Struggling with Hurricane 3 and topspin

Manto76 said:

Hi Der,
Hope you're having a nice weekend.
You mention that you spent some time with soft rubbers on the FH; a couple of questions in that regard if I may:

1. Did you also use soft rubbers on the BH? And, if not, why not?
2. By "softer" do you mean around 43-degrees? (I think I recall from somewhere else on the forum that you used Evolution FX-S, is that correct?)

Many thanks!

Click to expand...

My BH has always been more developed than my FH, but the FH has caught up a LOT since Carl last saw me in action.

On BH, I can use most any class and firmness of inverted rubber. I have a lot of bat speed and a good firming at impact. After trying a bunch of different rubbers, I found that old school softer rubbers (Think Moristo 2000, Hammond) or any modern dynamic softer rubber (think T05FX, FX-P, FX-S) works a little better - I get a tiny higher landing percentage with the same quality.

On FH, last time Carl saw me, I figured out that I just didn't have the impact for medium or hard sponged modern dynamic rubbers. When MX-K came out, I used 47 sponge, after a year of that, I got adjusted to that kind of sponge. Early 2021, Nexy Etika came out and I used 51 sponge on FH. Didn't take very long to get used to that. All of that got me better at controlling the depth of my impact - that is how deep you can get into topsheet and sponge at firming to get that great rebound and spin with your fast bat speed.

So maybe a couple years ago, you would see me with some kind of soft modern dynamic rubber on BH, and what rubber I had on BH, but the BH rubber was usually a softer one if I had one available.

A year or so ago, a typical setup would be MX-K 47 on FH and FX-P or FX-S on BH.

Now, you see my sig is Etika 51 on FH and a softer or firm modern dynamic rubber... right now that is Tibhar K1 in any firmness, but any of the modern dynamic soft rubbers work great for me too.

A while back, there were a LOT of TTD memebrs saying FX-P was no good and not appropriate to use on FH (or even BH) as it is way under powered. Carl nearly choked on his orange juice with orange snot coming out his nose when he saw that... he KNEW I would say something... so he beat me to the punch and said somethings his-self.

I recently told Sergey Scoobie Doo Tsos about that and he got a great laught, he plays with me every week and KNOWS how DESTRUCTIVE FX-P is on my favored OFF class blades. I recently broke out a custom made Nate blade with Alaska outer wood that has MX-K 47 and FX-P... ON BOTH wings I made it sound like that rubber was illegally treated. A softer rubber on a faster blade well struck will sound treated (That is the thing behind Donic Big Slam)

My FH impact got so much better that I made a mid-firm modern rubber sound like it was treated. That ball was moving like it was juiced.

These are a few paragraphs on how to evolve the quality or impact of the FH where you champion the approach of gradually increasing the firmness of songe on the same rubber as impact improves. It is one approach that works, but isn't the only answer in TT.

Interesting you remembered. I had an ancient sheet of H3 on a Yinhe 896 that I had done the Beast Mod on previously. This was one SLOPPY mod I did, I glued the handle back on almost a full MM off, so I had to hide it with grip tape.

Carl correctly makes the point that if your bat speed, timing, leverage, and impact are on point for that shot, then one can do some pretty cool stuff with an average or slower rubber.