OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Hi,

The just came across a defensive blade by Sanwei, called Defense Alpha...

http://www.sanweisport.com/english/?prod=defense-alpha

Does not seem to be a clone of it's namesake from Butterfly .... Has anyone owned and played with this one ? What's it's like ?

From product description:

"The Defense Alpha is an initiative vertical position of the wood core."

What does it mean?

_________________
USATT: 1807 | League: 1887

Definetly not a clone Limba not willow

_________________
Tsp Black Balsa 3.0 Tenergy 05 1.9 388d ox black

My exact thoughts too, when I read the description...

After reading countless such descriptions of Chinese equipment, I've come to the conclusion that it's a very special type of English, meant only for the Chinese (mind you, only of Mainland China) to understand...

Anyone, actually played with this ?

Ok... As a Chinese native speaker, I could't understand this description for quite a long time... Finally, I know the actual meaning is:
"The core wood ply of this blade is vertical to the wood grain, which is an initiative by us."

AHA!!!! End-grain wood. The fibers are perpendicular to the blade surface. You know all those TSP balsa-glass blades? They all use end-grain balsa. So this isn't a new idea. I've actually built end-grain balsa blades in the past, you can obtain the wood from companies that supply builders of homebuilt aircraft - they use them as cores for composite sandwiches. But good luck finding anything less than 6mm in thickness. I actually bought some and shipped it to a balsa supply company and they sanded it down to 4mm for me for a small fee. This was almost 20 years ago.

Unfortunately the butt-shot shows that this isn't the case... Instead, it shows that the core's grain is 90 degrees to the length of the blade. Again.. not unprecedented - the Stiga Clipper (and all those other 7 ply blades with similar construction) have a three ply core, the centermost layer of which has grain in the same direction.



Iskandar

Hmm... The pictures form GH Sports seems quite different with others for the core ply...
Anyway, I haven't played with it. It's not popular in China. I'm also looking forward on any review about it.

Hi,

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32437606837.html

Nice looking blade ... To me, it has a retro look-n-feel to it, which I like, especially the handle ...

It's priced okay too .. A bit more than Sword 309, and Yinhe 980, but still, I wouldn't term it as exorbitant ..

A few dollars more and you can get either the DefPlay Senso (you already have this) and Yinhe LQ1 https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32957102762.html

And I'm also looking forward on any review about Sanwei Def α.

_________________
current setup: blade: Yinhe 980 | FH: Palio AK47 Blue 2.1mm | BH: TSP Curl P1-R 1mm
looping setup: blade: Yinhe W-6 | FH: Palio AK47Red 2.1mm | BH: Palio AK47Blue 2.1mm
@work setup: blade: Yinhe 980 | FH: Yinhe Mercury2 2.1mm | BH: Yinhe Neptune 0.7mm
to-be-used setup: blade: DONIC DefPlay Senso 3 | FH: YASAKA Rakza 7 soft 1.8mm | BH: TSP SpinPips Chop 2 1.4mm

If you look closer at the photo you posted you'll see the grain at the handle is in the wrong direction, even if the stuff along the side of the blade looks like end-grain. Maybe what we're seeing is the annual rings rather than the grain, much like you see on multi-ply hinoki bats, where all the wood is quarter-sawn. Darn... I don't WANT to buy one just to find out..

Iskandar

I have one but haven't played with it.

_________________
instagram: rokphishtt

Hi,

Played with it, yet ?

Unfortunately I haven't, and probably won't be for the time being...

_________________
instagram: rokphishtt

It seems it is not a clone of the Btfy variant but they have something in common.Both of them are very heavy : 100 grams +.A vendor just told me it can get as heavy as 120 grams!!!!!!

For chopping away from the table, the heavier , the better imo .However,it appears not many people have used it so far .