OOAK Table Tennis Forum

I've been researching tables and I've mostly seen that those with a thickness of less than 15 mms are too flimsy, 16 to 19 mms is quite alright for intermediate, and upwards to 25 mms is for professional play. What tables have you tried and what thickness would be the absolute minimum you would practice and play on? I'm thinking of buying a 15 mm one (joola inside 15) but wanted to know if it's worth the extra money for more thickness

There is a limit to the impact of blade thickness/rigidity on ball bounce. After that, ball deformations will limit how much energy can be returned. Looking at this VERY informative article: https://www.ittfeducation.com/wp-conten ... Impact.pdf

I'd guess since a hinoki blade (which is usually <1CM) is able to return as much energy as a marble block, anything thicker than that is safe for a table.

I would get at least 18mm, anything else is more likely to start warping over time.

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One inch.

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Thicker tables do have a noticeably higher bounce compared with thinner ones. If you can, get a 25mm table, though a slightly thinner one would work.

Incidentally an inch is 25.4mm, so 25mm is nominally one inch.

Iskandar

Personally I don't care on what kind of table I play. In the summer I'd frequently play outside on a stone table if I feel like it. As long as I have fun, it's fine. But I wouldn't buy anything below 19mm if I wanted to do some serieus training. It's not about a single mm for me but I got to draw the line somewhere. I used to have a 21mm-ish table (could be a mm of) years back, but I don't train 6 days a weel anymore so a good table at the club became fine.

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I've played on some truly abysmal tables. The ones when I was in college.. well, there were a couple tables in a dorm basement that were literally pieces of painted plywood set on a pair of saw horses. The bounce was low, AND irregular. It was possible to play on them, but I wouldn't if given a choice. The thing though, was that those tables stood up to DECADES of abuse, of people putting glasses of beer on them, of their being taken down and being put up again. They're probably still there. Any other table would have been destroyed, years ago.

At the club they had these old foldaway tables that had maybe 18mm tops. Somewhat more consistent, but the bounce was low. One year we managed to buy a couple of used Donic tables after the Duneland tournament. What a difference.

Iskandar

We have an 18mm table at home and it is just fine. I cannot tell any significant difference from the 25mm tables at the clubs I play at. However, not all tables are created equal. At the tennis club I belong to there is a newish 15mm table that feels awful and flimsy. Not sure if it’s the thickness or the surface finish - has a really slick surface. One of these days I want to build a table, I think they are just made of mdf. Getting the right paint finish would be important, but also getting hold of some oh those fold away legs would be vital unless you never wanted to move it.