OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Even though, in my youth, I played a lot of table tennis, I never really had exposure to the table tennis lexicon. Now that I'm getting back into it and reading a lot of reviews, product descriptions, etc... I had a query.

Now, my understanding of 'tackiness' is that it is the sticky film covering a rubber. This stickiness grips the ball and helps generate spin.

Now, I read a review on a rubber boasting that its spin was not generated by tackiness but by 'mechanical spin'. I assume this means that instead of relying on stickiness to spin the ball it's using some more fundamental characteristic of the rubber...

My questions:

what exactly is mechanical spin?
is tackiness a good or bad thing?
what are the advantages/disadvantages of tackiness versus non-tacky rubbers that also produce spin (such as through mechanical spin - whatever that is)?

Thanks all!

Poor Knight

You may want to read this thread for starters:

http://oneofakindtrading.com.au/forum/v ... 88&start=0

It talks about looping technique for Euro and Chinese rubbers.

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Blade: Dr N. Firewall
BH: Swing Back
FH: Pronte

When the ball hits the rubber, both the rubber surface and the sponge deform due to the spot pressure from the ball. The rubber surface then "wraps" (for lack of better words at the moment) around the ball increasing the surface area that the ball is in contact with. When the bat is moved again, the increased contact surface area allows better grip on the ball, creating the "mechanical" spin.



Depends on your preference and technique.



It's better for slow shots (serve, push, flick) - you can get more spin as the ball doesn't have the momentum/force to penetrate and increase the contact surface area, but for big, hard hits away from the table you can achieve more spin with non-sticky rubbers (the stick can slow spin down, if hand speed is slow)

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Chasse Patate

Hey Silver

that was really clear and helpful mate.
I can feel my understanding expanding already!

Thanks!

Poor Knight

Also, in general, if you play very close to the table, tacky rubbers are more efficient for looping. You need to be able to swing much harder to get some kick out of completely non-tacky euro rubbers, and as a result you have to be further back from the table to compensate with the extra distance that you're going to send the ball from that harder swing.
There are also some rubbers that are "half-tacky," which is exactly what it sounds like: rubbers with a level of tackiness about half that of a regular tacky Chinese rubber. They are usually very versatile, and they make up for not being great at anything except maybe looping by not having any outstanding weaknesses.
In most cases, tacky rubbers are paired with harder sponges, since a soft sponge with too much sink will make the rubber too slow and uncontrollable, while non tacky Euro rubbers have to be paired with a very soft sponge in order to create any appreciable amount of spin.

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Jpen: Galaxy 982 juniper 8mm- Darker Provine Tension-50 2.2 or Tibhar Torpedo Soft 2.2
Shake OFF: Galaxy T8 ST- FH: Darker PT-50 2.2, BH: Juic Varites 1.5
Shake DEF: modified Joo- FH: Reactor Corbor 2.2, BH: Globe 979 1.5

From my POV I would say that loops performed with Tacky rubbers are far more dangerous than the ones done with Mechanical spin rubbers.

Since Silver has already explained the mechanics, I won't go there. The difference to me is the perception of the incoming shot by the opponent.

A power loop from a superfast rubber like Almana will no doubt be extremely fast, but It won't have enough spin to cause you serious trouble. If you can reach the ball you should be fine.

A power loop from a H3 (those who are capable of doing so) will be hell for the opponent to handle. The ball seems to leave the racket at a fairly acceptable speed... But its specialty lies in the fact that when it lands, It will kick off with a insane amount of spin and will wreck havoc with the opponents timing due to this. Reaching the ball isn't enough as you have to anticipate the bounce trajectory and the amount of spin.

Thats my 2 cents

Well put guys. Non tacky rubbers tend to be more faster than tacky rubbers. That factors into it all.

I began with ultra tacky rubbers relying on surface spin from tack. Hard and ultra sticky (729 40H). Then I later tried soft, fast and non tacky rubber (Joola Tango). When you get used to one, it is virtually impossible to adjust to the other (so to speak).

I recomend you try what I call a "neutral" rubber starting out and getting back into it all.

The most nuetral rubbers I know: Cream MRS/Transcend or Higher from 729. Cream rubbers are slightly leaning towards tacky side, Higher to non tacky side. They are the most nuetral rubbers I know. Not hard sponges, not soft - but medium. Neutral.

Then, if you want to move to more tacky or more non-tacky, it won't be such a pain in the proverbial . Some goodly advice if I say so myself .

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Cuts hard, but not short and not down. I'm a cut above that, and not a cut out. I cut back, and am fully cut UP! I am cutting sensational.

Hmmm...I just bought Cream MRS. I thought this was supposed to be tacky....anyway, look forward to playing it when it arrives in the mail.

I had a follow-up question...or two

Now I think I fairly well understand the difference between tacky-spin and mechanical spin.

For a rubber to have mechanical spin, it should be soft (so it can 'cushion' the ball and increase surface area), and aren't softer rubbers supposed to be slower? And yet it's been said that non-tacky rubbers are faster.

Next question, mechanical spin non-tacky rubbers produce spin only when the racquet hits the ball with some force...so in a serve situation, as someone mentioned, it doesn't produce spin (or not much). Isn't this a huge disadvantage? I mean, spin in serve is crucial.

Yes, softer sponge does make things slower, but not considerably so with a non-tacky topsheet, which is usually quite elastic. The sponges are also often quite springy, to add a bit of speed but maintain softness for spin and control. There are some euro rubbers like Bryce that combine a non tacky topsheet with a harder sponge, which leads to very great speed, but low spin. I say just use short pips, but others like it for whatever reason. The reason a non tacky topsheet is much faster than a tacky one is that when the latter grips onto the ball, it can't rebound off without having to pull away some from that stickiness. With non tacky, it can just rebound right off with no backward pull.
Cream MRS is more in the range of "half tacky" as I described in my earlier post.
Yes, some non tacky rubbers can be very weak in serves, which is why Chinese players rarely use them on their serving side. They can still be pretty grippy, though, and can produce decent spin if you give a bit bigger swing while serving.

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Jpen: Galaxy 982 juniper 8mm- Darker Provine Tension-50 2.2 or Tibhar Torpedo Soft 2.2
Shake OFF: Galaxy T8 ST- FH: Darker PT-50 2.2, BH: Juic Varites 1.5
Shake DEF: modified Joo- FH: Reactor Corbor 2.2, BH: Globe 979 1.5

Spin in serving is more about technique than anything else. Take for example Schlager - he has some of the best serves in the business - and uses Bryce Hard.

Either way, serving is all about deception.

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Chasse Patate

damn...there goes my excuse!

A follow-up question if I may.

From the descriptions of tacky spin and mechanical spin, it is clear to me that the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Are there rubbers that do BOTH?

In other words, it has a sticky tacky surface, but at the same time the rubber is soft and allows the ball to sink in and increase the contact surface area. So at low speed you get the tacky speed, at high speed you get both the tacky spin AND the mechanical spin....

Question 2

I've read in a few reviews about 'dwell' time. I assume this means how long the ball stays in contact with the rubber. The longer the dwell time the more creative you can become with the spin.

I assume dwell time increases the more spongy the rubber is - so is dwell time basically a measure of how much mechanical spin there is? Or are there other factors in play that determine the length of 'dwell time' aside from just the softness of the rubber? For instance, do tacky rubbers have longer dwell time because the ball sticks momentarily to the rubber?

LKT XP/XT, 729 Supersoft, Juic 999 Elite Ultima is soft-ish, Bty Tackifire C Soft, etc etc



I guess you could say that dwell time is a measure of the potential mechanical spin quantity, but the topsheet still has some role in the matter.

I feel that the sticking power of sticky rubbers is and should be considered part of dwell, but have been told otherwise on other forums. The only problem is that the stickiness is really non-linear and if you bash a ball hard enough with a hard, sticky rubber the dwell can be almost nothing.

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Chasse Patate

Thank U all for the sticking to the point all about the tackiness and mechanical spin. poor_knight talked about Dwell time and believes that soft rubbers and sponges cause more Dwell time that leads to create more spin. about Dwell time you never mentioned the main role of the blade in creating spin ( flexible blades with more Dwell time)

I don't think it subtracts from the spin, but it might subtract from the speed, since the ball is being "held back" by the tacky surface.

Another thing that increases the spin is the rubber deforming tangential to the ball's surface and then springing back. You can see it in this video (or at least, you can see ESN/Andro technicians using a computer model to show the effect).



(Starting around 2:59.) A lot of people here don't believe rubber can "bounce back" fast enough, they say the impact happens too quickly, but apparently ESN believes in it! I think this happens regardless of whether the rubber is tacky or not, but it happens with a hard impact. With softer ones (e.g. brush loops) you don't get the ball digging into the rubber and deforming it.

Iskandar