OOAK Table Tennis Forum

OK. Here's a few, with comments. Most play about the same. They're all tacky, they all produce lots of spin when you serve correctly, you can loop with pretty much all of them, they all have 2.2mm sponge (with a few notable exceptions). On a slow blade they're slow, on a fast blade, they're fast, if the blade is too fast (e.g. N6) they're too fast (999T is slower than the rest).

729. This is pretty good rubber. There's three main ways to get it via Eacheng: Batwings, XL and their bulk stacks (10 sheets at a time). Weight wise, about average. Batwings can be had in thinner spongers, which is unusual among Chinese rubbers. I'm not sure where the XL sheets come from, I think it's a third party repackaging bulk sheets. The first batch I bought, all the red sheets turned out to be 729 Super FX rather than plain 729. Not that I could tell any difference. Ask the vendor about sponge hardness, sometimes there's a choice (especially with Batwings).

Reactor Corbor. Pretty good stuff, even if the packaging makes you think it's really low quality. If you look around you can find it for about $3.50 a sheet (in big stacks). Comes 2-for-1. There was this odd bimodality in sheet weights, though. Some were light, some heavy, nothing in between! Now comes in a "Pro" version. There's also an expensive blue-packet version I've not tried.

Kokutaku 868. Good rubber. Light, thinner sponge (it's 2.0mm despite what they say). I did get a couple of bad sheets, not from Eacheng, though. Delaminated. It'd make a good control rubber for the backhand or for blocking.

9000. Good stuff, get the bulk 2-for-1 packs (which are lighter and cheaper). I wouldn't call this stuff "slow" despite the advertising. Slow is 999T.

Mercury II. About the same as 9000, you can also get this cheap now and then ($5 a sheet). Nice vacuum packs.

Palio "Generic Dragon". I really, really like this stuff. Fairly fast. Best to get it from ttnpp - there it's $4 a sheet but you'll pay an added $1.50 or so for shipping per sheet. There are others selling this same sheet for quite a bit more - there's even someone claiming it's "National Version" and wanting $20 a sheet for it..

999T - IF you want a slow, control rubber - this is it. Available in many packagings, the 2-for-1 packages are cheapest. Used to be $5 a sheet that way but prices have gone up. This really is different from the rest, definitely worth a try just to make sure you really DON'T like it (you'll never know unless you've tried it).

T88 - there are several types. T88-Highspeed is the cheapest, but boy is it heavy! Nice packaging, though. T88-III also now comes in a 2-for-1 pack, and this has decent weight. Decent price, too (about $5 a sheet).

I think that's about it for the cheap (i.e. around $5 a sheet) rubbers. Frankly, I haven't really found any in the $6-20 range that I like any better than these. Not Big Dipper, not 729 Battle, not Venus II or Mars II or Apollo III.

Which one to buy???!!! Heck, gotta try them all!!!



Iskandar

Thanks alot!!!! really appreciate it!!!

I finally got my training equipment: Palio TCT, Palio CJ8000 and Kokutaku Tuple 110.
The blade is definitely a hard, high pitch sounding bat - lovely. It's almost as if the ball hits a roof pan or a shale plate.
I did wax the whole blade, now having a silky handle which makes twiddling even nicer.

Applying CJ8000 (red, a tad sticky, mauve sponge) wasn't that much of an issue, it didn't bulge that much - The Kokutaku did wrinkle a tad more. Both were applied without stretching or punctual pressure, but finished with +10kg on the whole area afterwards. I didn't make use of boosters etc.

Sound is awkward - almost as if I'm using the Banda Dorada 2005...
The look is exquisite (price tag for the whole setup: +-$35) . Sponge thickness on both sides is medium, so it will eventually bottom when harder strokes are used - at least that's what I reckon.

Backhand almost looks like it's long pips, so I expect it to be quite deceptive and it should be completing the 'fear, deception and power' strategy.

Only issue so far: I did hit some balls and it already got a dark spot on the CJ8000, 1x2cm, upper central area.

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

May I inquire what wax did you used though?

Furniture beeswax paste, thinned using paraffine-oil.

The dark spot seems to have no influence whatsoever. Did do some balls against a trainee and it behaves impressive.

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

The more I read about this, the more it confirms what I know about CJ8000. Did they EVER make flat sheets? I am surprised it gets more mention than other Palio sheets, and there are a LOT of them. The various Dragons, Hadou, AK47...

Iskandar

Not sure I should be thanking Iskandar for this thread . First thing I did was go to Aliexpress and look for training rubbers. Just for interest, you understand. Then I ordered some Reactor Corbor sheets with the intention of building a return/rebound board. Then I ordered an M8 blade "for fun". Then some more rubbers, and now I am up to 4 blades.

Worst thing is, two of the blades have arrived, but so far none of the rubbers. This is, to say the least, frustrating, especially as I have come to the conclusion, after about a month of playing for the first time in 40 years, that the DHS 4002 bat I am using is not quite right for me. So I *had* to get some rubbers locally; still cheap ones, but probably twice what they are on Aliexpress. I shall play with the new bat tomorrow night.

Incidentally, I have read so much conflicting advice about sealing blades. As I want to have as little effect on the wood as possible, I used some teak oil on the M8, but this has a high VOC count and smells, and I have yet to see if it actually does seal the wood. I am thinking of using Danish Oil. Any ideas? I have used Joola Lex as the glue, and have bought some Copydex for future use.

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Other setups:
SDC Custom Blade/Butterfly Dignics 80/Butterfly Glayzer
BTY Viscaria/Tibhar K3/Tibhar K3

Hell, yes, shipping is an issue. I calculate with at least 3 weeks for shipping and orders have to be sub $24 at the moment to avoid additional charges. Luckily, there's some track&trace and once the order has left Beijing it's about another week to go. So far, I have little else to complain about, wether it's sth for table-tennis, gadgets, toys or whatever else I've ordered from 'abroad' within the last 10yrs.

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

So, Iskandar has a whole range of suitable training rubbers. One thing still unknown to me and is the length of pips of these training rubbbers.
Sure, most of them are quite fine for learning and looping, but most of them seem to have quite short pips, rendering them too harmless for advanced attackers.

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

Pip length is mainly significant when it comes to pips out rubber. It does matter with inverted sheets too, but they're sort of a black box (and I don't think they vary as much as you get with pips out). All the training rubber I've come across (or, at least, stuff sold as "training rubber") has been inverted. There are cheap sheets of pips out (mainly Dawei 388 variants) but I've never heard them referred to as "training" rubber.

Iskandar

I bought a Boll Nano V racket from Aliexpress that comes with these rubbers. They are actually pretty decent rubbers . Good enough for most recreation players.

Wondering if they are as good as other entry level rubbers? (Mercury II, 9000 etc).

Quite a bit better than Addoy, Yuki, PanAsia, and those rubbers that come on the Stiga/Donic/Schildkrot Premades, I think...

Iskandar

This is the 2 in 1 packaging. Red rubber = Medium Hard 中硬, black rubber = Medium Soft 中软.
Hence both sponge hardness is shown in front of the package. Seems like the red rubber is heavier than the black rubber.

Red (yellow sponge) med hard 69.89 g 165x165 mm 0.257 g/cm2 51.3 g (cut)
Black (yellow sponge) med soft 56.92 g 164x165 mm 0.210 g/cm2 42.1 g (cut)

Al

Yeah, I can see that it's got both markings on the cover. What I can't understand is why make this one if you've already got the other two.

I've found that, with a few exceptions, red sheets are slightly heavier than black sheets, this cuts across many brands. In the case of Corbor, though, or at least, that batch of ten Corbor sheets I bought, the sheet weights are bimodal. There are some heavy sheets (red and black) and some more normal sheets, and in at least one red/black pair they put a heavy black sheet in with a light red one.

Iskandar

first of all, great thread iskandar, lots of info for someome like me quitting high end equipment.

talking about the corbor, which version has the new print on the topsheet?



also, i want to know if the 999T 1+1 brings 2 rubbers of this one:



any idea?