I'm running
http://www.nexy.com site in Korea, and I don't know much about English community sites,
so I did not come to this kind of new places before.
But when I started my new TT brand 'NEXY', I thought I need to try some.
And I first contacted mytabletennis.
By the way, here in this site, there will be very few who knows about my brand.
So, I will start by posting what I wrote in that site here.
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Dear fellow friends,
I think table tennis business seriously relies on how many friends you have. And now I decided to come here more often, and to share more about how I run my brand Nexy.
Currently, I'm not very good at English, and also not free enough to reply all the questions, but I will try as much as I can to share what I am doing with the people here.
So, this article can not be done in one day, and I will keep on writing day by day until I can complete the whole story of one blade; Nexy's SPEAR.
1. What's the goal of SPEAR Table tennis has been my number one job for many decades.
I started it when I was 10 from my father, and I really liked it.
But my father did not enjoy much playing with little son, because it took money and time.
At that time, my house was not rich enough to support my curiosity, and I could not keep on attending piano lesson, and probably my father could not be able to take me to table tennis gym often.
But he was really good player, and I could learn some basic skills from my father.
It took more than 10 years for me to become better player than my father since that time.
He promised to buy one bicycle for me, and I wanted it badly, but could not win any game until I become a university student.
Anyway, I became a student, and I joined table tennis club there.
And there I had to change all things, because all the basic skills was not right.
It was not easy process, but I went through it.
I once tried to become a defensive player, and I could get chances to test many kinds of blades and rubbers.
Probably, this story will not be interesting for you. But I just want to say that those blades are not short term work.
As a conclusion, even though I'm not a professional player, nor a professional carpenter or something, but I can safely say that I've been crazy about table tennis for very long time.
In 2005, when I started to run table tennis business, I found out that someday I will run my own brand.
I was quite sure it's not only about money and tradition.
Once I'm sure I can satisfy with what I make, then I can satisfy many others, and that will lead my brand successful, that was what I could be sure at that moment.
And I started to learn many blades' structure and function.
It was not very hard, because I really liked it.
So, all the blades made in Nexy are meant to satisfy me.
I don't care about category.
5-pl, 7-ply, carbon, arylate carbon....new products in each year...
...that's very far from the way I run this business.
Once I start, I never stop before I'm satisfied.
So, most of the blades are alike in some ways.
Fast, Spinny, well balanced, good feeling.
Maybe it sounds very cliche, but surely these are the purpose for my blades.
Seemingly (more over meaninglessly) too much ideal is what I'm struggling to get with my blades.
And I don't think that's not possible to achieve.
Of course there is a general course I experience whenever I produce blades.
I really liked it, but after 6 months, I found out better one will be possible.
And the best blade becomes less perfect, and it gives its way to the next new blade.
But at any cost, I release a blade when I really like it at that moment.
Therefore, the purpose of the up-coming new blade SPEAR is very the same as other Nexy blades.
Fast, Spinny, well balanced, good feeling
2. Basic Idea about SPEAR If you look at my before blades, you will know that I've been recently focusing on SPRUCE, which lies under the surface wood.
I used spruce for Dexter (
http://nexy.com/shop/step1.php?number=580)
and Color (
http://nexy.com/shop/step1.php?number=582)
This wood is very attractive. With this wood, you can create better speed without losing wooden feeling to carbon layer.
And this spruce ply makes big sound and good feeling when you hit the ball.
But when this ply comes too much close to the rubber, than the sound and feelings are too much powerful, and the ball will not be spinny much.
So, this material needs to come in the right place, which means that I need to find the ideal thickness for the surface wood.
It's not possible to decide exact thickness for all the surface materials.
I kept on testing....and I found out Japanese Hinoki needs to be thicker than Limba or Koto, when I want to harmonize this with Spruce.
Any ways, the first idea has come from this spruce wood.
Actually, I finished all the studies related with this material, from my experiences of Hurricane King, Offensive classic, Ebenholz and several other blades.
But then again, I thought why all those blades are not similiar to Stiga's clipper CR or Butterfly's Korbel or SK7?
I think most other designers were fascinated too much by this sprus material's lightness and speed.
So, they might not be interested in producing a blade deep and soft. Probably they thought they need to make the blades light and fast.
So, there I started to think about this blade SPEAR.
When you use a SPEAR, the blade of SPEAR should go through a target, to harm.
Likewise, when I name this blade as SPEAR, I thought that....when you play with this blade SPEAR, you need to be able to feel that the ball goes through your blade, just like a spear goes through a target.
I mean you need to feel that your blade hugs the ball so deep into it, that you think the ball becomes a spear into a target.
I thought it's possible.
Because all this deep and soft feeling can not be too much, if I harmonize this with SPRUCE's lightness and speedy character.
There maybe I can get an ideal function.
Ok, that was the basic idea I started from.
I will write more tomorrow.
Just keep on waiting before I finish this story.
I hope you can enjoy my writings.
3. Composition. I found out some people are trying to guess out the whole materials of my blades. I can safely open all the materials for some blades, but for some other blades, I don't want to tell.
For examples, I use some specific wood for Oscar and Hannibal's center wood. And this wood makes my blades different from other similiar blades.
If you tested, then you would agree that my Hannibal and Oscar are not very dull at all, even though they have artificial materials.
So, I heard that many people are saying that my Hannibal and Oscar feels very natural, and have good feelings, without metal touch.
I think the main reason lies on that center wood.
Any ways, I don't want to reveal that wood.
By the way, regarding my next product SPEAR, the composition is very simple.
It's as below.
Limba - sprus - ayous - sprus - Limba
This is very the same structure with other several kinds of classical blades.
But that's not all.
I have known that this composition creates really good blade.
But as I told you in the before writing, the material SPRUS is very very important factor to decide the whole character of a blade.
And I could not be satisfied with all other similiar kinds.
There must be some more to this composition.
So, that was to make use of Sprus' speed jointed with thick center layer of Ayous and thin Limba.
Here is the principle.
Regarding Ayous, this material is very soft in the first touch, but deep inside, very hard and resilient.
But this material is not easy to be well harmonized with other materials.
When this ayous is thin, I found out some times it does not affect on the blade enough, so you don't feel the difference.
And I was sure that I need to make the Ayous thicker than other blades, by which I can make people feel soft and even damp on the moment the ball goes into, but in the end they need to find true power and resilience deep inside the blade.
So, that's how I use this Ayous with my blade COLOR and now with SPEAR.
Regarding Limba, I found out when I make the limba ply thick, as I did with my Hinoki ply, then the feeling will be too much soft, and I can not utilize the true good factor of sprus material. Sprus needs to affect on the ball in some ways directly, not only through Limba, indirectly.
So, I used very thin Limba.
After all, Spear is a mixture of very delicate and subtle harmony.
Surface - soft and embracing material, Limba...but thin...so the ball is affected also by the second ply, which is fast and hard Sprus.
And then, the Sprus is supported by soft and damp, but powerful and resilient material, thick ayous.
It was not easy to prove that my belief was really right.
I had to do lots of tests for long times, over and over again.
And I could come closer to what I wanted little by little.
There was one more factor I need to consider.
The total thickness of the blade.
If the blade is too thick, then all the good things does not attract much any more.
So, I had to make it not much thick, which influenced all the ply's thickness in each tests.
During this process, I tried several different compositions.
Here is one picture that shows that I tried two sprus plies between Limba and Ayous.
And here is the final version.
As you know, the structure is kinda classic.
But the center layer seems thicker than most other similiar kinds.
And also the thickness of sprus is very key factor in Spear.
Limba is thinner than most other Nexy blades' surface, which make the ball goes deep.
The edge looks not nice.
Because I tested the blade after cutting little by little.
The size of the blade is also very much responsible for the feeling.\
It's not only about balance, but also about feeling and power.
When I cut 1mm, the blade becomes totally different.
I tested the blade by 0.5mm cut for several times.
Here is the picture of several samples I went through.
Here is the final sample.
4. Why Korea? Recently, new Korean brand XIOM grew big very fast.
And I think Korean market initiated and urged XIOM to become competitive in many ways, which perhaps affected on my brand NEXY, too.
I don't want to analyze how XIOM could develop that fast, but I can safely say there could be some reasons I can tell you guys.
Korean players have been using Japanese penholder blades for many decades.
Recently, lots of players are not using Japanese penholder blade any more, but even for me, I used to play with that when I was young.
When you play with Japanese penholder blade, your main point comes from powerful top spin attack.
Normally, you know that your back hand side will not be easy to make a point, so, you normally try hard to play with your forehand side.
And once you get a chance, you need to exert your full power, because the other player could make a safe return to your deep back hand side, and in that case, it's almost impossible to move back and hit the ball.
So, when you play with Japanses penholder blade, you tend to focus on high power top spin attack.
Many people are not aware what is the differance between top Korean players' looping and other normal amatuer players' ones.
I did not know it also.
But by the time I started this business, I could make the similiar kind of top spin attack, after long years trainings, of course.
And I could be able to discern what makes the differance.
When you make a top-spin drive with your fast movement, and exact impact, the ball meets not only the surface of the rubber, but also the wooden plate of the blade, because the speed of the blade is that much fast.
In other words, if your movement of your racket is very fast when the ball meets the racket, then the ball goes deep into the wooden blade surface passing the rubber on it.
If you use thin and soft sponge, then you will be able to feel that in each strokes that your ball touches the wooden surface through the rubber every time.
But when the rubber is soft and thin, even the ball touches deep into the surface of the blade, still the returning ball is not very powerful.
But when you make a powerful shot with that exact impact with hard and thick sponge, then your opponent can not see the ball.
It flys like a rocket.
If the opponent blocks the ball, still the blade can not stand the impact of that powerful ball, and that vibration goes into the hands and wrist, making them shaking, and not able to return the ball at all.
That's what Korean players are doing.
Normally, many European players make that powerful shot from time to time. But Korean players are not allowed to do practice without that powerful impact.
All the Korean players are trained to do that powerful shot through out the whole match.
Some times, it's not good, because they can not learn tricky play.
But that has become long year tradition in Korea.
Any ways, when you are dealing with those top Korean players, all the equipment needs some more specialties.
And I've been really careful about that point.
I can add some more factors.
Korean market asks very high standard for all the products in many fields.
And once your have good product, then the whole market reacts very fast to it. But once your products are not perfect, it's not easy to survive at all.
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In conclusion, my blades had to satisfy that powerful shot from Korean professional players. And that helped me to set a right goal for my blades.
If I add some more, Korean players, more or less, play all round.
They play some times little bit away from the table like European players, and sometimes very close to the table like Chinese players.
And I have to produce a blade which is good at close to the table, and also little bit away from the table.
SPEAR has those characters.
It's very fast and spinny when you make a powerful shot; so powerful that the ball can touches directly onto the blade surface pushing through the rubber.
And it's powerful also away from the table, let alone close to the table.
In order to satisfy those three points, I studied mixture of different thickness and shapes over many samples.
And now I'm much relieved and happy to find the final answer.
5. The second purpose of NEXY! This factor might make you puzzled.
From this blade on, I'm planning to start a donation program.
If you buy one SPEAR, then you are donating USD 3 for a poor children.
As a father of three children, I feel awfully sorry for those poor kids around the world, and I hope I can enlarge our donating amount of money more with my NEXY blades.
But with this program, I'm very much careful about many other things.
There could be some people who will think that now NEXY is bg company, so they are trying to show off. Or maybe some people will think that NEXY's margin is very big enough to spend USD 3.
And some people might think that NEXY is trying to make use of small donation to promote it's new blade, and that'sa shallow marketing program.
And also there could be some people who are not able to buy expensive blades, and hope to get lower price for good blade, and they will say, I prefer to have 3 dollors cheaper blade than to donate 3 dollors through NEXY.com.
I know all these thoughts quite well, and I've got severe "NO" from may others, but I decided to start it at any rate.
I've been helping some poor children on my own, and some by my company money, but with this speciall program, I can accumulate some more money, and I will use that money for more childen.
And that makes me happy now.
I wish nobody could accept this idea in the bad way.
I will calculate my sales exactly, and I will use the money as I promised.
Here is the pictures of the final SPEAR.
I hope you like this.
6. Is SPEAR the best product among NEXY blades? I received a letter saying that SPEAR seems the best one.
But I can not easily agree with that idea.
Actually, personaly, I feel more attracted to LISSOM and OSCAR.
And other two similiar structure blades are also very valuable.
Ok, let me give short words or three similiar blades.
DEXTER : the fastest 5-ply blade I have ever known.
Extremely fast.
If you prefer to play with 5-Ply to get good control and feeling,
but you want to have better speed, just like a carbon blade,
then you need to experience this blade.
COLOR : overall fast, but good balance in all things.
Mild, and soft feeling is in good harmony with fast character.
In this forum, there are too much explanation,
and you will like reading them.
SPEAR : Other two blades are using Japanese Hinoki on the suface,
but this one uses Limba onto it.
Therefore, the total purpose and chracter is not similiar at all.
This blade is excatly the other kind.
So, I can not say this is the best one.
But this blade will be easy to understand for normal European or American players, because this blade is using Limba.
Ok, here I think I have explained all the things I thought when I start to write.
But you might have some more to know.
So, I will keep coming here and write back to the inquiries.
By the way, there are some woods I did not test to the bottom, so don't expect me to know all th answers.
But I will answer to the questions I know.
Thank you for reading it through.
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