Story of TT - How the chinese found the tacky hard rubber and what they used before?

eduardo1995filipe · Jan 26, 2019

Hi all, I would like to know when first tacky hard rubbers appeared, and what the chinese players used before that, did they use non tacky rubbers? Or in that time the chinese were most of them SP hitters?

Best Regards,
Eduardo

Lula · Jan 26, 2019

I think before alot of them played with short pimple, but started loosing so they needed to change something. But i do not know when or why they started with china rubber.

I have always thought that tacky rubbers grip the ball better in humidity, and maybe that can be a reason why they started with it. I would think that it is very hot in parts of china. But i have read that tacky rubbers is not good in humidity from users here, but i would still think it should be better compared to inverted.

zeio · Jan 26, 2019

The answer is in the OP's setup. There is a very intriguing story behind.

Tony's Table Tennis · Jan 26, 2019

it was first pimples out in the world
then Japense came up with inverted
Chinese first inverted was with 729
Sad in a way that the pioneer of Chinese inverted are not really in the "professional" side of things nowadays

yogi_bear · Jan 26, 2019

For DHS, was it the PF-1 that was their first??

G_ZHANG · Jan 26, 2019

Before the tacky rubbers, Chinese players use mostly short pimple. Until China lost in the WTTC 1971， where the opponents are using powerful inverted rubbers. Then Chinese factories started to research in the rubber. Sep 1972, Tianjin developed the first tacky rubber, thus they named it 729 (09. 1972).

The reason they do it in the tacky way is rather interesting. In the 1970s Chinese factories has little knowledge in sponge technology. It's hard to blown the sponge properly to develope it into a consistant porous sponge. We can't make the evenly porous sponge as the Japanease did, and we can't even make sponge of consistant hardness.
The solution? Instead of making porous sponge, we made some less porous rubber-based sponge. Yes, sponge is normally made from some polymer. But due to the technology limitation, we make sponge using rubber.

But rubber sponge are much harder than polymer sponge. Therefore can't hold the ball and generate enough spin.
Solution? They put an extra sticky layer on the top sheet rubber to make it as a tacky rubber. So instead of letting the sponge to hold the ball to generate spin like the Japanease and German did, we use hard rubber-based sponge + tacky topsheet to generate spin. Turns out it works well.

That's the story of how Chinese invented the tacky rubber.
There are more background on this topic on why later on Chinese players don't use non-tacky rubber or why european players don't use tacky rubber. You can find it here, but you need to google translate though.
https://bbs.hupu.com/19974400.html

eduardo1995filipe · Jan 26, 2019

Lula said:
I think before alot of them played with short pimple, but started loosing so they needed to change something. But i do not know when or why they started with china rubber.

I have always thought that tacky rubbers grip the ball better in humidity, and maybe that can be a reason why they started with it. I would think that it is very hot in parts of china. But i have read that tacky rubbers is not good in humidity from users here, but i would still think it should be better compared to inverted.

Yeah my chinese coach talked about the humidity! It really makes difference, I've played in some humid pavilions where I live, with Tenergy and with 729, and yeah, grips the ball much better in that conditions!
Pavilion

eduardo1995filipe · Jan 26, 2019

zeio said:
The answer is in the OP's setup. There is a very intriguing story behind.

Why the answer is in my setup?

eduardo1995filipe · Jan 26, 2019

Tony's Table Tennis said:
it was first pimples out in the world
then Japense came up with inverted
Chinese first inverted was with 729
Sad in a way that the pioneer of Chinese inverted are not really in the "professional" side of things nowadays

But aren't all CNT obligued to use DHS rubber on FH? Or it's just their preference instead of other chinese brand?
What do you mean by saying 729 aren't on professional side of things? It's because pros don't use it or because the rubbers are not that good compared to H3?

a bit offtopic, but I use 729 on both sides and I love it, in my opinion, I prefer them to DHS. The only issue in BH is that I need to make much effort compared to eurojap and it's causing me arm and shoulder pain, so maybe I'll change it, but apart of that, I like the quality of the shot that the rubber produces!

eduardo1995filipe · Jan 26, 2019

yogi_bear said:
For DHS, was it the PF-1 that was their first??

When was the end of production of that rubber?

eduardo1995filipe · Jan 26, 2019

G_ZHANG said:
Before the tacky rubbers, Chinese players use mostly short pimple. Until China lost in the WTTC 1971， where the opponents are using powerful inverted rubbers. Then Chinese factories started to research in the rubber. Sep 1972, Tianjin developed the first tacky rubber, thus they named it 729 (09. 1972).

The reason they do it in the tacky way is rather interesting. In the 1970s Chinese factories has little knowledge in sponge technology. It's hard to blown the sponge properly to develope it into a consistant porous sponge. We can't make the evenly porous sponge as the Japanease did, and we can't even make sponge of consistant hardness.
The solution? Instead of making porous sponge, we made some less porous rubber-based sponge. Yes, sponge is normally made from some polymer. But due to the technology limitation, we make sponge using rubber.

But rubber sponge are much harder than polymer sponge. Therefore can't hold the ball and generate enough spin.
Solution? They put an extra sticky layer on the top sheet rubber to make it as a tacky rubber. So instead of letting the sponge to hold the ball to generate spin like the Japanease and German did, we use hard rubber-based sponge + tacky topsheet to generate spin. Turns out it works well.

That's the story of how Chinese invented the tacky rubber.
There are more background on this topic on why later on Chinese players don't use non-tacky rubber or why european players don't use tacky rubber. You can find it here, but you need to google translate though.
https://bbs.hupu.com/19974400.html

Wow thanks!! Very interesting story, didn't knew it was like that

So what about nowadays? Is the chinese rubbers behind the Eurojap rubbers in technology department?

FruitLoop · Jan 27, 2019

I think they are behind in some ways and ahead in others. The euro jap technology is probably ahead but the national team DHS gear, boosted to hell, is supposedly superior performance wise (according to Boll and others).

Tony's Table Tennis · Jan 27, 2019

FruitLoop said:
I think they are behind in some ways and ahead in others. The euro jap technology is probably ahead but the national team DHS gear, boosted to hell, is supposedly superior performance wise (according to Boll and others).

I think most importantly Waldners (if I recall) commented that Chinese rubbers are now more advances than Europe - obviously refering to blue sponge DHS

Tony's Table Tennis · Jan 27, 2019

eduardo1995filipe said:
But aren't all CNT obligued to use DHS rubber on FH? Or it's just their preference instead of other chinese brand?
What do you mean by saying 729 aren't on professional side of things? It's because pros don't use it or because the rubbers are not that good compared to H3?

a bit offtopic, but I use 729 on both sides and I love it, in my opinion, I prefer them to DHS. The only issue in BH is that I need to make much effort compared to eurojap and it's causing me arm and shoulder pain, so maybe I'll change it, but apart of that, I like the quality of the shot that the rubber produces!

No
players are free to choose what they want to use.
If you a main player, DHS will customise everything for you. Sponge hardness to the .xx ie 40.5 hardness.
You can also specify the topsheet tack/grip etc

729 does make professional gear, but I don't think anyone in CNT A or B team uses it right now or on the global side, anyone in the top 300/500 uses 729 still?

I think the last player in CNT using 729 was over 10 years ago.
It was maybe last famous for it short pips rubbers.

I do speak under correction, but I would name Hou Yingchao, Liu Guoliang, Wang Nan as one of the last "famous" users of 729

Lula · Jan 27, 2019

I find it a little funny that boosting is illegal But everyone knows that to play with a china rubber you almost need to boost it so everyone knows that the chinese boost the crap out of theirs. But all the pros proably boost.

I can not remember why they made boosting illegal. Was it also dangerous?

Tony's Table Tennis · Jan 27, 2019

Lula said:
I find it a little funny that boosting is illegal But everyone knows that to play with a china rubber you almost need to boost it so everyone knows that the chinese boost the crap out of theirs. But all the pros proably boost.

I can not remember why they made boosting illegal. Was it also dangerous?

Not dangerious
dangerous was more to do with VOC or speed glue
also, 40mm ball is very dangerous - it was a "big big big" fire hazard, but I don't think any player got burnt and rumored one factor in China caught fire handling celluloid material, but then again celluliod been around for how many decades, I think chances of hitting the lottery is 10 times higher than getting burnt by celluballs

for booster, the only illegal thing is for player to "change" the characteristics of the rubber.
If you ask "factory" to do it for you, it is legal - as long as it doesn't go over the VOC reading and rubber thickness ruling

yogi_bear · Jan 27, 2019

The only 729 LGL i remember used was 802-40. Was there any other rubber?

Tony's Table Tennis said:
Not dangerious
dangerous was more to do with VOC or speed glue
also, 40mm ball is very dangerous - it was a "big big big" fire hazard, but I don't think any player got burnt and rumored one factor in China caught fire handling celluloid material, but then again celluliod been around for how many decades, I think chances of hitting the lottery is 10 times higher than getting burnt by celluballs

for booster, the only illegal thing is for player to "change" the characteristics of the rubber.
If you ask "factory" to do it for you, it is legal - as long as it doesn't go over the VOC reading and rubber thickness ruling

Suga D · Jan 27, 2019

Lula said:
I find it a little funny that boosting is illegal But everyone knows that to play with a china rubber you almost need to boost it so everyone knows that the chinese boost the crap out of theirs. But all the pros proably boost.

I can not remember why they made boosting illegal. Was it also dangerous?

As someone else already pointed out, boosting is allowed as long as the factory does it. It's only illegal if a player does it himself.

This tells a lot how totally shizophrenic this whole boosting discussion is IMHO.

Some players have used plant based oils, like citric oils, tea tree oil, etc. Others have used baby oil and all kinds of oils. There even was a guy on a German forum who has experimented with all kinds of oils just to show how blatantly absurd this discussion about boosting is.
His results were quite interesting.
For example: he found out that short-chained fats seem to work better than long-chained ones.

This should tell you how "DANGEROUS" boosting really is, when people use stuff that they also pour on their salads or rub on the skin of their babies.

Tony's Table Tennis · Jan 27, 2019

Suga D said:
This should tell you how "DANGEROUS" boosting really is, when people use stuff that they also pour on their salads or rub on the skin of their babies.

hahaha
You know, one senior coach from Chongqing said, back in the day, you take a 729 rubber and add speed glue.
Better than a Tenergy today at 5% of the cost

ITTF is in it to make money, because when they banned things, he said - you just check the "approved" products price will rise.
This has been true over the years

But officially, its dangerous,,, really it is

Tony's Table Tennis · Jan 27, 2019

yogi_bear said:
The only 729 LGL i remember used was 802-40. Was there any other rubber?

After they banned his pips, I think LGL went to 802-40 and used that until retirement.

I am talking about stuff in my kiddies era, I do stand to be corrected

Story of TT - How the chinese found the tacky hard rubber and what they used before?

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