OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Found this on that web site:

Would animated GIFs work as avatars here as well?

About Clipperoids - a Clipper is a popular 7 ply blade, it's got a three ply core and four more plies (relatively thin ones) on the outside. The innermost ply has width-wise grain. The actual Clipper has the two outer core plies dyed red, these showed up as two red stripes. (Some people use the presence of these red stripes to allege that some sponsored players are using Clippers with handle pieces taken from other brands of blades..) There are a LOT of blades with similar construction, many are made by Stiga, the difference between the Clipper and these other ones usually being the face plies (usually some expensive wood like Ebony or Rosewood), and these were popular with some of the Chinese players. They even make Clipperoids with carbon and other modifications. Huarite/HRT was in the business of cloning Stiga blades, so they too made a Clipper (some say it was actually better than the Stiga version, I don't know, I gave mine away eventually). The HRT Clipper was even called a "Clipper", and had the red plies. They also made clones of Stiga's Ebony and Rosewood blades, all of these blades being a LOT cheaper, of course. Most of this stuff seems to have disappeared over the last couple of years, though - I don't know if HRT is still in business. Some Chinese blades (mainly from DHS) now sport the two red stripes, don't know how similar they are to the Clipper, though.

Iskandar

Yes, I have noticed few such blades while browsing Aliexpress, two red stripes.
They are just about twice cheaper than actual Clipper.
No cheap cheap like M8

Funny ... for me it's all about the rubbers.
I am using 'slow' chinese taky rubbers (skyline 2, skyline 3 and now hurricane .
But the neo versions are way to bouncy for me. European rubbers almost all are to bouncy for me.
I really had to addapt for changing to hurricane 8 (but the skyline with LP on the other side is not working the same and is way to slow).

I even had a fast blade with those skyline rubbers worked fine for me.

As a beginner, i would start with a ALL/ALL+ frame with control and keep that for a while until you can play a bit better.

_________________
Regards Marc

Setup: Stiga Cybershape Wood / FH:Tibhar Evolution FX-D / BH: S&T Hellfire X 0x

Yes, rubbers seem more important to me as well so far, but I will give this benefit of the doubt as my experience is not wide enough yet.
But I believe a beginner should not start with tacky rubbers, particularly vs more experienced players.
Spin will break their souls

Consider that you've tried ONE rubber thus far... Get a sheet of Ckylin, it'll confirm your opinion at least...

Incidentally, you'll find there's less difference between tacky and non-tacky rubbers than you'd think. You're probably thinking tacky rubbers produce more spin as well as react more to spin than non-tacky rubbers. And you'd probably find it puzzling that the rubbers that, in the opinion of quite a few people, supposedly produce the MOST spin (as well as react most to spin) are certain non-tacky ones like Baracuda, Rakza 7 and Tenergy 05. Lack of tack doesn't mean lack of grip.

Iskandar

Nope, I think nothing of the sort and unlikely to find it puzzling

What I think is.... that tackiness is the cheap way to produce a reasonable throw angle or spin.
So next on my list are decidedly non-tacky rubbers.... Focus Snipe 3, AK47...