OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Thinking loud here....

I've done some reading on the subject and the prevalent opinion was that blade is more important.
80% blade and 20% rubber someone said.

I tend to think that for a beginner, even intermediate player the percentage might be the opposite.

I have stuck same rubber, 729 Super FX, on three different rackets,
one is DEF, one is OFF and one who knows what, a $10 Donic pre-made, stripped of its original rubber.

All of them play almost exactly same for me, maybe slight variation when the rubber bottoms out, but making no difference on winning/losing ratio.
As a matter of fact, $10 Donic pre-made is my favourite, as it's lighter and thinner and I love that combination.

729 super FX determines 90% of how I play, I could probably cut the racket out of cheap plywood from Home Depot, with the same result.
IMHO

Cheers

I think as a beginner it's only important to make sure you don't get a blade that's WAY too slow or WAY too fast... everything else in between you make work (although not ideal), and the speed/control can be tweaked with the right choice of rubbers.
I think an allround wooden blade is the best, with some alround rubbers.... and there are plenty to choose from.

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I definitely agree for me the blade was & still is the most important part of my game which took a while to work out as initially I thought a fast bat would be the way to go but it was control I needed So good luck with your journey

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Setup 1: Blade: TSP Trinity Carbon | Joola Golden Tango black 1.8mm FH & Tibhar Grass D.TecS acid green OX BH
Setup 2: Setup 2: Blade: TSP Trinity Carbon | Joola Golden Tango PS black 2.00mm FH & Tibhar Grass D.TecS red OX BH
Setup 3: Blade: TSP Trinity Carbon | Joola Golden Tango black 1.8mm FH & Spinlord Gigant anti-spin red BH
See the ball, be the ball...

Er, what other rubbers have you tried? Anything you found that was way different than 729FX Super? Does sticking, say, Evolution MX-P on the bat make it play all that much different?

I've tried quite a few blades - 7 plies, 5 plies, Hinoki (expensive), very fast, slow... and a lot of rubbers as well - Chinese, German (but only one Japanese sheet - Evolutoion MX-P). I can definitely say the blades make far more of a difference than the rubbers do. The blade almost dictates the way I play - slow blades mean a closer to the table touch game with more pushing and blocking, the faster blades mean standing a little further back and driving the ball a lot more. I can tell the difference between blades just from hitting a couple of balls. There are blades I can't play with because they're too heavy or too fast (that 729 A3, I think it was - the one with the layer of cork in the middle, that OFF+ Yinhe N6..), there are some that feel unpleasant (Yinhe 896, KTL Instinct), some that I feel are a mite too slow (Darker 7p2a), etc. Rubbers? I often can't tell the difference between them. I've mounted very different rubbers on each side of the blade, and tried flipping the blade around to see if I could produce the same shots. I could. Could I tell the difference between the rubbers? Yes, if they're different types (e.g. a Tensor and a Chinese sheet) but only after pausing and thinking about it. Sometimes I can't, at all (two Chinese sheets..). There ARE exceptions (Reactor Ckylin comes to mind - totally unusable). The big disappointment was buying an expensive Tensor for the first time, sticking it on the blade and finding that it wasn't the big quantum leap I'd been told to expect, because it wasn't. After having tried several different expensive sheets (I never buy the same one twice.. ) I've given up hope of finding that super sheet that will immediately give me an extra 50 ratings points - or finding a sheet that's so powerful I can't control it. Don't get me wrong, there ARE differences, it's just that they're subtle rather than glaring. While differences between blades (even two examples of the same blade) can actually be jarring.

Iskandar

I think blade matters the most. I have tried same rubbers on different speed rating blades with 40+ ball.
Rubbers FH: 729-08 H40, BH: 729 Focus 3 Snipe H37.
Blades: Yinhe V14 pro(off), PG7 (Off -), Stiga All round Classic (All+).
Overall performance was quite different on each blade. I liked the feeling and control on PG7 so I ordered one. Also speed ratings of different manufacturers are quite different. If you are beginner like me try to get a Allwood blade and stay away from carbon blades you would improve your technique.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A5010 using Tapatalk

Hm... I am still on that journey to realise what you have just said.
I must be at the very bottom of the food chain...

I haven't tried many rubbers, didn't have time yet, but the hard and sticky 729 FX works the same for me on any piece of wood.
Unless that piece of wood is weird in some way, like heavy or size of a frying pan, like Defplay.
It does change things of course.

Hard, sticky and slow Chinese rubbers tend to dominate over any blade, and they can tame "balsa effect" or some fast blades. Normal tensors or "European rubbers" are more dependant on the blade.

For me slow Chinese rubber with slow blade is waaay too slow overall, especially with 40+ balls. How you rip winners with that...

They are both essential but not the most important. Lots of practice and lots of competition will make you a very good player.

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Ping like you've never ponged before.

Sanwei M8 new version..
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/SANWEI- ... 64c8b9475e

Anyone has tried? How is it different from the old one... which I have ordered a year ago....

Cheers

I'm of the opinion that equipment is not as important as people sometimes make it out to be. Plenty of blades and rubbers that will work just fine.

As a cautionary EJ tale, consider this 1100+ page thread (I assume you can read Russian):

http://www.ttsport.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=14641

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USATT: 1807 | League: 1887

The difference is in the color of the handle pieces. You might also get blades of different weights. I have some that are around 72g, and two or three that are around 82 or 83. The heavy ones all came from a batch from Eacheng, so it depends on who has what at a given time.

I too share the opinion about equipment. There is a huge variety of stuff that will not only work, but will work well for most people. When you actually try a lot of stuff you realize this, and how silly some of the reviews you read on tabletennisdb are.

As for the original topic.. I suspect the two non-Defplay blades you have are very similar to each other. Try, as an experiment, a Stiga (or HRT) Clipper or a Yinhe N6. They'll be quite a bit different compared to what you have now.

Iskandar

If you are starting to learn - just get an all wood blade (Tibhar stratus or Stiga all wood ) with Yasaka mark V.

One of the best setups for beginners

Come to think of it.. we played several games this evening. It was just after it had rained, and it was REALLY HUMID. So humid my regular bat (Rakza 7/Yinhe 9000) lost its grip (a lot of drives going into the net). So I brought out my special humid weather bat (999T both sides). I hadn't touched it in a long while, and there was a huge separation bubble under the black sheet, which got worse when I pulled off the protective film. Ugh. But I played with it, red side on the forehand (which I use maybe 80% of the time). And had NO PROBLEMS switching from a Tensor (several months old but which had been Falcoed two weeks ago) to a slow, ultra-tacky Chinese sheet. Immediate improvement - yes, I could tell the rubber was slower, and it was easier doing touch shots, so I used more widely angled pushes, and had less trouble blocking, if anything. Drives? Well, hit a mite harder.

Tomorrow I'm going to have to try and fix it. Gluing topsheets to sponge is a pain, I'm going to use something stronger than Elmer's Rubber Cement. Probably shoe repair contact cement. That stuff's pretty thick, maybe I'll thin it with Ronson lighter fluid. Getting it onto the tips of the pips without any getting in between the pips will be a major problem, so will aligning the topsheet (with contact cements, you get ONE shot at it). 999T used to be plentiful and cheap, $5 a sheet. It's getting hard to find. I don't know if the 999 company has gone out of business, they're no longer listed in the LARC. Globe's still around, of course, and other companies (Crack , JUIC, Akkadi) list "999" rubbers, but they're not as available or more expensive. You can still get this packaging:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32837845932.html

but it's got the ultra-hard 44-45 degree sponge. The funny thing is the blurb on the back mentions Globe, but if you examine the Globe topsheet it's got a different headstamp.




Maybe I'll get a pair of sheets anyhow..

Iskandar

OMG
That is like War and Peace of EJ world.

I am not even close to that kind of detail and nuances discussed.

But I can clearly differentiate all my pre-mades and then them from my 3 custom blades with 729 super FX, which are almost same.

...what is "clipperoid" I wonder?

Good, good...

"Clipperoid" == close equivalent/clone/imitation of STIGA Clipper blade.

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USATT: 1807 | League: 1887