OOAK Table Tennis Forum

This might explain the problem I had with Orkan, I also had the 1.5 mm Red. I didn't realize there was that much difference in the red and black!

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Donic Waldner World Champion 89 FL; Donic BlueStar A2 (Red) Max; DMS Firestorm (Black) 1.8

I am back using Orkan but with the top sheet glued to 1.0mm HRS sponge

With Black Orkan top sheet it works surprisingly well on fast but soft balsa carbon blades with lots of gears and ability to hit sink balls or some topspin as needed.to disrupt my opponent. In combination with the right blade seems easy to either block short or hit quite fast and hitting through spin especially serves seems easy as is lifting back spin. Also unlike the standard Orkan with its soft bouncy sponge it is now good for chopping with a really low ball flight.

For me the black Orkan on 1.0mm HRS worked much better for me than the red which was faster and harder with less spin capability but even better at hitting thru spin. Very much like the difference to red and black dtec S with sponge.

Will now buy black Orkan in OX as trying to remove the top sheet from the sponge is tricky and can damage it.

Having played for a couple of weeks with standard Orkan 1.5mm on a new Impact Precise light balsa/anagree/samba blade I have changed my opinion on Orkan significantly.

When I first tried in with 1.5 sponge on S&T black & white blades it was too slow to attack with and only moderately disruptive. Better on a hard Bloodhound blade but poor control when it bottomed out. I then tried thin HRS sponge but again blocking and counter hitting suffered due to bottoming out even on the soft B&W blades.

The Impact blade is medium hard about off- speed with lots of gears and has made me realize that Orkan is best as a full out attacking rubber. Just hit into almost everything and the soft pips and sponge just soak up the spin and deliver really flat nasty sometimes wobbly returns. Mix in with a few soft blocks, no spin pushes and side swipes and it seems to work against most playing styles at club level. So whilst the rule is with many pips out rubbers thin sponge is more dangerous with Orkan it is perhaps better to use a thicker sponge to soak up spin and avoid bottoming out. Also the thicker sponge makes it easier to put some spin on the ball when needed as the pips themselves are not very grippy again providing more in play options. So I will probably try the 1.8mm sponge version on my harder blades.