OOAK Table Tennis Forum

I think I read that another company "asked" them to change it because it was the initials of their company. That would not be an unusual request. So they took the easy way out and just changed the order of the letters, but you can read a lot of stuff on the internet, maybe someone that has inside info can post to clarify the truth of the matter.

_________________
Donic Waldner World Champion 89 FL; Donic BlueStar A2 (Red) Max; DMS Firestorm (Black) 1.8

You mean LKT and KTL? Might be - I have NO IDEA why both trademarks were used by the same company in the first place, but it had been going on for many years. Some items were branded KTL, others LKT, and everyone knew it was the same company. I always thought it was because they were Chinese.. The LKT or KTL might be some person's initials, and in Chinese the family name (Leong, for instance) comes first, but when translated to English they often move the family name to the last position. Maybe LKT would be Leong Kuay Teow while KTL would be Kuay Teow Leong. (You see this when they adopt a "Christian name" - instead of Leong Harry - to take an example - they'd write it Harry Leong - except in recent years there's been this "Chinese consciousness/identity" movement to use Leong Harry instead - I know two or three people who insist on being addressed this way). So it was a bit of a mess, and 2-3 years ago they decided to rename all the "LKT" stuff to "KTL", probably coinciding with the move to give ITTF numbers to older sheets - this meant double LARC entries as an intermediate step. If you actually own anything with the LKT label on it.. particularly blades - hang on to it, it's a collector's item.. Speaking of which - four years ago if you checked AliExpress, between the two of them they had maybe 30-40 blades on sale, including some where there was a sliding weight in the handle which you could use to change the balance. Most seems to be gone. Stay away from Golden Star - the two sheets I bought suffered almost immediate topsheet separation.

Iskandar

I have one of those Black Whirlwind paddles with the sliding weight in the handle. Seemed kind of gimmicky as I could not tell much difference no matter where the weight in the handle was, but I really like the paddle. The handle has come apart a few times after dropping it and the weighting mechanism had to be reassembled, but gluing it back seems to have worked. Shame it is no longer available. And, of course, it had Reflectoid on it, so it is now really obsolete.

I understand you fully, Iskandar . GD Submarine is a great cheap rubber .Some of the choppers here have it in 1.0 mm with great results; also, it is very spinny . The durability is a personal interpretation, besides, it depends on how long you train per week .

If you train a lot, just say the Sub wears down fast . My intention is not to put down the Sub,..just say for those who train a lot that they might need to stock up on it ,...

I agree on what you have just said , Amen

I could wish that the LARC and the ITTF rules were as well observed in the league in which I play as they seem to be by people here. The other night I had to play a hardbat player, whose bat was nearly as old as me, and had never had a new rubber on it. So, imagine an SP in ox, where the pips had almost completely worn down. I had to look hard to make sure they had actually ever been there. Like playing against a smooth (no friction) thin flat rubber.

_________________
Other setups:
SDC Custom Blade/Butterfly Dignics 80/Butterfly Glayzer
BTY Viscaria/Tibhar K3/Tibhar K3

From what I read, this was actually very very common in the hardbat era (up to 1952, perhaps up to 1959) - no one actually changed rubbers, or bought bare blades - you just bought pre-assembled bats. They might've been expensive MacCrossens, Hocks and Dunlops and were the best rackets money could buy, but few people actually bothered changing rubbers until the pips were worn down to nubs in the middle of the blade and perhaps not even then. And this was true even at the top international levels. Rubber didn't come packaged nicely (unless it came from Butterfly, apparently) - Hock had to get rubber from MacCrossen, who imported it (mainly from Britain, where it was made by a CAR company). Rumor was in Britain (up to the 1970s) you could get the rubber at drugstores and such - it came in wide rolls, the shopkeeper would cut off what you needed.

Actually, if you think worn-down rubber is bad, try playing against bare wood. Bare wood was one of the four surfaces allowed after 1959, and a lot of the old-time penholders here used the bare wood on the back of their blade as a change-up. Talk about spin reversal.. there's one guy in our group who does this and he's actually gotten pretty good at it. He can actually chop against topspin with it.

Iskandar

Wasn't this quite the norm for j-pen players during the 80ies? The j-pen pre mades that I came across in my childhood never had a rubber on the "BH" side.

Yes it was. All the people who hit the ball with the wood back of their Japanese penhold blade these days learned to play back when it was not only legal, but common practice. Word about rule changes in table tennis takes a LONG time to make it to the general player population - there are still many, many people who, to this day, play games to 21 points.

I forget exactly when bare wood was disallowed, I think it was part of the two color rule. Butterfly came up with that "Pecular" rubber, specifically for the backs of Japanese penhold rackets, that would fit around the semi-circular cork thingamajig.

Iskandar

The rules are quite inconsistent in that regard now. They state that each side of the blade that is intended for play must be covered by rubber, and that a side that is not intended for play must be the opposite color than the rubber on the other side. So not covering the backhand of your J-Pen is still legal.

But then when you play with that side it's legal, too, because you can hit the ball with anything, your hand, the handle, the edge, etc., so obviously also the backhand side of your J-Pen blade. The question is how often would you have to hit with the bare wood until the umpire decides you are intending to do this, and thus should have covered that side with a rubber. So your blade becomes illegal during play?

I think disallowing pure wood was a big mistake. That is how Table Tennis was originally played, and rubbers became the norm, because you have an advantage using them, you don't gain an unfair advantage by using pure wood. I guess it was another episode of the ITTF and equipment manufacturers trying to help each other sell more stuff.

You are right.

LKT is Li Kuang Tsu.
KTL is Kuang Tsu Li
(´ ∀ ` *)

Sent from my TA-1021 using Tapatalk

True, it's ambiguous. I don't agree, nor do I disagree that they shouldn't have pass this rule. I'd have to say it IS interesting to play against, AND would note that it's actually quite difficult to learn how to use it consistently. One wonders what the effects would be at the highest levels of the sport - whether the likes of Ito Shigeo ever used the back side of their blades in actual world class play. It's essentially a schoolyard trick type thing. You'd rarely see, for instance, someone consistently using the back side of the bat to return serves, or to chop drives. Once in a while someone does it.

Iskandar

Mnnb, without a doubt you must try 729FX large pore blue sponge. It too is a weird rubber like reflectoid in that it is forgiving in some strokes, dampening (depending), great for pushes and chops without too much pace, but can be deadly on offense depending on your technique. It’s also cheaper... I think reflectoid is a bit tackier though.

IMO it’s the most forgiving chopping rubber ever...kind of a “squishy “ feel which I like..., yet faster on offense then Reflectoid, but less dampening on passive strokes, but not by much.

I will likely invert eventually to 729FX full time. Available on aliexpess and places like that.

_________________
Blog: "Holy Chtchet!" ⇝

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

Thanks Japsican! I'll give it a try. I just tried regular 729FX with some kind of orange sponge last week.

_________________



The MNNB Blog has had some pretty amazing stuff lately. Just click this text to check it out. | My OOAK Interview
Table Tennis Video Links: itTV | laola1.tv | ttbl | fftt | Challenger Series | mnnb-tv

My whole set-up costs less than a sheet of Butterfly Dignics

In the Max sponge version I thought it was a little too fast, and slightly harder to control over the table (popped up pushes, etc.). Maybe the thinner sponge options would be better, especially for defensive play. When I bought mine (around 2015) there wasn't any choice of sponge thickness. The MAIN drawback to this stuff, I think, is that it doesn't seem to be an official 729 retail product, who knows where it comes from and why, only Eacheng sells it, so we don't know how long it'll remain on the market. The 729FX topsheet isn't going to go away, though, as long as they sell that it'll remain "legal", of course, so you COULD stock up with 30 sheets if you decide you like it and keep it in an airtight tin in the fridge (or at least, it's the sort of thing _I_ would do if I really liked it). This, of course, presumes that Igor's supposed rule change about multiple sponges becoming illegal was made up, which would make a huge chunk of Chinese rubbers illegal.

Iskandar

Why I typed “invert” I will never know. I blame my iPhone. Lol.