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My friend wanted to buy his nephew a proper table tennis bat. But there was a problem, because of budget and time restrain. Usually, when someone asks me for help with picking up his first bat and gluing it together, we either order from Alliexpress if we are on a tight budget, or we order more local products which are more expensive. Here we had to scour the internet to find anything that is not garbage and is not too pricy. Most of the usual picks were either not available or too overpriced (people are attempting to sell Sanwei M8 for 20$ locally so..)
We found a blade called Reactor WA-2. It was priced at 10$, which is very affordable when we are talking about blades available in Poland. It was marketed as being All+, all wood blade, so technically it check boxes for most of the requirements you would pose against beginner blade. The composition itself is a tad weird though. The composition is advertised as Ayous -> Ayous -> Tung <- Ayous <- Ayous. I am no wood expert, but I would not agree with this. Second and 4th layer has different color and texture than top ply. If you have any idea what it would be, please let me know. The detailed micro photo is located below.
The blade was built decently. There were some hiccups though. For some reason the handle was not sanded, it was very rough to touch. Since this was a present I decided to fix this. I took some 400 sandpaper (it might have been a bit too rough but it worked) and after 5 minutes of hoping that I will not scratch metal lense the issue was fixed. I also applied some lemon oil to the handle so it looks nice longer. I've used this for preserving guitars' fingerboard (which is also unprotected wood) for years and seems to apply nicely to table tennis blades too. Also, thanks to that handle now have a much deeper color. I also sanded the edges around the head, although they won't be seen because after gluing the bat I covered them with sponge stripe I wanted to make everything as it should be.
Unfortunately, since this, I was a present I didn't want to play with it too much. I've hit few balls "to make sure rubbers won't fall off" though. After those few hits, I can definitely tell that it is a rather fast blade. I paired it with 729 Super FX Blue Sponge and AK47 I had laying around. They feed rather nicely. Both are too soft for my liking though. I would say it is faster than my Appelgren Allplay Senso but it is slower then Retturn Offensive (only wooden offensive blade I recall playing as of now) and much slower than my Gambler Fire Dragon Touch. This claim is also supported by frequency testing. I've done two tests:
a) soft hit:
b) hard hit:
The blade does not exhibit any affinity for neither spin nor control, it is just average in that regard. The main attribute of this blade is definitely speed. As I said prior the speed is close to my Gambler blade, before its carbon engages. Although my Fire Dragon Touch has harder and less bouncy rubbers and might have affected my feelings. When hit hard Fire Dragon Touch is way way faster. It is also worth to mention that this blade is very very loud and sounds a tad weird.
To sum it up I wouldn't really recommend this. Quality is that great. To make it comfortable you have to do some sanding, you can also get even less lucky. If QA can't sense obviously rough edges they might "forget" to report more glaring issues. If you CAN'T order from China directly for any reason and you have to get your bat NOW, then it might be worth consideration. The quality I got would be worth to me about 6$. For 6$ I could get Sanwei M8 and I think I would rather go for it. If you are willing to put some work into it and want to get something slightly faster than M8 then it is a decent choice.
TL;DR: Still miles ahead of any pre-made. Really affordable. Quite fast. May come a bit rough, easy to fix. Decent-Good value.
We found a blade called Reactor WA-2. It was priced at 10$, which is very affordable when we are talking about blades available in Poland. It was marketed as being All+, all wood blade, so technically it check boxes for most of the requirements you would pose against beginner blade. The composition itself is a tad weird though. The composition is advertised as Ayous -> Ayous -> Tung <- Ayous <- Ayous. I am no wood expert, but I would not agree with this. Second and 4th layer has different color and texture than top ply. If you have any idea what it would be, please let me know. The detailed micro photo is located below.
The blade was built decently. There were some hiccups though. For some reason the handle was not sanded, it was very rough to touch. Since this was a present I decided to fix this. I took some 400 sandpaper (it might have been a bit too rough but it worked) and after 5 minutes of hoping that I will not scratch metal lense the issue was fixed. I also applied some lemon oil to the handle so it looks nice longer. I've used this for preserving guitars' fingerboard (which is also unprotected wood) for years and seems to apply nicely to table tennis blades too. Also, thanks to that handle now have a much deeper color. I also sanded the edges around the head, although they won't be seen because after gluing the bat I covered them with sponge stripe I wanted to make everything as it should be.
Unfortunately, since this, I was a present I didn't want to play with it too much. I've hit few balls "to make sure rubbers won't fall off" though. After those few hits, I can definitely tell that it is a rather fast blade. I paired it with 729 Super FX Blue Sponge and AK47 I had laying around. They feed rather nicely. Both are too soft for my liking though. I would say it is faster than my Appelgren Allplay Senso but it is slower then Retturn Offensive (only wooden offensive blade I recall playing as of now) and much slower than my Gambler Fire Dragon Touch. This claim is also supported by frequency testing. I've done two tests:
a) soft hit:
b) hard hit:
The blade does not exhibit any affinity for neither spin nor control, it is just average in that regard. The main attribute of this blade is definitely speed. As I said prior the speed is close to my Gambler blade, before its carbon engages. Although my Fire Dragon Touch has harder and less bouncy rubbers and might have affected my feelings. When hit hard Fire Dragon Touch is way way faster. It is also worth to mention that this blade is very very loud and sounds a tad weird.
To sum it up I wouldn't really recommend this. Quality is that great. To make it comfortable you have to do some sanding, you can also get even less lucky. If QA can't sense obviously rough edges they might "forget" to report more glaring issues. If you CAN'T order from China directly for any reason and you have to get your bat NOW, then it might be worth consideration. The quality I got would be worth to me about 6$. For 6$ I could get Sanwei M8 and I think I would rather go for it. If you are willing to put some work into it and want to get something slightly faster than M8 then it is a decent choice.
TL;DR: Still miles ahead of any pre-made. Really affordable. Quite fast. May come a bit rough, easy to fix. Decent-Good value.
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