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There can be yes -- potentially it can be very bad for your blade over time... but it depends a lot on the species of wood in your handle, in the blade itself, and the amount of sweat you produce. All timber 'moves' to a certain degree -- by this I mean that all wood works like a kitchen...

Victas VJ 07 series isn't far from the mark. I use the 07 Stiff which is about 45 degrees, so its a trifle harder than R7S, but they still feel reasonably similar to me. The Palio AK47 Blue also has a reasonably similar feel, but the top sheet isn't nearly as good.

Yep! 🇹🇼

A feel good easy rotation is not good sex... You want a little bit of friction involved surely. (I'll show myself out now...)

The R7S *might* work, as they are basically a greatly upgraded version of the AK47 blue. That said, I personally have trouble bottoming out my own R7S, as the sponge is a good 'impact insulator' for the blade. The AK47 Blue however lets much more force through the sponge from the get go...

It's very much a Goldilocks thing. I find to get the absolute maximum popping catapult out (ie: fun 😎😎) of Hinoki, you want a rubber that will bottom out, just a little bit, so plan around that I find what works best is a grippy (non-hybrid) rubber with a soft to medium-hard and...

Thanks for that 🙂 How does the grippiness of the topsheet rate compared to a mid-range Japanese rubber? I like the AK47 and will keep using it for blade development, but the top sheet is lacking as far as demo rubbers go.

Apparently Yasaka has released new versions of both the Shining Dragon AND Rising Dragon rubbers. On the surface, both look more like marginal improvements instead of radical rehauls of the rubber == Stats for Rising Dragon 2 == Sponge Hardness: 47~52° Spin: -14 Speed: 10 Control: 9+ == Stats...

For whatever it's worth, I think the answer is "Rubbers can't get much faster in isolation no -- but if they were developed from the ground up to be teamed with a particular specific blade or genus of outer wood, then yes". Extra springy, low-density woods like hinoki, cypress, gabon/okoume...

Any reviews posted of the shining dragon 2 yet? Very curious about this one.

Yeah, the reds are particularly prone to this problem in my experience -- the blacks don't tend to have this problem though, as their top-sheet isn't quite as shiny or 'slick'.

Quick straw-poll people: what would be the closest match to an AK-47 Red for performance and playing feel, that is *also* good value for money with a better quality top sheet?

I use regular, water-based polyurethane for most of my blades, and oil-based if I want to add a touch more speed, or if it's got outer plys that are more prone to splintering. In both cases I wipe it on a very thin coat with a rag, then wipe off any excess immediately afterwards. One coat is...

Thanks for the info Sergio, all great stuff and very much up my alley :) Particularly fascinated by the various modes you're flagging in your research. Its a great visual reflection of the physical waveforms themselves and how they interact (lot of similar patterns are observable in the...

My pleasure. 🙂

Interesting 🙂 I agree 100% with Sergio about the shape affecting vibration -- if you change the shape, you're typically changing the length and dimensions of the medium that's vibrating (remember that blades vibrate in more than one direction - energy from the impact wave radiates out in all...

Yep. 🙂 https://www.nishohi.com/au/

Yes they are legit. Just Table Tennis (JTT) and Affordable Table Tennis (AffTT) actually now have the same owner (JTT's previous owner sold their business to AffTT a while back. I've bought stuff from both AffTT and JTT's websites on numerous occasions - both for myself, and my clients (I live...

Potentially yes -- though it depends on just how dense the combined wood & composites in your blade really are, where they are located, and what frequency range they're vibrating at. To clarify -- To control vibration, what you actually want is a big difference in average density between the...

Vibration management, flex control, superior aesthetics, blade balance and product longevity are the main reasons. There are many other reasons besides 🙂 • Vibrations typically don't travel across large density shifts in wood very easily. If the ply sandwich in a blade's playing surface has...