cheap as $3.50 a sheet on AliExpress.

How the heck do you 3D-print a wood blade? (There is "wood" 3D filament but I don't think it's actual wood.)

Oh wait - you want pips out?? There's 388D (-1 or -2 can't remember which) on sale here and there - I've seen it for as little as $4 a sheet. OX of course.

Iskandar

I could send you some rubbers for free... do they need to be absolutely new?

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Yasaka Sweden Classic | 802 OX | C8 OX
Check out my blog - LordCope's Latest Learning Log - 10+ years of accumulate mistakes!

Iskandar: I only need one inverted and one pips-out. I can print the wooden blade out using the 3-d router. Does the same job with the same software, but it's cheaper (and within the rules!)

LordCope: Thank you, sir! Are you sure about it - I thought shipping was fairly pricey from UK to Aus? I don't need new rubbers - old ones are fine; age doesn't really matter, it's only really to play around with.

_________________
Main Setups: Giant Dragon Kris II, DHS H3 Neo, Yasaka Anti Power or Giant Dragon Kris II, DHS H3 Neo, Dr Neubauer Bison
Backups: Yinhe N-9, DHS Hurricane 3 Provincial (Blue Sponge, no. 22), Yasaka Anti Power or Yinhe N-9, DHS Hurricane 3 Neo, Butterfly Super Anti

Help me find a new blade please!

Only self-proclaimed unofficial spin doctor of OOAK. Call me Joe or musicfreak
The author of How Spin Works. The Official How Spin Works Thread. How Spin Works goes to India! See my 3D Printed/Laser Cut blade experiment blog.

Ah.. that's not actual "3D printing", then (or more specifically, it's not "additive manufacturing"). True, it is a CNC process.

Iskandar

Of course.

I've got a bunch of Palio inverted rubbers, you're welcome to one of them.

On the SP side, I've got some 'banned' SPs that are of no use to me...

Just drop me a PM with your address, and I'll sort it out.

_________________
Yasaka Sweden Classic | 802 OX | C8 OX
Check out my blog - LordCope's Latest Learning Log - 10+ years of accumulate mistakes!

I was hoping he'd have some funky reconstituted wood/powder bed process

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Chasse Patate

Ok, Iskandar, you're technically right...

_________________
Main Setups: Giant Dragon Kris II, DHS H3 Neo, Yasaka Anti Power or Giant Dragon Kris II, DHS H3 Neo, Dr Neubauer Bison
Backups: Yinhe N-9, DHS Hurricane 3 Provincial (Blue Sponge, no. 22), Yasaka Anti Power or Yinhe N-9, DHS Hurricane 3 Neo, Butterfly Super Anti

Help me find a new blade please!

Only self-proclaimed unofficial spin doctor of OOAK. Call me Joe or musicfreak
The author of How Spin Works. The Official How Spin Works Thread. How Spin Works goes to India! See my 3D Printed/Laser Cut blade experiment blog.

Oh man.. I read this right before I left work and thought about on the way home. Now I can't stop thinking about it!

Think of all the fun you could have with this project if you really did print it on a 3D printer out of ABS. This assumes you have access to a printer with a big enough bed, of course. If I were doing it I'd print the handle pieces separately to avoid having to print the scaffolding under the lower face of the blade (they'd snap on, and I'd be able to use the same pieces on different blades). The blade would be hollow, of course - there would be a top and bottom face and a core in the middle. The core would probably be a honeycomb pattern to begin with, you could experiment with different sizes of cell and different wall thicknesses (see how thin you can print it, and how thin would stand up to use). Later you could use other patterns - maybe straight webs running down the handle and then "spraying" outwards when it gets to the blade. You could also experiment with different face thicknesses - how thin would be too thin? Eggshell thin? Paper thin? Or would it have to be at least 0.5mm? And blade thickness as well - how does a 5mm blade compare to a 10mm blade?

Since you know (or can look up) the properties (density, specific flexural modulus, specific tensile and compressional strength) you could probably do engineering studies on proposed blades before actually printing them. And then you can mount rubber on them to see how they play.

Who cares about the ITTF, or whether these things would be tournament legal! Several companies make molded plastic bats - Stiga, Sanwei and Double Fish among them. They claim they're for "outdoor use".

Come to think of it.. if I were an engineering professor at a university I could milk this for YEARS - get groups of students to design and print different blades out of ABS, and to do the structural studies/predictions on them as class assignments! (I do teach, but not engineering.. )

Iskandar

Could this be a TT revolution and change TT forever?

It if is, then I'm getting straight A's for STEM!

_________________
Main Setups: Giant Dragon Kris II, DHS H3 Neo, Yasaka Anti Power or Giant Dragon Kris II, DHS H3 Neo, Dr Neubauer Bison
Backups: Yinhe N-9, DHS Hurricane 3 Provincial (Blue Sponge, no. 22), Yasaka Anti Power or Yinhe N-9, DHS Hurricane 3 Neo, Butterfly Super Anti

Help me find a new blade please!

Only self-proclaimed unofficial spin doctor of OOAK. Call me Joe or musicfreak
The author of How Spin Works. The Official How Spin Works Thread. How Spin Works goes to India! See my 3D Printed/Laser Cut blade experiment blog.

Naah.. just a fun and cool shop project...

Iskandar

That burst my bubble for a second, but at least I'm not the only one who finds it interesting!

_________________
Main Setups: Giant Dragon Kris II, DHS H3 Neo, Yasaka Anti Power or Giant Dragon Kris II, DHS H3 Neo, Dr Neubauer Bison
Backups: Yinhe N-9, DHS Hurricane 3 Provincial (Blue Sponge, no. 22), Yasaka Anti Power or Yinhe N-9, DHS Hurricane 3 Neo, Butterfly Super Anti

Help me find a new blade please!

Only self-proclaimed unofficial spin doctor of OOAK. Call me Joe or musicfreak
The author of How Spin Works. The Official How Spin Works Thread. How Spin Works goes to India! See my 3D Printed/Laser Cut blade experiment blog.

great project!

I may mistaken, but afaik no rule against wood "pulp". It only say must be natural wood.

(and we have bamboo and cork, which essentially grass and bark)

Sent from my T1X Plus using Tapatalk

Apparently chipboard (and other re-constituted wood) isn't allowed, though. Might be another interesting experiment however... Larry Hodges has been known to play with a clipboard.

I found some cheap bamboo cutting boards at Daiso - about 6mm thick. Big enough to cut a blade, but I did some calculations and figured out a blade would weigh about 100 grams...

Iskandar