OOAK Table Tennis Forum

They did it in tennis about 40 years ago and never looked back. Every time I hit the edge of my paddle, I say "Paddle's too small!". It's become a running joke. If I was more skilled, it would happen a lot less often, but seriously, what's the downside? If you had a bigger paddle, made of light materials, you'd catch the edge a lot less often.

Why don't you use an oversized blade?.Sword 309 is a cheap example.

Weight & wind resistance.

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Or the Toxics. Or all those chopping blades out there.

Yeah, you can shave maybe 10-15g off the weight of the blade by using balsa, but you'll gain a bunch because the rubber is bigger, too. The chopping blades can be larger because long pips weigh a lot less. The thing is.. there has been a lot of experimentation with blades over the years, if oversized balsa blades are really better they'd be a lot more common today than they actually are.

Iskandar

A few parallels between TT and other racket sports, and some differences:

Surface air drag of the striking area is negligible with the stringed rackets you find in other racketsports. With the solid playing area we use, drag is proportional to the area of an "object cross section perpendicular to movement", i.e. roughly proportional to the square of the blade width. With the small timeframes we have, and the high racket speed required to drive the ball with sufficient speed, anything that slows us down is a significant disadvantage.

Tennis rackets are heavy at the outset, and don't require the same immediate reaction that TT and e.g. badminton do. Slight increase of required driving momentum is tolerated to achieve the advantages of a larger striking area, which are increased sweet spot and longer stretch zone for the strings to impose spin (you can hit harder and spin stronger).

Badminton rackets stay roughly the same size, because added weight and rotational momentum is significant (rackets are very light at the outset) and the additional string stretch of a larger head does not provide the same advantage when playing a 5g no-spin shuttlecock as it does when playing a 60g spin-dependent tennis ball.

Also, while a larger recket head would reduce the probability of catching the ball on the edge, you increase the probability to hit the table. For the short game, push/flick over the table, and also when looping close to the table, oversize blades may be a slight disadvantage also for this reason. The "tight spots" are not present in tennis to the extent that they are in TT, and even more in squash.

A squash racket suffers a comparable impact to a tennis racket, and has a similar requirement to impose speed and spin on the ball, so increased head size should be a similar advantage. Still, the squash racket heads are smaller. I guess the main reason for this is to facilitate hitting the sweet spot in tight playing situations which are very common in squash, playing along the side walls and to the back, or dropping to the corners in front.

Bottom line:
For each sport, the equipment gradually evolves until it finds its optimal form. Development of new materials may change the path of evolution (as it did in a big way for tennis).

I hear what you're saying, but I can't imagine I'd notice a difference in wind resistance or weight.

In any case, I ordered an oversized blade to try out: https://revspin.net/blade/gambler-oversize-kevlar.html

Larger head size means more rubber weight even if the blade is not that heavy. Defensive players may like larger blades because they dont need ultra fast reaction times but playing close to the table with a 200g bat is a mess.

Yes I think that the extra weight of the rubber can be as much (if not more) compared to the blade. Also the extra weight is closer to the top, so it's going to continue being more top-heavy.

The other issue is that many (ITTF approved) rubbers sheet are made only just big enough for a standard blade, so they may not fit on the larger oversize blades. You can glue it a little higher (leaving a gap above the handle) if it's only the height that's too short. if it's the width, not much you can do about it.

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That and long pips (even the ones with sponge) weight a LOT less than inverted rubber. So an oversized, heavy blade actually comes out more "normal" in weight with a sheet of long pips on one side. Put two sheets of inverted on the same blade and it'd weigh a great deal more than "normal".

Iskandar

All my Cpen blades typically have a slightly larger head from their shakehand counterparts I've noticed.

Sounds like you got what you needed though. The over-sized blade for you probably is the way to go.

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BH - Dawei 388D-a 1.5

152 millimeters by width is the optimum.

Tibhar is the best. Width size 152 mm for most Tibhar blades. You can use it as a makeshift net gauge to verify the present net height. Do love it so much.