OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Huh... Whaddya know.. At one time Butterfly had a similar pair of blades.



I've even come across a statement that they weren't made in Japan! Maybe they came from the same Taiwanese OEM that the Yinhe and Nexy blades come from. About five years too late to get one, though....

Iskandar

Now I've got some first hand experience of this, it brings up a few questions. What exactly would a "harder rubber" be, considering that even the hardest Tensors are softer in reality than most Chinese rubber? Would almost all Chinese rubber be "hard enough"?

Case in point: Yinhe's Kiso 7 blade. It's almost 7mm thick, weighs 85 grams, you'd think this'd be a rocket. Nope.. slow and controllable. But KTL XT Pro Green Dragon feels too "mushy" - I'm lacking that "snap" I get with my N11 blades on a hard kill shot. Brush loops also tend to fall short. Another example of the blade with Rasant Powergrip feels much better (especially for middle distance looping). Powergrip is one of those "hard Tensors" (the hardest Rasant). Maybe I should get a sheet, then again I'm going to try my old go-to (Palio Emperor Dragon) first - this SHOULD be "harder" than the Powergrip. And I'm currently Falco'ing the Green Dragon sheet just to see what happens (it's very light, which makes up for the blade being 5g heavier than what I'm used to).

Iskandar

Please pardon the necro bump folks, but the subjects of Hinoki one-ply blades, Hinoki blades in general, and the best-suited rubbers thereof (for both one-plys and multi-plys) has been very much on my mind of late.

For the last 18 months I've been quietly developing a new one-ply blade of my own, just as a background task done in the gaps between my usual blade-making commissions.

I didn't originally think it would go anywhere much -- it was purely a fun, little, "Gee, I wonder if..." kind of radical experimentation on my part.

Long story short, after 18 months of faffing about, my project is nearing completion, and is actually promising to potentially (maybe) bear a little fruit.

I now have a novel prototype 'one-ply blade with a difference' on my hands (which I'm actually pretty happy with surprisingly) and now I'm just trying out different rubbers on it to see which ones may suit it best.

If I can fine-tune this current iteration of my blade a little bit more, and find *just* the right rubbers to team it up with, I might actually start producing the thing in limited numbers, rather than keep all the fun to myself.

To this end, if there's any current fans or previous users of shakehand grip, one-ply Hinoki blades out there, I'd love it if you could please help a fellow one-ply convert out by telling me:

What make, model and thickness is/was your one-ply blade
What rubbers did you try on it,
Which rubbers worked best with it for you personally, and why (ie: what made those rubbers different to the others).

Thanks awfully folks... Over to you, (and here's hoping! )

_________________
Wakkibat: Custom Made TT Blades
Proudly made in Australia from local and imported timbers
http://www.wakkibat.com