Walnut playing characteristics

Ding Ning and Guo Yue use(d) Ebenholz 5, Chen Qi used Ebenholz 7 for a while. Ebony is very hard.

I played just few minutes Donic Black Thunder, which is walnut blade. Spinny topspins was medium, but power topspins from mid distance very fast. One thing which i love in this blade was block, very fast and directly.

Bump, im also interested in this new donic Zhou Yu series, how it feels/difference/etc. Cant find any reviews %(

doraemon said:

Hi everybody,

I know that there is a thread about the playing characteristics of limba, hinoki and koto outerplies, however, does anyone have any information regarding walnut and/or ebony, as used in the new Donic Zhou Yu 1 and 2, compared to limba and koto?

Have your answer in this link. Hope this'll help you

As a side question, is walnut/ebony suitable for shakehand grip? It seems like walnut/ebony is almost exclusively used for penhold players (Ma Lin, Yasaka Extra Offesive, Xu Xin, Stiga Intensity NCT).

Thanks in advance

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http://www.tabletennisdb.com/blog/wood/
Try read this link. Hope this will help you

doraemon said:

Thanks.

Does "hard but crisp feeling" mean it's basically koto?

Or is walnut a completely different beast altogether (as an outer ply I mean)?

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I can't answer it. All I know, both of them have a hard charateristics. But surely they are different to each other. Try read this link also

http://mytabletennis.net/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=40539&title=tt-blade-surface-layer-wood-analysis

Here are two links that might help you: http://stervinou.net/ttbdb/lexik.php , http://stervinou.net/ttbdb/compo.php. However, whether a blade is suitable for looping or not has to do with many more things than just the wood of the outer ply (weight, other plies, thickness of each ply, total thickness, player's style, player's looping distance etc.).
My personal experience from two years of playing the Stiga Intensity NCT is that it was a great looping blade for close- to mid-distance play.

As already mentioned harder outer plies are not the first choice for looping style player (except maybe the world class players, which I think shouldn't be considered, as their playing style is hard to reach).
From my own experience (and I played Stiga Intensity, Ma Lin YEO and Adidas Avenger 5) walnut is excellent for block and hit type of play, but needs long arm and lots of body movement for looping effectiffly. If your looping is more based on underarm and wrist movement than the harder outplies is something to avoid.
What I like about the wallnut blades, was their linear accelleration. They had limited catapult (since the whole blade become stiff, with less flex) and therefore had high controll on lenght, speed and placement.
I can't compare to Koto but to Hinoki. I played a Darker 7p-2a (7ply hinoki) shortly after the Avenger 5, but need to admit, that the plus is spin on my loops was no replacement for the loss of control in blocking. Just to much catapult.
Now I play a Xiom Vega Tour, which is best of both worlds. It has a soft (Hinoki) outerply for good spin on loops, but the carbon inside makes it stiff enough for good control. Also it is considered an OFF blade it more plays like an ALL+, with enough power to also work from mid distance.

Yeah, ty for this helpfull info and links . Ill definetly buy Zhou Yu 1 blade to try it out, but for now im waiting for my dhs tg7p blade

my walnut outerplie nittaku rutis is definately good in blocking.

I played with Ma Lin Extra Offensive for several months (ST shakehand) and it seemed like a perfect weapon for loopers, operating relatively close to the table. It was thicker than BTY Korbel, and a bit stiffer. Only problems that I had was with blocks (while using soft bouncy rubbers on BH) and sometimes, when I played against antitopspin and tried to play direct drive - ball kept flying behind the table too often .
Later I tried Stiga Intensity NCT (which should have the same composition) and was surprised by different feel - Intensity was slower and stiffer - very precise tool for a player who prefers spin and placement before force. Intensity is an interesting blade, but it definitely wasn't such "wow" effect like YEO from first minute.
Other blades with walnut was Yasaka Extra Special - again it was very joyful, but this model was too quick for me (but it was great for operating from middle and long distance).
So as other guys there told already, final feel of a blade depends not only on outer veneer.
But I could probably make a simplifying comparison with other woods:

• Hinoki has a unique, soft feel, even if it is on fast blade - it's a pleasure to play with it, but it could be sometimes tricky to evaluate proper speed which you have to put on your move
• Limba - classic outer veneer for looper, you have to be a bit careful in blocks and force drives
• Walnut - for me a great outer material, provides very precise information about impact of your hit to the ball. Not too hard, so looping with it is no problem but you could easily switch to more direct, aggressive style
• Koto - stiff veneer, perfect for blocking and direct play. Of course, many top-class blades with ALC and other composite plyes has koto as a outer veneer, but I guess it is because they are intended for very advanced players with a good technique, who will appreciate precise weapon for their offensive style. Actually, there are some all-wood bladed with koto (Avalox P500, Xiom Diva and Fuga), which could be used for technical attackers, but unfortunately I have no experience with them. Interesting composition has Oh San Eun blade - koto-koto-ayous-koto-koto and even more interesting has Rosskopf Emotion - hinoki-koto-carbon-ayous-carbon-koto-hinoki.

Still depends on the design. My Avenger 5 was really good on loops while my YEO was better for loop drives and was much faster. Both have walnut outers.

In the late 80s I bought the Tibhar Georg Böhm Off which is a 7ply allwood blade made out of, I think, 4 walnut plys (two outer plys and two next to the core) and three other plys which I can't identify (see pictures). I still own this blade and its also still in quite good shape. What I can say about it is that it is a very stiff and fast blade. Good for close to the table hitters and blockers I would say. I wonder how I was ever able to handle such a fast blade. It produces a high pitched sound when you bounce the ball on it (much higher than Stiga Clipper). It almost sounds like glass. Certainly not a blade for two winged loopers.

I am playing the Yinhe Pro-5W from princett.com which has a walnut top surface and which has been reviewed at http://mytabletennis.net/forum/some-new-2015-yinhe-blades_topic73121.html by yogi_bear. My blade has a 1356Hz frequency which is similar to a Stiga Clipper or Yinhe PD-437 7-ply blade (in the 1300-1400 ballpark). It's a good blade for short pips (Yinhe Uranus Pro) backhand but I can play topspin with the forehand just fine e.g. with the Yinhe Sun rubber. I really like this blade.

ejprinz said:

I am playing the Yinhe Pro-5W from princett.com which has a walnut top surface and which has been reviewed at http://mytabletennis.net/forum/some-new-2015-yinhe-blades_topic73121.html by yogi_bear. My blade has a 1356Hz frequency which is similar to a Stiga Clipper or Yinhe PD-437 7-ply blade (in the 1300-1400 ballpark). It's a good blade for short pips (Yinhe Uranus Pro) backhand but I can play topspin with the forehand just fine e.g. with the Yinhe Sun rubber. I really like this blade.

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I remember that blade. It is the YEO of yinhe.