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Where to buy defensive sponges (sponge only)
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Author:  pgpg [ 10 Jan 2019, 02:53 ]
Post subject:  Re: Where to buy defensive sponges (sponge only)

iskandar taib wrote:

...
Wasn't there someone in the US with a HUGE variety of defensive sponge? I remember a company called Air which had a sponge (supposedly more of a foam) with the name "UpUpUp"...

Iskandar


You are probably thinking about colestt.com - I just checked and he does offer 4 sponges, one of which, Air Zero, seems to be of the dampening type aimed at pips people:

Air Zero Sponge

This stuff isn't really so much sponge as it is more of a foam. It's made to absorb the speed of balls, most commonly used with pips. Can be used with inverted topsheets as well. Works well for chopping if you really want to put on the breaks. Topspins are slow and spinny but flat hits feel pretty solid.

Author:  Iguana [ 11 Jan 2019, 23:07 ]
Post subject:  Re: Where to buy defensive sponges (sponge only)

TTDD has a wide variety of sponges:
https://ttdd.eu/belage/einzelne-schwamm ... t_limit=32

The site has a help link for English speaking people in the bottom right corner.

Author:  Dawg15 [ 04 Mar 2023, 05:54 ]
Post subject:  Re: Where to buy defensive sponges (sponge only)

pgpg wrote:
iskandar taib wrote:

...
Wasn't there someone in the US with a HUGE variety of defensive sponge? I remember a company called Air which had a sponge (supposedly more of a foam) with the name "UpUpUp"...

Iskandar


You are probably thinking about colestt.com - I just checked and he does offer 4 sponges, one of which, Air Zero, seems to be of the dampening type aimed at pips people:

Air Zero Sponge

This stuff isn't really so much sponge as it is more of a foam. It's made to absorb the speed of balls, most commonly used with pips. Can be used with inverted topsheets as well. Works well for chopping if you really want to put on the breaks. Topspins are slow and spinny but flat hits feel pretty solid.


I know this is an older thread but wanted to chime in about the zero-air sponge in case anyone else is interested. It is truly as Cole describes in the quote above.

I absolutely love this thing for long pips. The best part is that this "sponge" slows everything down greatly but is still so firm that it doesn't take much away from spin reversal (disruption). I can confirm that with Dornenglanz it works VERY well, and I still get so much reversal from blocks and chop blocks. I have only tried this with long pips so can't comment on how inverted rubbers would play but I would think they would be extremely SLOW, and you would probably need a tacky top sheet to get much spin as I don't think the ball will sink in very much as compared to an actual sponge.

Zero air is firm and when you press it firmly between your fingers it will squeeze together rather slowly and retract back to its normal thickness rather slowly as well. It seems the faster the ball is coming to you the more it slows it down if that makes any sense.

I have tried it in 0.6, 1.0, & 1.2 and have a 1.5 mm sheet I haven't tried yet. Honestly the 0.6 seems to work the best with dornenglanz if playing a blocking and chop blocking and side swiping closer to the table with your LPs game. I've mainly used this under DG but will be experimenting with other LPs i already have in the near future. I plan to try a 0.6 sheet under DTecs soon.

To anyone interested I would definitely recommend starting with 0.6 and use a water-based table tennis glue so it will come off very easily and the glue is easy to remove from the LP if you want to remove it at any point.

I haven't tried zero air for chopping much so can't really comment on that at the moment unfortunately. I definitely recommend giving it a try and they aren't expensive from ColesTT. Based on the description of the Negatron Sponge sold from other places outside the US, it sounds like it would be similar to the Zero Air sponge, but I haven't tried Negatron yet. If anyone has tried Negatron it would be interesting to hear your thoughts/opinions on it and how it compares to zero air if you have tried both.

Can be found here http://www.colestt.com/sponges.php

Author:  merlin el mago [ 04 Mar 2023, 21:34 ]
Post subject:  Re: Where to buy defensive sponges (sponge only)

My point of view is that dampening sponges are not well suited for classic defense long pips.

Author:  dazzler [ 05 Mar 2023, 00:09 ]
Post subject:  Re: Where to buy defensive sponges (sponge only)

https://www.pingpong777.com/yinhe-eva-sponge.html
This works great with D.Tecs, adds control without losing all of the ox feel,it's as near to ox as you'll ever get with sponge,0.3mm and slightly elastic with adhesive already mounted ,it's delicate due to the ultrathin but easy to mount onto the blade,difficult to remove without damaging when removing

Author:  Dawg15 [ 06 Mar 2023, 22:52 ]
Post subject:  Re: Where to buy defensive sponges (sponge only)

merlin el mago wrote:
My point of view is that dampening sponges are not well suited for classic defense long pips.

When I think of a dampening sponge, I think of a very soft sponge that gives easily. To clarify, Zero Air sponge is not like this at all. It is quite stiff with little give but it's not like a typical hard sponge at all. I am finding it very difficult to describe it lol, but I would say it's more similar to a flexible micro-styrofoam than sponge (not the best example as it isn't the same as styrofoam, but more similar than to traditional sponges imo). It's cheap enough that if you are curious about it, you could just give it a try (I recommend 0.6 thickness). I played strictly OX before finding zero air sponge (over 10 years ago) and tried it in an attempt to put on the breaks against very fast loopers and it does that job very well without losing much reversal (traditional dampening sponges are very soft and give easily causing more grip on the ball, therefore you would lose a lot of the reversal when blocking but zero air acts very different). To each their own, it's certainly not for everyone but I recommend trying it to any push-blockers, chop-blockers and side-swipers who play close to the table and need help putting on the brakes. If you are an away from the table chopper, it may be to slow for you. I am currently testing chopping though, so I'll report back if I find it works for this as well.

Author:  igorponger [ 07 Mar 2023, 14:44 ]
Post subject:  Re: Where to buy defensive sponges (sponge only)

dazzler wrote:
https://www.pingpong777.com/yinhe-eva-sponge.html
This works great with D.Tecs, adds control without losing all of the ox feel,it's as near to ox as you'll ever get with sponge,0.3mm and slightly elastic with adhesive already mounted ,it's delicate due to the ultrathin but easy to mount onto the blade,difficult to remove without damaging when removing

Welcome to Hell.

Author:  GeneralSpecific [ 17 Mar 2023, 23:42 ]
Post subject:  Re: Where to buy defensive sponges (sponge only)

There is an Italian company called Spinlab that sells custom sponges.

Here is the Spinlab website's sponge page. Fortunately they have an English option in the top right corner:
https://www.spinlabitalia.com/shop?lang=en&Category=Sponges

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