OOAK Table Tennis Forum

I used to play a lot of table tennis and played a forehand and backhand looping style. My paddle was a heavy (94-96 grams) wooden Butterfly blade and I used Yasaka Do on both sides. This was built around the late 1990s I think. Back then, blades typically ran $30 to $45 for wood and up to $100 for carbon. Rubbers were $15 to $30 with some really expensive types like Bryce. I had a look at the cost of blades and rubbers today and I see that blades are about twice as much but the high-end is around $400. Rubbers seem to be about twice as much as they used to be.

My question is: how much has the technology improved over twenty years? Would I see a benefit to upgrading equipment? I would likely look for the same characteristics: heavy, OFF+ with very spinny rubbers. There's nothing wrong with my current blade but I would need to replace rubbers from time to time and it will take me a while to get back into decent form.

What I've been doing instead of table tennis: running, weightlifting, tennis, flexibility work.

What's changed? Mostly, the ball. And the speed glue ban. Everything else has been in response to these two things.

Iskandar

I'll have to get some glue as I think that I had to throw out the stuff that I had before as it congealed. I do remember the discussions on speed glue but I never tried it out.

Are the new blades better? I don't really know how a blade could be better outside of weight and stiffness.

Are the new rubbers better? I would imagine that they would be as materials science has made a lot of advancements in the past twenty years. I should probably just look up the specs of what I have and compare it to current product specs. Hopefully the specs are the same.

After looking around a bit, I found Yasaka Rising Dragon and the Butterfly Dignic lines. The latter are a lot of $$$$. It would be fun to try but maybe a bit pricey just for playing around.

The new ball is bigger, and has led to faster blades and rubbers. In general, people never used to use max sponge, now it's standard, even for beginners. The speed glue ban has led to "glue effect rubbers", such as Butterfly Tenergy, and this is the main reason why rubbers sometimes cost way more than they used to.

Iskandar

And now you have to add the boosters to the mix.....

Yeah, boosters too. And that these "glue effect" rubbers have been boosted at the factory, as part of their manufacture. Still, I've seen people claim the old speed glues + old rubbers were better than the best of the current "glue effect" rubbers.

Iskandar

I remember Yasaka Do as a fantastic very grippy rubber. It was the last rubber I used when I stopped playing around 1992 (Banda Coppa prior to that).

So what is the net effect of the materials changes? Something like 5, 10, 15 percent more spin?

It doesn't seem like the blades make that much of a difference compared to the rubbers. There's also lots more models out there today. I plan to stay with my Clearfield but may try something heavier so that I have a backup. I do have a backup blade but I don't like it (straight handle and too light).

I did a little reading and there are more factors to consider like launch angle, what types of play/strokes rubbers are optimized for - similar stuff to the tennis world. I do not plan to do a lot of experimentation with equipment as it looks like costs can quickly get out of control.

My idea is to find something as good as what I have now so that I can do maintenance on my current blade and to look at what's there that would give my game a boost because of additional capabilities. The main factor I'd like to improve on is spin.

Actually the blade makes much more difference than rubbers. Your Clearfield is still very fast by modern standards, no need to change.

It seems like my current equipment is serviceable so I'll just keep using it for a while to get back up to speed and take my time on a second blade and rubbers. Thanks for your comments.

Actually, if anything, blades have slowed down a little, or at least they've tried to moderate the hardness and feel of carbon blades, by putting the non-wood layers deeper in the blade, beneath two layers of wood. They've also gone to thinner carbon. Alternatives to carbon, though - those have been around since the 1990s - aramids, arylates, glass, etc.

What HAS changed (quite recently) is that the top pros have been moving to faster blades - they used to use all-wood blades, now some have moved to arylate-carbon blades.

Some of the fastest blades were made in the 80s and 90s - among them the Tamca 5000 Butterflies.

Iskandar

What you said above, which in itself seems a tad contradictory

You also mentioned the following earlier ...




Sorry m8 .. I'm honestly confused .. In your last post, you say that blades have slowed down, and in an earlier post you say the new ball has led to faster blades ... I'm not trying to pick-apart your statements, but genuinely looking for clarity .. My pea-brain is missing something, perhaps ...

What I meant was blades as a whole haven't gotten faster. The fastest blades were the ones they've been making since the 1980s and 90s, they had really thick carbon layers. More recently (last 2 decades, actually) they've been making SLOWER composite blades with "inner" fiber layers - Innerforce and the like, and they've been using thinner carbon sheets.

What HAS changed, as I said, was what blades are actually being used by the top pros. None use the fastest blades available. Do ANY of them use the Butterfly Sardius? Or other T5000 blades? No. Until the 40+ ball came along MOST were using 5 or 7 ply all-wood blades. Now quite a few are switching to faster blades.

Rubbers have been getting faster. Even the people who use the old rubbers have moved to thicker sponges.

Make sense?

Iskandar

We forgot to mention the lp rubbers.The most harmed players in all the history of sport. We will never see a final between a defender and an attacker with the current regulations.

Current pips are the least effective in history.Why? Due to the unfair black legend and the quarrel between the doc and the famous name at the ITTF.