OOAK Table Tennis Forum

This is the set-up Silver kindly "raffled" off here by first in best dressed to the Aussies. I guess it sometimes pays to have insomnia lol.

Donic's marketing spiel:

Dima Ovtcharov, European Champion Men?s Team 2007 and Bronze Medallist European Championships Single Competition 2007, has become a regular member of the German National Team despite his youth. His greatest strength is his extreme adaptability at the table. He possesses extraordinary touch and has the ability to vary his play to adjust to differing circumstances. To complement Dima?s game, DONIC has devised a combination of woods for the DIMA SawTec AR blade that is suitable for every stroke in the game, including flick, push, block, topspin, loop, and smash. This blade enables players of all abilities to play to their full potential. Control is excellent, the blade is relatively quick, and the DONIC Cork-Covered System gives a perfect handle.
The DIMA SawTec AR blade is the chameleon of table tennis blades thanks to its allround adaptability!

Reb's Sum-up

So I have now sealed up the blade, giving it my own unique branding and I chose to make it a dual-inverted blade given Silver had included some interesting and exotic rubbers for me to try.

Well I have to say this setup is a little surprise package. It's not a heavy hitters blade IMO, but it does have some gears still. Now I'm only doing this review based on hitting with the training board, so it does have some "real play" limitations. I'm having a hit tonight with a mate though, so might be able to add some things in after that. Oh, the weight of the blade was 81.7g on its own before sealing. With rubbers on it comes in at a modest 165.1g, quite light for a dual inverted, I'd say.

The blade itself looks nothing very special. Just a common looking little 5 ply All+ to OFF- blade. It does however have a nice cork handle with plastic logo plates buried either side that jazz it up a little. I sealed the cork handle as well, and I have noticed I am probably going to have to put on a grip tape as its sweating in my hand more than the Cayman does with its sealer. Not a problem though. The blade is supposed to be nearly stiff but I think it has some flex in it, I can't say exactly, but it doesn't feel that far away from the HK, perhaps a little more flex than that. The blade is quite hard on its outer plies.
The construction is:
Koto 0.8 mm
Kiri 1.0 mm
Kiri 2.5 mm
Kiri 1.0 mm
Koto 0.8 mm

The Bty Tempest is red and the Andro Tensor is black and I would have put money on the Andro being the speed baron. But no! The Tempest packs quite a wallop. The Tensor is fast enough, but I found that it is better on the BH and I am driving and flicking shots on from all over the place at pace with the Andro. The Tempest on the other hand (or the FH to be specific) lets me whack the ball at quite some pace. The blade seems to have this quirk that if I go full barrel at the FH playing straight or even out the the right, the blade becomes a bit impotent and shots fall short of keeping the power up, with the result they power into the net. Drive in through with the wrist turning over to the left though and it becomes a different strory altogether. The power turns on and whips the ball with great accuracy down the opponents FH side.

Serving with the Andro is ok, producing a decent spin when I manage a good technique *cough*. Serving with the Tempest though produces signficantly more spin. I'm really quite impressed with this rubber.

I doubt whether I'll be making this setup my main setup for next season, but I think I'm going to have some fun with this blade and it'll be great to have around to offer guests, as I am sadly lacking in dual-inverted setups, lol. And for some reason, no-one wants to use my combo LP setups when I offer them

Overall, I'd say this is a good setup for someone looking for a nice little custom bat that is not too heavy, has nice control and can pack a punch when needed. I think Silver said the Tempest was a hard rubber to come across though. I'm sure there is a myriad of rubbers that could replace it though - Flexstra would be nice on this I think, as would a nice red Tango I think.

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I'm always in the dark, but the Dark sheds lights upon everything!! Beauty is only pimple deep! Beauty is in the eye of the pipholder!
S/U 1: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Andro Rasant 2.1 . BH Red Tibhar Grass Dtecs
S/U 2: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Hexer+ 2.1 . BH Red GD Talon
S/U 3: Blade: Bty Gergely . No rubbers...thinking of adding Red Dtecs and Black Rasant
Aussie Table Tennis Shop / Aussie Table Tennis Facebook Page / Equipment Review Index / Read my Reb Report Blog: click here.

Raffle? There was no raffle involved. It was a skill test.

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Chasse Patate

How so?

I actually think it was an endurance test!

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I'm always in the dark, but the Dark sheds lights upon everything!! Beauty is only pimple deep! Beauty is in the eye of the pipholder!
S/U 1: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Andro Rasant 2.1 . BH Red Tibhar Grass Dtecs
S/U 2: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Hexer+ 2.1 . BH Red GD Talon
S/U 3: Blade: Bty Gergely . No rubbers...thinking of adding Red Dtecs and Black Rasant
Aussie Table Tennis Shop / Aussie Table Tennis Facebook Page / Equipment Review Index / Read my Reb Report Blog: click here.

Lets call it a test of skill, determination and endurance.



The Andro is a COR2 Emotion IIRC.

That sheet of tempest is probably about 10 years old, but I only cut it 12 months ago.

I probably outlined my thoughts on the sawtech ar a while back, but IMO it's a much much faster blade than the AR designation would have you believe. It's squarely in the OFF category in my books.

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Chasse Patate

A mate had a hit with it tonight. His bat is a Dawei blade of some sort with XP Power on both sides. He loved the sawtech! I gave him a hit with the only other dual inverted bat I have which is the LKT Ayous Hionki with Flexstra and Tackiness Chop21 on it. He went back to the sawtech quickly and nevr gave his bat another look all night!

Yes I think you might be right. I had a hit with my W6 tonight with C7 and Venus on it and I think the Sawtech has a bit more grunt than the W6, although might be a different story if W6 had the Tempest and Cor2 on it.

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I'm always in the dark, but the Dark sheds lights upon everything!! Beauty is only pimple deep! Beauty is in the eye of the pipholder!
S/U 1: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Andro Rasant 2.1 . BH Red Tibhar Grass Dtecs
S/U 2: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Hexer+ 2.1 . BH Red GD Talon
S/U 3: Blade: Bty Gergely . No rubbers...thinking of adding Red Dtecs and Black Rasant
Aussie Table Tennis Shop / Aussie Table Tennis Facebook Page / Equipment Review Index / Read my Reb Report Blog: click here.

Sounds like Tempest is wery good rubber

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Blade:
F/H:
B/H:

IMO Tempest is highly underrated rubber, specially w/o SG...

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EJ with over 120 blades (30+ def) and 220 rubbers (30+ LP), all active or new

Well I am convinced it has some serious power. The Dima blade isn't a super power and its getting almost as much speed as the Omega II off the HK. A nudge under still, but still a lot of power. Much more than Venus for example. And the thing I like so much s how accurate and controllable it is. Off the training board I could just hit shot after shot in the same spot with big power. None of my other setups are quite so consistently accurate when putting on the power!

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I'm always in the dark, but the Dark sheds lights upon everything!! Beauty is only pimple deep! Beauty is in the eye of the pipholder!
S/U 1: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Andro Rasant 2.1 . BH Red Tibhar Grass Dtecs
S/U 2: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Hexer+ 2.1 . BH Red GD Talon
S/U 3: Blade: Bty Gergely . No rubbers...thinking of adding Red Dtecs and Black Rasant
Aussie Table Tennis Shop / Aussie Table Tennis Facebook Page / Equipment Review Index / Read my Reb Report Blog: click here.

Wow.. I thought they quit making Tempest sometime in the 1980s if not earlier... Or did they?? It was cheaper than Sriver.

Iskandar