Help with fh rubber, pls

LT sound and T05 are outstanding rubbers for your blade.

Recommending a new rubber without being there and seeing what is going on with my own eyes is a little premature.

Try removing the T05, clean off all the glue, take time to do a good glue job and try it out again, you might think different.

I haven't used acuda, so I cannot tell, but the softer sponge Calibra LT Sound on a BTY Mizutani composite blade is PLENTY spinny on FH loops.

Trouble Maker Carl will tell you personally such a combo is certaily spinny, but he will also tell you I will get similar spin with a modified $16 blade and a 2 yr old sheet of Sigma II Euro and also on a $40 Allround Evolution I modified into an Offensive Evolution and a $100+ blade from my company as well with Aurus or FX-P.

So many possible combos that can spin.

Your blade and rubbers are perfectly suited to making heavy topspin, use your judgment, sometimes it is good to replace a rubber and move on. Every company makes a softish modern rubber just the way you describe, try to test them out by having a 2 minute hit with your club mates' bats.

Vrael said:

Hi,
I started playing table tennis when i was 10 (now i am 21), and I was playing till I was 18 y/o. After that I made break and half year ago i came back to table tennis. Since january i am aplying with jun mizutani zlc, tenergy 05 max fh, tenergy 64 1,8 bh. Problem is with that 05. I can't feel it at all ( I even thought that maybe i glued it bad with taht new glue or smth). I am so afraid to start forehand loops that i started to playing more aggresive from bh than fh... I am definitely changing t05 (need more dwell time), so I am here to ask what are my choices ? My game was based on looping (both sides, but ofc motly fh). I am not palying close to table all the time, love to go into 2nd zone. I thought about: barracuda, acuda s2 and tenergy 64. Friend also recommended calibra lt, but I think i need softer rubber than that (maybe calibra lt sound ?). Good You give me some advice, compare those rubbers or recommend something else ?

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If you loop with the 64 on the FH, which has a thinner sponge, how does that feel to you?

You might just be having trouble with the thickness of the sponge. If the 64 with the 1.8 sponge (I think you may mean 1.9 sponge), works better for you to loop then I have two suggestions:

1) do training drills where you loop with the 2.1 sponge for a few days, a few hours each day till you get really used to it. If you are looping, ultimately the 2.1 sponge is better for looping because you can get the topsheet to wrap around the ball more before you bottom out to the wood. But if several days of training where you are doing all kinds of looping drills doesn't get you to feel the touch with the rubber and make it so you can feel the ball better, than try option #2:

2) Get T05 in 1.9 sponge.

Also, it is worth getting someone who you know, who is in practice to try your blade and see if they think there is something wrong with the T05 you have or if it feels okay to them.

If you are uncomfortable with the equipment, don't do matches just yet. Do training drills till you feel comfortable with it. If you play matches and are not comfortable with the equipment you may start changing your game and end up with a few bad habits.

Oh, one more thing, I heard that Der_Echte glued a banana peel to a block of wood and was able to loop with his backhand with that, so if you give him a $16.00 Chinese racket with $7.00 Chinese rubbers that most people think are old and worn out, he can really cause some destruction. That is why the good squad is so interested in catching him using illegal "pro" versions of their equipment.

Nice, you almost have same my setup, but i like it, it is just too fast or high to me to play with that setup of BTY i have, but honestly speaking, if i am very good offensive high level player then this setup will do amazes for me no wonder, so that i kept it and i use another setup until the time i can use this fast one properly.

I still don't know what is that feel many talked about, feel of the blade or feel of the ball or what exactly? i think if i want feel and it didn't help me in my games and i use another racket without feeling of it and i can win then i don't care about that feel you look for, but what is that important about feeling you talk about or look for?

TareqPhoto said:

Nice, you almost have same my setup, but i like it, it is just too fast or high to me to play with that setup of BTY i have, but honestly speaking, if i am very good offensive high level player then this setup will do amazes for me no wonder, so that i kept it and i use another setup until the time i can use this fast one properly.

I still don't know what is that feel many talked about, feel of the blade or feel of the ball or what exactly? i think if i want feel and it didn't help me in my games and i use another racket without feeling of it and i can win then i don't care about that feel you look for, but what is that important about feeling you talk about or look for?

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TareqPhoto,it is quite important to feel the ball. I think you will agree that it is cool to return every ball low above the net and very short in the short game. A player who is able to do this has a great feeling of the ball. A example of a player with great feeling is Waldner. Just take a look at the mastery of his blocks. He was returning almost every ball, even those with an huge amount of spin.

Cornel said:

TareqPhoto,it is quite important to feel the ball. I think you will agree that it is cool to return every ball low above the net and very short in the short game. A player who is able to do this has a great feeling of the ball. A example of a player with great feeling is Waldner. Just take a look at the mastery of his blocks. He was returning almost every ball, even those with an huge amount of spin.

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ah ok, so this is what you mean by feel, well, i do that a lot then, less with my JM but more so with my N-11, i did win many games against some opponents just because i was making them moving a lot left and right close and far, in fact i keep practicing on them to do blocks, so i sometimes intentionally return the balls high so they can smash it on me and i try to block, but i do a lot of chop, flick, edges touches and even net touches points, i try to control or slow down players than playing on me offensively, but this only working on those who are not strong enough and not that good offensive players yet, so if this is about the feeling then i somehow agree about some rackets can give that feelings, because i remember the first ever time i played in the club last month in February started immediately in their tournament without my own racket, they gave me a racket that stored there which wasn't in great shape, i lost all the balls, no feeling at all, i even can't make one serve good or winner at least, and i only won over one small kid who was even close to defeat me unless i was using my experience on him.

UpSideDownCarl said:

Also, it is worth getting someone who you know, who is in practice to try your blade and see if they think there is something wrong with the T05 you have or if it feels okay to them.

If you are uncomfortable with the equipment, don't do matches just yet. Do training drills till you feel comfortable with it. If you play matches and are not comfortable with the equipment you may start changing your game and end up with a few bad habits.

Oh, one more thing, I heard that Der_Echte glued a banana peel to a block of wood and was able to loop with his backhand with that, so if you give him a $16.00 Chinese racket with $7.00 Chinese rubbers that most people think are old and worn out, he can really cause some destruction. That is why the good squad is so interested in catching him using illegal "pro" versions of their equipment.

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It wasn't that the Chinese rubbers I became comfy with on BH wing were really slick, I dont like that, but XP 2008 on BH is definitely NOT tacky.

Der_Echte said:

It wasn't that the Chinese rubbers I became comfy with on BH wing were really slick, I dont like that, but XP 2008 on BH is definitely NOT tacky.

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lol. hahaha. Well, Der_Echte, I heard you can loop with just about anything on the BH wing.

@Vrael, if the T64 1.9 works for you, then either do looping drills with the T05 2.1 till you get used to the feel of it, or get yourself some 1.9 thickness sponge.

Those rubbers are really top of the line. Really you can use any rubber you want. But it sounds like right now, all you are having trouble with is the thickness of the sponge with the T05 that you have.

I can tell you this man-child does NOT like 1.9 sponge for looping, EPIC FAIL.

If you only heard, then you gotta have a few choice wordz with Ur Optomitrist... and you dont wear glasses yet. Keep juicing.

I agree. I like Max thickness for looping. But if he is having trouble looping with the 05 and it is 2.1 and he is not having trouble looping with the 64 and it is 1.9, then I am willing to bet he would be fine with the 05 if it was 1.9 as well. 64 and 05 are too close for one to be fine for looping and the other to be impossible to feel the ball. That is only the difference in the thickness of the sponge.

And my opinion that looping with Max is ultimately better, is also why I suggested training drills for looping for Vrael to get used to the thicker sponge as the first course of action. If he really can't get used to it after 6-15 hours or training drills than a thinner sponge.

It would be interesting to see if a max sponge from a different kind of rubber like Calibra LT Sound or Evolution FX-P would also be too thick or if it would work.

ANY of those rubbers would loop just fine for him in 2.1 or MAX, whatever is higher. Regular Calibra LT is kinda hard and so is LT+ and has less margin for error on opening topspins. Coulda been a bad glue job, a bad wore out sponge, or Pcycho-Cat getting involved.



http://media.giphy.com/media/OhEWDytX1xcg8/giphy.gif

Der_Echte said:

ANY of those rubbers would loop just fine for him in 2.1 or MAX, whatever is higher. Regular Calibra LT is kinda hard and so is LT+ and has less margin for error on opening topspins. Coulda been a bad glue job, a bad wore out sponge, or Pcycho-Cat getting involved.

http://media.giphy.com/media/OhEWDytX1xcg8/giphy.gif

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Vrael said:

Hi,
Thanks for your reply. When i loop with my tenergy 64 on fh I can feel the ball digging into the rubber and it gives me much more confidence. Unfortunately i don;t have access to t64 2,1mm.
I gave my blade to much more skilled freidn and he said there is nothing wrong with it but it felt very hard for him also (normally he is playing calibras and stiga clipper blade).
I am thinking about calibra lt sound and acuda s2, but I am concered about low throw of caliba and it's low durability (I've hard it loses grip,speed,click very fast) and I've never treid acuda and have no team mate with it.

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Well, if you read what Vrael wrote: "I gave my blade to much more skilled freidn and he said there is nothing wrong with it but it felt very hard for him also (normally he is playing calibras and stiga clipper blade)."

To me that means that there is nothing wrong with it but that his friend is used to a softer sponge and a softer blade.

So I am taking the statement that there is nothing wrong and guessing that there is nothing wrong with it. So the variable between the 05 and the 64 is the sponge thickness. If the thicker sponge is harder for him to control, feel and loop with, that is an issue of practice. I am also guessing that with another sponge at Max (2.1 is the thickest version for Tenergy) that he will still have some problems but with a thinner sponge (1.8, 1.9 or perhaps even 2.0) he may be okay.

Now if that is the case that the sponge thickness is really what is giving Vrael problems, then I also think that training drills with the thicker sponge is actually what would fix that.

I don't think it is a bad rubber. I don't think it is a bad glue job. I think new rubber would be an added expense, at least until Vrael has done enough drills to be used to the T05 2.1. And then any rubber he chooses should be good once he gets used to the new rubber. And getting used to a new rubber could take anywhere from 5 min to 2 hours if he gets used to using the 2.1 sponge for looping.

Vrael said:

Thanks for all of your feedback. I was thinking that sponge hardness is more important than thickness, but everyone seems confident that the factor here is sponge thickness, why is that ?. I will use tenergy 05 untill it is worn out, but i was thinking what to buy after that, because I am sure my fh rubber will change

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It is true, that the sponge hardness could be a factor for you as well. The reason I was not thinking along those lines is that the sponge on 64 and the sponge on 05 is exactly the same. Also the topsheet on those two is also exactly the same. The only difference between 05 and 64 is the pimple configuration. The pimple configuration on 64: the pimples are longer, thiner and spaced farther apart. So it has a very slightly softer feel and responds a little differently. But they are close enough in many ways. So the only significant difference is the thickness of the sponge.

I hope the best for you in your exploration.

You also can try a bunch of people's rackets to see what works best for you. That can help too. In the end, there is a real possibility that, if you really get used to the setup you have you might end up starting to feel it is the right setup for you. It is a pretty amazing setup you have. There is no coincidence how many top pros use that rubber. But it does take a high degree of skill to use 05. My guess is that, since you used to play and you are coming back recently, that it is more about getting used to it than anything else. But, once you are used to it, and have tried a few setups that friends have, you will be able to make a good decision for what will be best for your play.

"It is not in the bow, but in the archer"
my trainor once said

Carl, just HAD to debunk my Pcho-Cat theory.

BTW, did you click the hyperlink below the cat pic with many weaving eyes?

It is a different Psycho Cat pic.

Both psycho cats are scary. I do think the psycho cat is the real issue.