OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Hi there! Me and my wife are just starting to play table tennis and we need a pair of rackets to really learn and develop some technique. (We have a table in our building)

We have already played TT in the past but only simple moves, recreational ones...

I live in Brazil, and only AliExpress options are available to me. I’ve already read a lot of posts here and the suggestions in the new paddle guide but a lot of doubts appeared.

The combos suggested are mostly with cj8000 but hard version 42-44 or 40-42 and I read that this are too hard for beginners. Moreover some combos are with H3Neo or Ak47 yellow and I don’t know if they are suited for beginners.

So I will put below some of the options that I thought... Probably I will buy two different sets to see which one each of us will prefer.

I’m also I doubt about rubber thickness... some people say that it’s best 1.8, some people say that 2.2 is better.

Blades: Galaxy W6

Galaxy Earth.3

Rubbers: Cj8000 biotech 36-38

Friendship 729 Cream Transcend

Other possibilities are:

Galaxy w6 with Focus Snipe 3 and H3Neo

Galaxy w6 with AK47 Yellow -FH and Blue -BH

Galaxy Earth.3 with the rubbers above

Galaxy N9s with CJ8000 40-42

Palio Energy 03 with CJ8000 38-40

DHS POWER G7 with CJ8000 36-38

Sanwei with t88 or CJ8000 36-38

I’m really confused with all this options and hope that you can help with the best two combinations of blades and rubbers for us.

Sorry if I made the post in the wrong place, thank you all in advance. Hope that I can help someone in the future too

Sanwei M8 Premade with T88 rubbers:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32793574001.html

This is an excellent blade with excellent rubbers. As far as sponge thickness.. if you're looking at cheap Chinese rubbers most are ONLY available in 2.2mm sponge. No problem, the ball's gotten bigger so the thick sponge is fine.

Iskandar

Thank you! The T88 is better than CJ8000? Or for a beginner it doesn´t matter too much? I was really keen on to buy the W6, as it is close to Yasaka Sweden (that is on beginner list of ooak), but read a lot of really good comments of M8 and I´m changing my mind.

Budget is not a great issue, but I know that expensive blades/rubber isn´t always good for a beginner...

All these cheap Chinese rubbers are very similar to each other. You probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

Iskandar

One thing to consider before buying Sanwei M8 - the handle is pretty thin. I don't think my hand is very large but it's uncomfortable for me.

True. But easily fixed with grip tape.

I find it the right size for me.

Iskandar

Thank you all for your advices. I probably will get a M8 +T88 and something else just to see the difference (probably I won´t, but I wan´t to try)

For the second set (for my wife) what do you recommend it´s best? I was think about W6 + ak47 blue+yellow or Earth3 + CJ8000 biotech 36-38 2.0mm BH and Cream Transcend 1.8 mm 40 FH

I recommend the same set up for both.

The W6 is considerably heavier, with a bigger handle. I thought it was quite slow when I had mine, I ended up selling it to a friend, who plays with it to this day. The M8 is a relatively light blade. If you're going to get something with CJ8000 on it, have the vendor glue the rubbers on for you - CJ8000 (like a lot of Palio rubbers) has a pronounced spongeward curl (otherwise known as "dish"), which makes it difficult to apply to a blade, especially if you've never done it before.

Iskandar

How deal with that dish?
Thanks

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

If it's not severe, you'd just apply the rubber carefully. It's still not good - you're compressing the topsheet/stretching the sponge, which is the opposite of what people were trying to achieve back when we were speed-gluing (which was a compressed sponge and stretched topsheet). Severe dish, though - I had a sheet of Yasaka ZAP (which is actually made by Palio in China) where I ended up with a CREASE in the topsheet when the rubber was applied. NOT GOOD. The fix, apparently, especially according to a couple of people posting on this forum, was to use booster (or baby oil) to expand the sponge so that the rubber becomes flat before fixing it to the blade. This, of course, gives people like Igor conniptions, but who cares about him...

Iskandar

rubbers
Super 729-FX (Large Pores / Soft Sponge)
Reactor Thunder 40+

Probably not necessary for a rank beginner. Those rubbers are more like $10 or $15 a sheet rather than $5. If you're going to put your own rubbers on I'd suggest regular 729 (General Sponge), Reactor Corbor, Yinhe 9000, Sanwei T11-III (the 2-for-1 version) or Yinhe Mercury II.

Iskandar