OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Tom,

In the last thread you hand mentioned that Zeropong was in the middle of testing many new items to be offered. Are there any updates?

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Blog: "Holy Chtchet!" ⇝

Projects: Player Equipment Grid ⇝ Comprehensive Thin Inverted Chopping Rubbers Grid ⇝ Please send me corrections or new submissions

Hey everyone! (sorry it took so long to respond to your comment Japsican)

Sorry I did not get back and get a state of our new stuff post, with all the sellers trolling the forums it gets kinda old and sounds like static, I really dont want to be that guy:)

All Gambler blades now come with a hand lacquer finish, with water base glue you need to seal the wood to prevent damage from this type of glue, also more players are using tuning oils that soak the outer wood ply and change the feel unless the wood grain is protected.

DJ Fly Blade:
DJ Fly is a fantastic all wood 7 ply attacking blade. This blade concept was hatched last year in Las Vegas while having cocktails with professional and competition players. The goal was the feeling of a Clipper but with the weight and speed of the W7. Definitively I can say this project was a success.

The Zen Blade:
Zen is a 5 ply all around wood blade designed to make a balance between control and attack. Zen features top quality ayous outer layers and a kukui wood core. With a soft feeling and moderate flexibility Zen makes it easy to steer the ball thusly improving placement. Zen comes with a light hand lacquer finish to prevent splintering between rubber changes.
Note: Comparable to the "BTY Grubba all wood" but slightly stiffer with more speed.

Other Blades in production:
Rosewood Classic: 5 ply oversize 5.4mm thickness high feel high control blade Rosewood and kukui wood (not comparable to any blade I have hit with)
Zebra Classic:: 3 ply oversize 5.3mm thickness high feel high control blade Zebrawood and kukui wood (not comparable to any blade I have hit with)
Hero: 5 ply wood Koto outer 2 ply arylate carbon very close to the BTY TBS AC

Sevens Rubber (on ITTF list now)
Attacking inverted, fast, mild tack (but the ball still bounces on it) plays like a lot of the newer "pro" versions of rubbers coming out of china now but in place of the 30-40usd price tag it will be not over 14 bucks, plays crazy good tuned like all rubbers of this type, but untuned it is very peppy. We may import a small number of totally NON tacky versions of this rubber,(top sheet material and pip geometry are exactly the same as per ITTF regulations), this plays a lot like a more spinney version of Donic F1, F1 is the most popular consumer rubber European type for serious non sponsored china players backhand, so we are trying to pick up a piece of this market.

3 others in the process(submitted but yet to be approved): Big Gun (Inverted), Burst (Inverted), Zero (inverted).

Oh new 2016 version of the 3 star seamless Gambler poly: faster, rounder, slightly smaller, pretty protective box, and a sleeker logo. Same low price below 1usd per ball.

Poly Robot and Training balls in bulk:Yes finally, they don't jam your bot and they are actually round!

You can follow us on facebook if you want we shout out new stuff there and give things away on occasion too!

Play on...Tom

zeropong wrote:



If the top sheet material is the same as submitted for ITTF sanction, how can there be both be tacky and non-tacky versions? Is this saying that what was submitted to ITTF was boosted, but that you can also sell non-boosted version? Or how is the same top sheet material able to be both tacky and non-tacky?

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Retriever (sometimes golden, but often leaden)
Moderator, Inverted Retriever Technique sub-forum - http://ooakforum.com/viewforum.php?f=74

Unlike big companies that make totally different pip geometries and formulations for their pro players/pro versions then put them through racket control at an international event with a wave and a grin, we make the product as close as production will allow to the submitted top sheet.

Unfortunately I am not an expert on the inner workings of the ITTF, or the thought processes that go behind ITTF bat covering regulation, we create rubbers that fall within the below R-A guidelines, however I know from experience that when you resubmit an inverted rubber for a 10 year retest they do not check the grip of the surface, they look at the pip geometry, if the ITTF were to establish a base line for grip on inverted then if your rubber was 2 weeks old it will fail at every event. Additionally rubbers are now submitted with sponge, a rubber submitted with 35deg sponge is not the same animal as that top sheet with 45deg sponge, at this point the ITTF is not dictating hardness of what sponge you must or must not use (thankfully). As for factory boosting that fades over time like the oil boosted rubbers, these rubbers actually lose that effect over time even in the package, and this is not something we intend to mess with. However as you can see most manufacturers have went to 2.1mm sponge max, they are specifically accommodating this oil boosting activity. I personally like this way better giving the player the choice if they wish to slather something on their rubber or not.

See form RA on right hand side
http://www.ittf.com/_front_page/ittf1.a ... ory=rubber

The Zen Blade looks like a great deal. How is it for chopping?

_________________
Blog: "Holy Chtchet!" ⇝

Projects: Player Equipment Grid ⇝ Comprehensive Thin Inverted Chopping Rubbers Grid ⇝ Please send me corrections or new submissions

From T4:


This does not seem to mention "tackiness", so there you go. Yet another ITTF inconsistency. I would have expected that each sample of <manufacturer> <brand> <model> rubber (eg Butterfly Tenergy T05FX) should be much the same in terms of tackiness or lack thereof within the bounds of quality control, and that any change would be given a new name, either in brand or model if only for the marketing ...

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Retriever (sometimes golden, but often leaden)
Moderator, Inverted Retriever Technique sub-forum - http://ooakforum.com/viewforum.php?f=74

Japsican,

It is a moderate flex 5 ply all wood blade, the characteristics are favorable for chopping, however I have not had what I would consider a good rated credible feedback to regurgitate yet. PM me I will send you one. ST or FL.

Retriever,

ITTF racket control on coverings is very stringent, if it can be tested it will, any more regulations and even big companies that have a special team just dedicated to making perfect ITTF samples will start to consistently fail. I am not sure I would like to sign up for more testing at the event or manufacturer level, it directly adds cost to the consumer, and at some point when all rubbers are microchiped you will have your choice between Butterfly or Butterfly, not a bad thing necessarily, but also far departed from a free market.

Thanks zeropong for you replies to my questions.

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Retriever (sometimes golden, but often leaden)
Moderator, Inverted Retriever Technique sub-forum - http://ooakforum.com/viewforum.php?f=74

The Regulation§5 does prohibit any alteration both in the topsheet and sponge.
Despite this, we have many different post-approval alterations made by mnfcs to the sponge. How does it possible? It looks like manufacturers have some informal agreement with ITTF which specifies the parts of the rubber that may and may not be changed.
-- the sponge is not a subject to ITTF laboratory tests (excepting the coloration test ), Thus, the sponge may be produced and marketed in many versions differing in density, resilience, thickness etc. . And same is the tackiness of rubber.

Does the agreement really exist? Quiet may be.

Depends on what you mean by "alteration". What the manufacturers do isn't alteration. I'm pretty sure the sponge isn't part of the certification process, that only applies to the topsheet regardless of whether there is sponge attached to it or not at the time of submission. It's not "alteration" if different sponges are supplied (or different thickness of sponges). There ARE separate rules for sponge - they can't, for instance, have differences in density within the same sheet (there were rubbers sold in the 1970s by Donic that had sponge that was denser at the bottom, and there was the famous Butterfly Kawatsuki sponge - these are now illegal), or more than one discrete layer of sponge (KTL Golden Star anyone? ).

As for tackiness - yes, it's not something they test for, and for good reason. Imagine showing up at a tournament and your racket is disqualified because the rubber isn't as tacky as the instruments say it's supposed to be. Or tackier. Yes, it varies greatly from sheet to sheet (manufacturing issues) and decreases the longer you use the rubber. I'm convinced it's not actually part of the topsheet - it's actually a layer of glue applied to the topsheet after it's made, and it's applied using tape - that thing (that so-called "protector sheet") that you peel off the face of tacky Chinese rubbers. That's why it decreases with time, the glue wears off. There are different glues available for different tackiness levels, and they don't have a good enough handle on the process that every single sheet comes out at the same level of tackiness. They get, say, 95% of the sheets more or less the same, but there will be 5% that will be outliers.

I really don't see the point of getting upset because ITTF doesn't test sheets for tackiness. Who really cares? As Zeropong said, it'll drive the cost up. Yeah, it's annoying when you get a sheet of H3 that isn't as tacky as you think it ought to be, but that's why H3 costs $20 instead of $60 like ESN rubbers, or $80 like Tenergy. Would you rather pay $60 just so that every single sheet of H3 is the same tackiness? I wouldn't. This would be the end of $5 and $10 Chinese sheets.

Iskandar