OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Oh... Forgot.

Reactor Ckylin, pale blue sponge
red med soft 59.57g 167x165mm 0.216g/cm^2

Reactor Ckylin Big pore
black med hard 69.52g 168x165mm 0.251g/cm^2
red med soft 63.9g 167x167mm 0.229g/cm^2

The black big pore sheet is HEAVY. Shades of Corbor. There the sheets were either around 59 grams or around 70 grams. Bimodal!

Iskandar

Well, I've played a little tiny bit with the Big Pore Ckylin. On a N11 it's just way SLOW. They say it should be used with a Carbon blade, I've mounted it on a cheap one I bought recently, will try hitting around a little more with it. It still seems quite slow. Maybe next week I'll Falco or Seamoon the heck out of it and see what happens.

I've also just mounted a sheet of Andro Rasant Turbo on one N11, that one has the cheaper small-pore Ckylin on the backhand side. I've got that one stewing in Wendy's right now, let's see if it's ready to mount tomorrow afternoon. If I don't like it I'll stick a sheet of Mercury II or 9000 on the backhand - this is my "second chance" for ESN Tensors - my first experience, about a year ago, was with the ordinary Rasant:

viewtopic.php?f=44&t=25211&start=240#p293715

and it was quite disappointing. Not that it was bad, it's just that I couldn't really tell it apart from Chinese rubber, nor did it make me play any better.

This sheet of Rasant Turbo was bought at the WTTC a few months back. Took it out of the bag, weighed it.. immediately I see a problem:

Andro Rasant Turbo
black 2.1mm 72.67g 170x171mm 0.250g/cm^2

Whoa.. that's heavy. As bad as Venus II. A 200 sq. cm piece would weigh 50 grams. In contrast, Rasant:

Andro Rasant
black 2.1mm 68.9g 169x170mm 0.240g/cm^2

The 200 sq. cm cut piece would weigh 2g less.

Anyhow.. some photos:





As usual, nice packaging (it better be, at that price..). Nice inside graphics, the "protector paper" has a bigger cutout than the cardboard cover does.







Sort of largish pores, but not as large as the regular Rasant (below). Green, of course. Smell is different from the usual Chinese rubber smell (which is like tires).





We'll see how it plays. I really don't expect too much.

Iskandar

OK.. I played about a half dozen games with the new combo - this was N11 #1 with Rasant Turbo (black) on one side and Reactor Ckylin (pale blue sponge) red on the other.

Some impressions on the Rasant Turbo. I've been playing with N11 with Hurricane III on both sides for the last 2-3 months, gotten fairly used to it. H3 is, as expected, fairly slow, lots of control over the table, but it does seem to take some effort to loop and hit with it. I've tried it both boosted and unboosted - boosting seems to last an inordinately short amount of time, 2 weeks or so (unlike with other Chinese rubber). It shrinks on the blade and gets a little slower. So my looping had deteriorated somewhat compared to what I was doing before (I had various other rubbers on the rackets - Big Dipper for instance). I wasn't able to do opening loops against backspin - unless I hit it just right the ball would end up in the net or way over the end of the table. The Rasant Turbo is a major improvement here - it makes looping easier, especially opening loops against backspin (in terms of the table tennis played at this level it's mainly against serves). Hitting was about the same, but it also (surprise) gave very good control when pushing short.

I guess you know what I've written in the past about my experience with Tensors vs. Chinese (I don't see all that much of a difference, other than the Tensors feel softer). I'll have to say, for Rasant Turbo, there IS a difference - it feels softer, but for some reason, it also helps with the looping. I was making shots I've not been confident of trying for a while. Still, the difference isn't dramatic - there's no sudden 100% increase in the amount of spin I can produce with serves, for instance. My loops might be somewhat spinnier but it's not by a huge amount. Touch is very good, even though this is one of the harder Tensors (I deliberately chose a hard one just to see what the hype was all about..).

Now... the Ckylin. This is the cheaper version with the pale blue, tiny-pore paholyothin, er, pthalocyanine-dyed sponge. Not the one that claims to be "Chinese Blue Fire". I had it mounted before, and it was just way too slow to use. So I Wendy'ed it, and put it back on. It's still quite slow. When you bounce a ball on the racket face, it behaves like H3 - the ball dies after 2-3 bounces. People say this is because H3 is tacky - I don't think this is the case, since it's still doing it though my sheets of H3 have long since become scratched and non-tacky. AND Ckylin is definitely non-tacky. Even with the Wendy it still bounces the ball like that. With H3, if you lay into the ball you do get some speed, especially when looping. With Ckylin? The same stroke puts the ball into the net, guaranteed. I was able to modify the stroke (more upwards, with a heavier contact) to get the ball over the net, but you lose a fair amount of power.

Remember what I said about it being hard to tell the difference between rubbers, that the difference is usually subtle? Ckylin is a huge exception, perhaps the first one I've come across. Not even 999T is this slow. I did try chopping with it, it IS good for that. And then I tried it on the backhand. Hmmmm!!!! Hey, it's not too bad, in fact I was able to control my backhand counterdrives better and pushing short was easy. So I'm giving it another chance - I'll have to try some backhand counterdrive drills to see if I really like it or not. Otherwise it's coming off and I'll put a sheet of 9000 on (have some of that generic stuff on order - couldn't resist, $4.75 a sheet!).

Iskandar

Thanks and a big for @Iskandar.

You helped me a lot with my decision on whether or not returning to the table would be useful. Moving to another country, a job with varying shifts from one day to another and extra-shifts in case of illnesses of colleagues and additionally the insane speed-glueing-mania in company with price-development (especially Butterfly) did put my enthousiasm for table-tennis to rest.

Now there's some glimpse of hope, albeit the shift into boosting instead of VOC-glueing feeds my scepticism. I don't want to boost nor fresh-glue and I also don't want to spend $30+ on a single sheet of rubber again, therefore I will switch my (now 10+ year old) equipment with China-made stuff.

I don't see me in high-gear but maybe I get the chance to trim wings of some material-boosting dandy every now and then...

_________________
Red is blogging here >> http://ooakforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=30522

There's no real need to boost unless you want to do it (in my case out of curiosity - I've bought and tried most of what's available). It really helps with the really slow rubbers (H3), but you don't need to use them if you don't want to. It is a lot less unpleasant than speed glue, you only need to do it once every month or so. The REAL use for it is restoring old sheets of Tensors, where the factory boosting has worn off. These are expensive rubbers, though.

Iskandar

I did understand that some rubbers needed a boost in order to get them glued on the blade properly. No problem, I got some paraffine and also a waxed one (Haifu replacement? I will report on this one once the order is in).
I've ordered for FH CJ8000 Biotech 36° (may be too soft for my intentions) and LKT Rapid Speed, for BH Palio WP1013, Kokutaku 110, Friendship 563-1. It should give enough gears for a close to the table, FH oriented offensive and deceptive setup.

_________________
Red is blogging here >> http://ooakforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=30522

Actually, it was adhesion that was the problem - the rubbers that "require boosting" so that they can be glued properly are the rubbers that come with a significant amount of "dish" out of the packet - the rubber curls towards the sponge. When the rubber is curled like that it's difficult to get it on the blade properly, and you're compressing the topsheet when you do, which is the opposite of what you want (in the old speedglue days people would glue the rubber on the blade while it was domed - rubber curling towards the topsheet - and forcing it flat would STRETCH the topsheet). In one really extreme case I ended up with a crease in the topsheet! The boosting expands the sponge so makes it flatter.

Sad to say, the worst offenders here are (or were) Palio CJ8000 and Yasaka ZAP (which is made by Palio). Some sheets were worse than others. I've got several sheets I'll probably never use because of this.

To tell the truth, it's often difficult to tell one sheet of rubber from another. If you're doing sheet vs. sheet comparisons, the differences are so subtle that you actually have to stop, concentrate and think. Which is why I don't think it matters very much which sheets you buy, especially when it comes to Chinese inverted rubber. There are a few to avoid, of course (see above), most of the problems are due to weight and sometimes QC.

Iskandar

Paraffin oil really works wonders on CJ8000, and for my taste, regular GP sponge responds to it even better than Biotech one. The boosting effect of PO lasts for 6 months at least for GP sponge (although wearing off a bit after 2-3 weeks), which actually means you can just boost it once before glueing and then put a new sheet after some time - you can get a pair of rubbers for $12,50 shipped on eBay. Still, I have to say I wouldn't go softer than 38-41 deg for FH, probably 40-42 or 42-44 if you have more of a Chinese style stroke (note that the sponge will soften quite a bit after PO application). You should also boost the topsheet after getting dome on the sponge until the rubber comes flat - that way you are getting a pretty good Jap style rubber (keep coming back to CJ8000 38-41 boosted on my BH for more than 2 years now ).

I've had 40° Japanese sponge (red) on CJ8000 back in the days, and Yasaka Do even a while longer ago. I also preferred the regular Mark V and Tibhar Rapid above Sriver in the 90s (the shops within range did offer only a break-down of products unless someone explicitly asked for something different and the distributor was then able/willing to deliver). Softness of this CJ8000 Biotech (Eacheng $6.50) irritates me, too. I guess I'll side it to Kokutaku 110 and use LKT Rapid Speed with 563-1 on another blade.

_________________
Red is blogging here >> http://ooakforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=30522

Yup, Yinhe's bottom-of-the-line rubber, the opposite of Moon Speed and Sun Pro and Big Dipper. Yinhe sells it as a "control rubber" - supposedly slower than others in its lineup. Some time ago Eacheng was selling these weird looking sheets that looked like this:



These were packed, two sheets to a clear vacuum bag, and sold for $9.99 for two sheets. I speculate they were leftovers from Yinhe's premade bat assembly line. Why the funny shape? Probably to save materials - there were photos on Yinhe's web site some time back of their rubber factory. There was an ageing room, where stacks of sponge were allowed to sit and age after they come out of the vulcanizing mold. According to the text sponge shrinks as it ages, and should be allowed to stop shrinking before being assembled into a sandwich. Well, there were stacks of a pale tan sponge the exact same shape as this. They can't, of course, sell retail sheets of this shape, but for premades.. why not? Less material waste.

Anyhow... I really liked this rubber, especially on the backhand. Good control, but I was able to hit pretty hard with it. If I flipped it over to the forehand I could loop pretty well with it, too. One red sheet I used for several months, became really scarred up and grotty, but it still played nice.

Forward to the present. Notice that in Yinhe's catalog, they have two types of 9000 listed - D and E. No idea what the difference was - there's a blurb in the Yinhe catalog but it's in Chinese. The blurb on the back of the packs (both D and E) also seems to be the same and is parroted on Eacheng:



Based on these pictures from Eacheng:





I thought the difference was that D had the "Moxa" sticker (and therefore the Moxa sponge) while E did not. Well, THAT theory went quickly down the drain when the sheet of "E" I ordered came in:



Yup, E has Moxa too!!

Anyhow... Moxa or not, E comes in two sponge hardnesses - as always ASK Eacheng BEFORE YOU ORDER, some rubber has hardness options, some does not. In this case, Soft and Medium. I ordered a sheet of medium, and a sheet of soft from another dealer. I've also got a sheet of D coming.

On top of this - Eacheng is now selling a two-fer-one pack = again! - prices vary from $9.50 (on ebay a month ago) to $14 a pair of sheets (all from Eacheng!). I ordered a pair of sheets of these as well.

Sponge color - the medium "E" is a very pale cream/tan (much like the odd sheets I bought in the past), and has printing on it (unlike the odd sheets I bought in the past). The soft "E" has a slightly darker cream sponge. I think this is similar to the "Moxa" sponge you get with Mercury II. The new "two-fer" sheets? They're an orangey red!! (The old ones were cream.) Even more confusing - my Yinhe 06B premade (which has 9000 rubber on it) has ORANGE sponge!! Why all the variation? I suspect that, for their premade bat line (and consequently, the surplus generic sheets), Yinhe doesn't think too much about what sponge they use behind the topsheet. If they've got excess black sponge from the Apollo III line, they'll use that. If there's excess Max Tense orange sponge from the Venus line, they'll use that. Or blue God's Crossbow Sponge - some of this probably makes its way into premade rackets as well, if they made too much of it. For their retail sheets of 9000E, that's different - it'll always be that cream colored Moxa sponge. (Can't wait to see what color the 9000D sponge is... )





OK, here is where it gets interesting. Weights.

Yinhe 9000# (cut oval generic packaging)
red 51.47g 0.225g/cm^2
black 49.9g

Yinhe 9000 (rectangular generic pack)
red (red sponge) 61.95g 165x168mm 0.227g/cm^2
black (red sponge) 57.5g 165x170mm 0.208g/cm^2

Yinhe 9000E
red medium sponge 69.98g 166x166mm 0.258g/cm^2
red soft sponge 65.55g 165.5x166.6mm 0.242g/cm^2

Upshot. That sheet of medium 9000E is really porky!!! It also had a fair amount of dish (though not excessive), the first time I've seen it in a Yinhe rubber. Perhaps the sponge hadn't finished shrinking yet! I had this sheet on a bat last week, and eventually took it off - it might go on a lighter blade later. The soft sponge (this was from a different vendor, not Eacheng) is significantly lighter (have not tried it yet). But the "generic" 9000 - it's a lot lighter. A full eight grams lighter than the 9000E medium. I have the red sheet on a N11 and the black sheet on a M8. I played with both over the weekend, very nice!

Why the huge difference in weights? Based on weighing a lot of rubber - I think this is "normal". I've seen large weight differences in other rubbers, too. Maybe those 72 gram sheets of Venus II, that 78 gram (!) sheet of Haifu Whale and that 77 gram sheet of Dawei 2008 SPXL were aberrations rather than the norm. One hopes so...

A sheet of D will be arriving in a couple weeks, I'll post more.

Iskandar

While I'll be haunting this post for few days im guessing to rad of all the reviews you've written. Could you possibily give me your top 5 among all that you've tried among this training rubbers?

More data. The 9000D (medium sponge) arrived today. Looks exactly the same as the 9000E (cream sponge), just that the printing in the back of the sponge says "9000D" instead. Grrrr... I'll bet it's exactly the same, too, and no one would be able to tell the difference.

This sheet was pretty heavy, too - even heavier than the 9000E medium:

Yinhe 9000D
red medium sponge 71.76g 165.5x165mm 0.267 g/cm^2

Iskandar

Oh boy. I think, first, I'll list down all the rubbers I've ever weighed, and this will allow me to figure out what I HAVE used over the two years and a half. Too lazy to type in the units, so on each line it's grams, followed by width (mm), height (mm) and areal density (g per sq. cm). To get an approximate cut weight, multiply the last by 200 (most "normal" blades are 200 sq. cm rubber area).

729 Batwings
red 42 deg 2.2mm 65.1 165 164 0.241
black 42 deg 2.2mm 63.4 164 164 0.236
red 44 deg 2.0mm 62.57 164 165 0.231
black 44 deg 2.0mm 61.8 165 166 0.226

729 XL
red (FX topsheet red sponge) 62.37 166 164 0.229
red (FX topsheet red sponge) 60 167 165 0.218
black 60.69 163 165 0.226
black (orange "medium" sponge) 59.11 162 165 0.221
black (yellow "training sponge") 58.94 162 165 0.221
red (yellow "training sponge") 55.64 162.5 166 0.206

729 Sky Wing
red (2.0mm 42 deg) 53.88 165 165 0.198

729 Super FX with large pore sponge
red 63.98 170 174 0.216
black 60.77 167.5 174 0.209
black 1mm 51.22 170 172 0.175

729 563 (med pips) 1.8mm 38 degrees
red 43.14 165 165 0.158

729 837 (long pips) 0.8mm 38 deg
red 33.84 161 162 0.130

729 Battle II
black 40 deg 63.47 166 165 0.232

DHS Hurricane 3 Med 2.15mm Orange Sponge 4 corners cut
black 59.72 164.5 170.5 0.219
red 58.34 164 171 0.215
red 58.32 164 170 0.216


KTL Pro-XT "Green Dragon"
black 47.77 163 167 0.177

KTL Pro-XT
black 53.23 166 168 0.193

TimoBoll "Training with Rubber"
red 64.99 162 164 0.245
black 57.47 162 164 0.216
red 64.2 161 164 0.243
black 56.38 161 165 0.212

Kokutaku 868-pink
red 58.36 166 165 0.213
black 53.23 165 165 0.196
red (gold cover) 56.67 165 164.5 0.209
black (gold cover) 58.58 163.5 162 0.221
black (gold cover) 58.99 162 164 0.222
red (gold cover) 60.11 165 166 0.219
red (gold cover) 58.84 165 166 0.215
red (gold cover) 62.12 165 166 0.227
black (gold cover) 59.9 164 162.5 0.225

Reactor Corbor (pink packet)
red 58.75 164 168 0.213
black 59.45 172 169 0.205
red 69.96 167 162 0.259
black 70.29 165 166 0.257
red 58.81 169 165.5 0.210
black 68.46 166 165.5 0.249
red
black 70.36 166.5 165 0.256
red 68.19 165 167 0.247
black 68.76 165 165 0.253


Reactor Ckylin, pale blue sponge
red 59.57 167 165 0.216

Reactor Ckylin Big pore
black med hard 69.52 168 165 0.251
red med soft 63.9 167 167 0.229

T88 - topspeed
red 70.66 163 165 0.263
black 69.57 160 166 0.262

T88-III (double pack)
red 57.65 165 165 0.212
black 60.99 160 160 0.238

Palio Emperor Dragon Generic
red 67.51 169 167 0.239
black 65.03 167 168 0.232
black 60.93 169 169 0.213

Palio Emperor Dragon 40-42 biotech sponge
red 57.82 165 163 0.215

Palio Emperor Dragon 42-44 sponge tuned
black 63.16 167 166 0.228

Palio Wildish Dragon Generic
black 61.12 166 166.5 0.221
black 63.38 162 164 0.239
black 61.73 167 166 0.223

Palio Hadou GP sponge
black 63.33 164 165.5 0.233

Palio Drunken Dragon 40-42 sponge (biotech tuned)
black 64.17 167.5 168 0.228

999T Super 1+1 40-42 degree
red 62.61 170 167.5 0.220
black 63.33 170 168 0.222

999T Super 44-45 degree
red 64.66 168 168 0.229
black 63.71 168 168 0.226

XiYing 999 44-45 degree
red 67.53 168.5 169.5 0.236
black 67.89 167.5 165 0.246

Winmax Double Power
black 67.81 167 172 0.236

Palio CJ8000 36-38 mauve GP sponge 2 side loop
black 59.67 165 167 0.217

Palio CJ8000 40-42 pale yellow GP sponge
black 57.79 164.5 163 0.216

Yung 63-9A OX
red 33.24 180 189 0.098

Yasaka ZAP 40mm biotech 36-38 cream sponge
red 58.3 166 169 0.208

Yasaka ZAP Spin 33-35 mauve Biotech Japanese sponge
black 57.12 166 166 0.207

ZAP 40-42 biotech
red 55.14 165 165 0.203

Haifu Training Shark I yellow sponge tuned
black 61.93 165 165 0.233

Haifu Training Whale I dark orange sponge tuned
red 78.02 164 164 0.293

Haifu Training Whale red sponge untuned
red 68.93 164 164 0.259

Yinhe Mercury II
red 62.23 165 165 0.229
red 63 164 164 0.234

Dawei 2008 Super Power XL
red 77.22 166 167.5 0.278

Yinhe 9000# (cut oval generic packaging)
red 51.47 0.225
black 49.9

Yinhe 9000 (rectangular generic pack)
red (red sponge) 61.95 165 168 0.227
black (red sponge) 57.5 165 170 0.208

Yinhe 9000E
red medium sponge 69.98 166 166 0.258
red soft sponge 65.55 165.5 166.6 0.242

Yinhe 9000D
red medium sponge 71.76 165.5 165 0.267

Yinhe Big Dipper
black 38 degree 68.38 165 167.5 0.251

Tenergy 05 (fake)
black 55.46 160.5 165.5 0.211

Palio Macro Pro 45 degrees
black 64.45 169 169 0.226

Yinhe Apollo III Factory Tuned black sponge max tense 36 degree
black 68.78 166 167 0.248

Yinhe Mars II 39 degree Factory Tuned
black 65.83 166 164 0.242

Yinhe Venus II Factory Tuned
black 39 deg 71.69 167.5 165 0.259
red 35 deg 72.59 166.5 167 0.261

Donic Akkadi Taichi 40 degree 2.0 sponge generic package
red 66.54 168 169 0.234

Andro Rasant
black 2.1mm 68.9 169 170 0.240

Andro Rasant Turbo
black 2.1 72.67 170 171 0.250


Iskandar

Duuuudeee haha love that facts and all, among those which would u put top 5 in terms of price to good playing ratio. (Worth to buy in bundle)

OK guys... I need the help of someone who reads Chinese. This is a really nice scan of page 8 of the 2015 Yinhe catalog, the page that mentions 9000D and 9000E rubber. WHAT THE HECK IS THE DIFFERENCE?? As far as I can tell, the Chinese text under D and E are identical. The Chinese text in the little white box on the rubber packaging is identical. The long blurb underneath applies to both, and is just the original Chinese of the English text below. So why make two different types?? Grrrr...

Time to write to Yinhe???

Iskandar