Thanks splasher78 and tt_kidz for the very useful info!

I've also been wanting to try Chinese rubber and in particular H3.

Based on what you've both written, seems better to start with Provincial rather than Commercial for quality reasons, and in order to better transition from Euro/Japanese rubbers, to use Orange sponge and Neo rather than Blue and regular H3.

I'm not interested in boosting (maybe later), so Orange sponge also seems like a better option for me than Blue.

Is this all correct?

My last question would be regarding hardness, should I start with 37 degrees or harder?

Hey no problem Thomas. If you can afford it, then yes Orange Sponge Prov. Would be a good start. I think you’d be ok with either 37,38,39 degrees. Imo, the one degree difference for yourself as a 1st time user wouldn’t affect you that much. Get whichever hardness of those 3 that are available and practice! Then when you develop a feel for that hardness you will be able to know if you want to go softer or harder. The best way to tell is just by playing with it.


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There is a significant disadvantage with Hurricane 8.

The topsheet for Hurricane 8 is much stickier than H3 Neo and the extra weight due to new sponge and topsheet.

This also means you need to be able to constantly generate high swing speed to generate decent spin.
The stickier topsheet also means this has a very low trajectory and even lower catapult than the usual H3 Neo. As such, flat hits are not the forte for H8 while you could still do reasonably well for H3N.

Wait, as far as i know having been an h3 user for more than a decade and also used h8, the h3 topsheet is always tackier. This is the reason why h8 is easier to use of because of its less tackiness compared to h3.
 
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Wait, as far as i know having been an h3 user for more than a decade and also used h8, the h3 topsheet is always tackier. This is the reason why h8 is easier to use of because of its less tackiness compared to h3.

Might have been a bad batch and I never went back for it. That was at least 2 years ago.

Couple with the heavier weights, it was easy to clip the net each time thus the reason why it felt stickier to me too.
 
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Wait, as far as i know having been an h3 user for more than a decade and also used h8, the h3 topsheet is always tackier. This is the reason why h8 is easier to use of because of its less tackiness compared to h3.

Hmm... having tried the H8 only once for a short time it might be that on average the H8s tackiness is less than that of the H3 (Neo) but I don't see why it should be easier to use. The H8 is faster, heavier and has an even lower throw than the H3 (Neo) so it's less controlled and has a lower margin for error.
Take this with a grain of salt because I've switched from Euro/Japanese type rubbers to tacky, Chinese back in the good old 38 mm, speed glue era (around 30 years ago) and used non-chinese FH rubbers only for a couple of month when I started playing TT again two years ago (with hindsight I should have used H3 right from the beginning when getting back to the table)...
 
Hmm... having tried the H8 only once for a short time it might be that on average the H8s tackiness is less than that of the H3 (Neo) but I don't see why it should be easier to use. The H8 is faster, heavier and has an even lower throw than the H3 (Neo) so it's less controlled and has a lower margin for error.
Take this with a grain of salt because I've switched from Euro/Japanese type rubbers to tacky, Chinese back in the good old 38 mm, speed glue era (around 30 years ago) and used non-chinese FH rubbers only for a couple of month when I started playing TT again two years ago (with hindsight I should have used H3 right from the beginning when getting back to the table)...
The H8 was designed to have a more hybrid effect and the lesser tackiness helps in doing flat drives easier. It may be faster and heavier but compared to the effort you will be putting out when using h3, h8 is a bit easier. I just stick to h3 sunce i am quite used to it since 2003. Even before 2003, i was already using ritc 729 and g888 in my forehand.
 
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The H8 was designed to have a more hybrid effect and the lesser tackiness helps in doing flat drives easier. It may be faster and heavier but compared to the effort you will be putting out when using h3, h8 is a bit easier. I just stick to h3 sunce i am quite used to it since 2003. Even before 2003, i was already using ritc 729 and g888 in my forehand.

I see, just a difference in what we mean with easier. Some strokes are easier to do if the rubber has more hybrid effect and/or is less tacky vs. has a higher margin for error/is more controlled. I think this also depends on playing style/preferences. I'm usually (at least I try to be) closer to the table and try to avoid long distance rallies (much more than years ago) so I can effort to use/waste a little bit more power ;) If I could/would play as in the old days I would certainly use at least a faster blade.
 
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Tried an old red sheet of H3 Neo commercial that a clubmate gave me that is still quite a bit sticky, and I gotta say I quite enjoyed it, especially on the FH (of course). It didn't take me much to adapt as I tend to have a large stroke (some say too large for Euro/Japanese style rubbers). Gonna buy a fresh sheet of it in black to test it further.

How do you guys keep your H3's clean, sticky and what do you use to protect them?
 
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Tried an old red sheet of H3 Neo commercial that a clubmate gave me that is still quite a bit sticky, and I gotta say I quite enjoyed it, especially on the FH (of course). It didn't take me much to adapt as I tend to have a large stroke (some say too large for Euro/Japanese style rubbers). Gonna buy a fresh sheet of it in black to test it further.

How do you guys keep your H3's clean, sticky and what do you use to protect them?

i clean with a rubber cleaner now and again, depending on how much I’m playing, maybe once a week max.
the nature of the tacky surface attracts dust, so I prefer to clean with a damp sponge regularly during matches, at end of each rubber, depends on how much dirt / dust is on the top sheet.
i protect with the plastic rubber protection sheets, sticky or non sticky versions, these sometimes need a clean as well !!!
 
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Tried an old red sheet of H3 Neo commercial that a clubmate gave me that is still quite a bit sticky, and I gotta say I quite enjoyed it, especially on the FH (of course). It didn't take me much to adapt as I tend to have a large stroke (some say too large for Euro/Japanese style rubbers). Gonna buy a fresh sheet of it in black to test it further.

How do you guys keep your H3's clean, sticky and what do you use to protect them?

I honestly just use water and a rubber sponge. You need a bit of liquid because dust stuck to a tacky surface is really hard to remove without it, and a rubber sponge is good because it doesn't leave fibres on the rubber, which is pretty much the same problem as the dust you are removing to begin with.

A protection sheet is really all you need, the rubber stays pretty sticky by itself as long as it's clean, it's just cleaning is a bit of an effort because the tacky rubber will rip dust off the ball, out of the air, from any clothe you try to clean it with... etc. Once you remove anything stuck to the surface (and dry it if you used quite a lot of water to do it) it actually stays tacky just under a protective sheet pretty much indefinitely.
 
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It seems like for the Hurricane rubbers to be properly and fully utilized, there has to be that "click" sound with every loop in order for the loop to be successful. There doesn't seem to be much necessary with tensors rubbers like Tenergy where it does a lot of work for you, and even if you don't hit it with the "click" it will still produce a good amount of spin and land on the table.

Like in this perfect example video, there's the click sound with almost every loop that they do. The problem is that for the most players their looping is nowhere near as good as them and if normal players try to create that "click" sound using the Hurricane rubber, the ball usually shoots off outside the table because of lack of experience/skill/control that these top players like Ma Long have using these rubbers.

 
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big silicon rubber squeegee from china, for a couple of bucks i did not expect a lot but the metal is stainless and the silicon rubber is soft but the edge is straight.
After a wash of the rubbesr with water only a couple of wipes with the contraption and all the water is gone


H6a475d20b1f2440db61b6eab16f93ffaz.jpg
 
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It seems like for the Hurricane rubbers to be properly and fully utilized, there has to be that "click" sound with every loop in order for the loop to be successful. There doesn't seem to be much necessary with tensors rubbers like Tenergy where it does a lot of work for you, and even if you don't hit it with the "click" it will still produce a good amount of spin and land on the table.

Like in this perfect example video, there's the click sound with almost every loop that they do. The problem is that for the most players their looping is nowhere near as good as them and if normal players try to create that "click" sound using the Hurricane rubber, the ball usually shoots off outside the table because of lack of
experience/skill/control that these top players like Ma Long have using these rubbers.


You ar correct of course most of us are just not in the same class as our hero, however, many blades and rubbers are often advertised as having 1 , 2 or several gears and both the standard H3 and the NEO DO HAVE a gear that lets even mediocre players like myself play better than with many other rubbers. :D
 
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I confirm I coded him. Just a quality check - I’m not sure what that T-shape blue-black is for.
 
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maybe you can not read ? in a couple of posts in this thread people were talking how they clean their rubbers, so i took the liberty to show a pic of a rubber squeegee that takes all water of the rubber in a sec........thats all


I confirm I coded him. Just a quality check - I’m not sure what that T-shape blue-black is for.
 
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There is a significant disadvantage with Hurricane 8.

The topsheet for Hurricane 8 is much stickier than H3 Neo and the extra weight due to new sponge and topsheet.

This also means you need to be able to constantly generate high swing speed to generate decent spin.
The stickier topsheet also means this has a very low trajectory and even lower catapult than the usual H3 Neo. As such, flat hits are not the forte for H8 while you could still do reasonably well for H3N.

Yeah. I found the H8 quite sticky as well, and I got it in a big variation of weights. My last one was a 2.15mm 39 deg, and cut to a normal blade it weighed 53g, when most of H3N lies between 45-50g. The H2N is even a bit lighter than H3N in my experience, but only a few grams then...
 
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Tried an old red sheet of H3 Neo commercial that a clubmate gave me that is still quite a bit sticky, and I gotta say I quite enjoyed it, especially on the FH (of course). It didn't take me much to adapt as I tend to have a large stroke (some say too large for Euro/Japanese style rubbers). Gonna buy a fresh sheet of it in black to test it further.

How do you guys keep your H3's clean, sticky and what do you use to protect them?

A small spray bottle with water. Use very little. And a normal cleaning sponge (don't use the rough side). Do this a couple of times even during training/games and put it in a plastic bag after. This keeps my sticky rubbers sticky for years...
 
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Yeah. I found the H8 quite sticky as well, and I got it in a big variation of weights. My last one was a 2.15mm 39 deg, and cut to a normal blade it weighed 53g, when most of H3N lies between 45-50g. The H2N is even a bit lighter than H3N in my experience, but only a few grams then...

I found that H8 lost some tackiness after a couple of weeks and this was when I came into its own!!
I also thought that in a lot of ways it was similar to H3 Neo Provincial 41 deg. (both rubbers were red)
 
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i clean with a rubber cleaner now and again, depending on how much I’m playing, maybe once a week max.
the nature of the tacky surface attracts dust, so I prefer to clean with a damp sponge regularly during matches, at end of each rubber, depends on how much dirt / dust is on the top sheet.
i protect with the plastic rubber protection sheets, sticky or non sticky versions, these sometimes need a clean as well !!!

I honestly just use water and a rubber sponge. You need a bit of liquid because dust stuck to a tacky surface is really hard to remove without it, and a rubber sponge is good because it doesn't leave fibres on the rubber, which is pretty much the same problem as the dust you are removing to begin with.

A protection sheet is really all you need, the rubber stays pretty sticky by itself as long as it's clean, it's just cleaning is a bit of an effort because the tacky rubber will rip dust off the ball, out of the air, from any clothe you try to clean it with... etc. Once you remove anything stuck to the surface (and dry it if you used quite a lot of water to do it) it actually stays tacky just under a protective sheet pretty much indefinitely.

A small spray bottle with water. Use very little. And a normal cleaning sponge (don't use the rough side). Do this a couple of times even during training/games and put it in a plastic bag after. This keeps my sticky rubbers sticky for years...

Thanks fellas,

This is what I do with my tensor rubbers as well, I spray just a little bit of distilled water and rub it off with the soft side of a rubber sponge, then put sticky protection sheets on.

Just wanted to make sure that was also appropriate for sticky Chinese rubbers. I thought maybe I should use non-sticky protection sheets and perhaps spray something other than just water.
 
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