Trying a chinese rubber

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Hey,

I think I want to try a Chinese rubber on my forehand for some weeks. Mostly as an experiment to see if this can positively affect my stroke, by getting more body involved on the forehand side :) I will keep a tensor on the backhand side.

! don't want to mess with, or spend a lot of time on boosting - just go for max thickness on the forehand and see how it works out. I am a bit concerned about that it will feel very "dead", but I want to try it for a decent amount of hours. Being used to tensors at max thickness, it already feels quite dead/strange if I briefly try one of my few years old Mark V rackets at 2.0mm.

Anyway, maybe something like this:
- Sanwei Fextra blade
- DHS H3 Neo (Provincial?) or Nittaku H3 Neo on FH
- DHS Goldarc 8 max on BH

That is possibly a decent setup without spending too much money?
 
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Dont know much about equipment, but i think it will definely feel more dead compared to a regular rubber. I think you will have a hard time, atleast in the beginning if you do not boost the china rubber. I think it will be pretty hard, maybe you can find an alternative with a softer sponge. One friend play with a hurricane, that is really soft without booster. I do think you will get better technique with china rubber, and get a better hit.

What is the reason behind wanting more body in the shot? to little power now? It is worth considering that you proably need to play with a little distance from the table. Too close to the table and you will have less time to swing with the body. More arm close to the table.
 
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I want to try it because I have never played with a good Chinese rubber before. And secondly, I always like to improve my technique. Just tried briefly some chinese prebuilt rackets, but those felt really strange.
 
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- DHS Goldarc 8 max on BH

Gold Arc 8 is not a Chinese rubber at all. It is a very fast european-style tensor, explosive and spinny.

I am sometimes tempted to go (back) to Chinese rubbers; while I did start out as a youngun with Mark V (+30 years ago), I played with eggplant-coloured Friendship 729 and my muscle memory still retains a notion of fondness with it.

But if i were to go that way these days, I would consider DHS H3 Neo - but before that, I'd try to get a feel of Stiga's Genesis (and Genesis II) rubbers. They may not have received that much attention, but word from those that have seriously played with it for a while is very positive. It's described as encouraging full stroke, but without the excercise in masochism that going cold-turky to hard and unforgiving Hurricane 3 or 8 is for those pampered by the more forgiving/lazy euro-type rubbers.
 
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Gold Arc 8 is not a Chinese rubber at all.
I am very well aware of that, should have specified that the rubber I am looking for is for forehand only :) On BH I want to keep a tensor. I will look at the suggested options, thanks.
 
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Hey,

I think I want to try a Chinese rubber on my forehand for some weeks. Mostly as an experiment to see if this can positively affect my stroke, by getting more body involved on the forehand side :) I will keep a tensor on the backhand side.

! don't want to mess with, or spend a lot of time on boosting - just go for max thickness on the forehand and see how it works out. I am a bit concerned about that it will feel very "dead", but I want to try it for a decent amount of hours. Being used to tensors at max thickness, it already feels quite dead/strange if I briefly try one of my few years old Mark V rackets at 2.0mm.

Anyway, maybe something like this:
- Sanwei Fextra blade
- DHS H3 Neo (Provincial?) or Nittaku H3 Neo on FH
- DHS Goldarc 8 max on BH

That is possibly a decent setup without spending too much money?

Avoid Neo H3 commercial if you can. QC seems to have gone down hill. My friend bought a Neo H3 commercial and the tack wore off in a day. To go safe, go for:

  • Neo H3 provincial ($30 USD on Prott.vip)
  • Neo Skyline 3 (~$19USD. much high QC, less counterfeit and more controllable than any H3. But less spin.)


Hurricane 8 (not recommended as it's heavier, less spin, less power and more expensive than Neo H3 provincial)
 
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Avoid Neo H3 commercial if you can. QC seems to have gone down hill. My friend bought a Neo H3 commercial and the tack wore off in a day. To go safe, go for:

  • Neo H3 provincial ($30 USD on Prott.vip)
  • Neo Skyline 3 (~$19USD. much high QC, less counterfeit and more controllable than any H3. But less spin.)


Hurricane 8 (not recommended as it's heavier, less spin, less power and more expensive than Neo H3 provincial)

Or you could get H3 Neo regular from TT11 at around $21. It's very safe.
Honestly, I think regular H3 would be fine, if you just want to get a feel for what tacky rubbers are like. But be warned that hard tacky rubbers are not forgiving and very sensitive to spin. It'll take some time for you to get used to.
 
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I was in the same boat some long time ago. Played with euro rubbers on FH, was happy with them, but EJ bug was restless and I was thinking about trying Chinese style rubbers just for the sake of trying and learning more about different types of equipment. After some research and hesitations, I bought H3Neo and since then I am using it as my only FH rubber.

I didn't have any problem transitioning from EU style rubbers, adjusting took maybe a week or so. It's tackier then EU rubbers and has a harder sponge. But nothing on the extreme.

You can check the tackiness of the rubber by lifting a ball. If you can lift a ball and it sticks for a full couple of seconds you have a very tacky rubber. Like H3. If you can't do that, try lifting A4 piece of paper. If you can do that, you have a medium tacky rubber (like H3Neo). If you can't do that, you probably have EU style, non tacky rubber.

What concerns the quality of H3Neo. Never had problems with them. The tackiness did not disappear, can lift the paper after a couple of months...

Also wanted to mention that I had one curious happening with one of my H3Neo. Don't know how did I do it, but once after peeling my protective sheet at the club, my H3Neo became super tacky and I lifted the ball for some 7 seconds! Next time I cleaned my rubber, that super tackiness disappeared and it became as tacky as usual. I made a video of it and I have it somewhere on my phone. When I'll find it, I'll post it here...

So long story short, as forum members wrote above, H3Neo is the way to go and is the first step
 
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you can try chinese rubber but it is totaly different then regular tensor ones. You need to adjust technique and it will take time when you fully adapt and will take advantage of it. I can propose you to try something between. I am just testing now Tibhar hybrid K1 european and it looks good. It is tacky but not so much as chinese and the bounce is also different, you get huge amount of spin.
 
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Also wanted to mention that I had one curious happening with one of my H3Neo. Don't know how did I do it, but once after peeling my protective sheet at the club, my H3Neo became super tacky and I lifted the ball for some 7 seconds! Next time I cleaned my rubber, that super tackiness disappeared and it became as tacky as usual. I made a video of it and I have it somewhere on my phone. When I'll find it, I'll post it here...

This phenomenon is very normal for new Chinese rubbers, especially DHS. The factory uses a little bit of adhesive to make sure the protective sheet stays on the rubber. The adhesive evaporates very quickly once the protective sheet is removed. Many online and physical retailers in China warns new players about this, so they will not be shocked by the extreme tackiness of new rubbers (or be shocked that the tackiness fades so quickly).
I suspect some complaints surrounding H3's irregular tackiness, tackiness fading, or QC problem could actually be related to the fading of the adhesive from the protective sheet. The rest are probably due to counterfeited DHS rubbers...
 
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