Hard vs Soft Blades (for short pips penhold)

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Hello forum

I am wondering about perhaps getting a fun backup bat: a Chinese penhold bat with Friendship 802 (2mm) short pips on one side and DHS Cloud and Fog 3 (1mm) on the other side — to play a single sided (twiddling) block/hit/smash game to muck around with occasionally. I want to get a stiff 7 ply blade, but don’t know whether it should be hard or soft in feeling.

I am interested in knowing whether you, as cpen short pip hitters prefer a hard or soft feeling to your blades? Is a hard/soft feeling blade preferrable for either long pip or short pip hitting styles? What would you recommend?

I will probably choose either the Palio Way 005 (6.4mm with a Walnut top ply):
https://m.aliexpress.com/item/32823690508.html
or the Palio Way 006 (6.9mm with a Limba top ply, I think):
https://m.aliexpress.com/i/32823592654.html
 
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I think a harder feel will suit short pimple better but maybe that is due harder feeling is often a faster blade? I also think it is subjective and depends how you want to play. For chopblock i can imagine it would be easier if the blade is a bit softer to stop the ball? as long as the arc is not to high.

I think it is more about the characteristics of the blade and not the feeling, the feeling is more subjective.

Maybe you can look into blades that are made for chopblocking, with one faster side and one slower side?
 
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I think that it depends. I used to use short pips traditional style with a softer blade Yinhe 896, it generated a fair amount of spin, considering they were pips. Traditionally however, harder blades are used for traditional style. He Zhi Wen has been using the Stiga Clipper as of recent, and historically throughout his career he has used DHS 032. Other notable traditional Cpen player Liu Guoliang had used clipper as well.

It seems that I'm alone on the flexy and soft blade with short pips for the spin generation it offers. But I switched to inverted anyways 😄

 
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