729 Blue ALC / Black carbon

Especially considering the price. It is even cheaper than Yinhe v14 pro which is considered as THE viscaria-alike blade.

Therefore i probably gonna go and buy it the next time i need a new hurricane. Especially bc my substitue yinhe v14 is already splintering quite hard :/

It is cheaper but handle and overall finish seem to be lower than yinhe and sanwei (some).

I own a 729 Blue ALC. Tested it once, can't say I like it very much. Can't feel the ball unless I hit very hard with it. 88 grams. DM me if you want to buy it.

pingding said:

I own a 729 Blue ALC. Tested it once, can't say I like it very much. Can't feel the ball unless I hit very hard with it. 88 grams. DM me if you want to buy it.

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Can't say the same. Feedback from the Blue Arylate (also 88g) is a bit different than from my Yinhe V14Pro (87g) but not too bad. Overall I find the Blue Arylate easier to play with/more controlled than the V14Pro. Maybe I just like the handle better or that it is less head heavy. The V14Pro is a bit faster and the ALC is kicking in earlier due to thinner outer plies (and thicker core). The Blue however is easier to spin with although it has an even higher frequency. Quality is also quite good. The outer koto veneers are of much higher quality than the splintering "koto" stuff that DHS uses on their cheaper PG line of blades.

Yesterday I received the Blue Alc. Today played a first tournament but I'll write about first impressions later. So, the quality is not bad, although it came without a box. Blue Alc is an outer carbon blade and I thought it would be less head heavy like TB ALC compared to Stuor Long 5. Yes, it was less head heavy but by a little bit. I thought it would be more balanced. I was upset when noticed that the blade is a bit uneven. Although my Stuor is uneven too and I don't find problems with it.
The handle is made with poor quality. But it is pretty comfortable. Not wide, not too narrow. I'm glad with it, considering the price of 25$.

First tournament played with 729 Bloom Arc 47 FH and Reactor Tornado V5 BH. Bloom Arc has a really low throw, lifting backspin was difficult. On Stuor Long 5 with Bloom Arc it was easier. Blue ALC has pretty low throw. In other details it worked pretty well, fast and powerful. Lots of gears. Flexible, but not too much. Like Viscaria.

I compared VIS and Blue ALC. Blue ALC has thicker Koto outer ply but thinner core. Throw is lower bc of that. Koto is hard and Arylate is springy. On VIS ALC turns on earlier => higher throw.

Then I had glued 729 Geospin with 1 layer Seamoon. Very hard rubber. Pretty tacky. I had no dwell time with it on Blue ALC. On Donic Waldner Diablo senso Geospin was a miracle. Here - worse(slower, less spinny, less control) than H2.

Today I've glued 729 Battle 2 Gold with 2 layer Haifu Seamoon and a used Fastarc G1(which I bought for 5$). Felt very good. Battle 2 Gold is not dirty cheap but it is a real miracle. I watched a Russian review of it and I can agree with the reviewer's words: "it's the best budget FH rubber". It played soo good on Blue ALC. Have to try on other blades. Fastarc played well but it's not my rubber. I think I need C-1. Open up is easy, a lot of spin and dwell. Bh-Bh drill close to the table is bad, short dwell time. Short game is good.
I switched the racket and noticed that I felt 729 B2 Gold on BH better than G-1😱. Not the blade problem, just I'm not used to tensors. Will play more, will add more details.
First impressions: 729 Blue ALC is a good cheap outer ALC blade. Suits well with Hybrid( or boosted Chinese) rubbers, not too hard(not more than 41 DHS). Tensioned type rubbers play well too. Enough dwell time, pretty flexible, not heavy blade. Don't have weights, but I feel it is lighter than 90 grams. Maybe 87. Frequency is 1324-1383 Hz.

Edit at the end: the top ply began to splinter after second re-glueing. Needs to be varnished.

Can somebody please explain where to use "the" and "a" and where not to use?

Gonna cry😭.
Have compared with Viscaria today again and I've noticed that the Blue ALC is overall thicker than Viscaria. Top ply and the third ply(Ayous?) are thicker

Splintering: Did you sand your 729 Blue Arylate? I do this with all blades using 400 grit sandpaper and had no issues.
Thickness: Yes, 729 BA is around 6 mm. Don't have calipers but they are as thick as the nominally 6 mm YEO and Victas Swat I have here.

Agree with not to hard Chinese rubbers or hybrids. I think we are just not Fan Zhendong or Lin Gaoyuan who can handle 40°+ on outer carbon blades

BH rubbers: Boosted H3 37 didn't work as well on this blade as on my main blade (Ma Lin Extra Offensive), H8-80 worked a bit better so did 729 Dragon F and Dragon L. Battle 3 was also nice on BH albeit a bit too hard for my liking (@729: Please release a factory boosted Battle 3 37°). Might look for something bouncier on BH.

What amazes me with the 729 BA is the amount of spin I can generate compared to my YEO or V14Pro. Even players that know me had problems blocking my spinny opening loops before they adjusted. FH: usual H3 39° boosted.
The blade feels balanced with heavier rubbers (2x Dragon F medium-hard with >=100g vs. H3/B3 setups with nearly 10g less, BAs weigh between 88g and 93g).

What I did so (after the initial EJ euphoria) was shortening the long handle (around 2 mm longer than I'm used to) and filing the slightly too small and too steep thumb rest. And that's the nice thing: It's inexpensive so I don't care if the resell value is close to zero. Would never do that to a 180€+ blade that I still might not like after filing and sanding.

In short: Great value for money. Not too fast for an outer carbon blade, not too stiff.

ttarc said:

ttarc said:

Splintering: Did you sand your 729 Blue Arylate? I do this with all blades using 400 grit sandpaper and had no issues.

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I don't sand blades and, TBH, discovered it from you right now. For what do you sand your blades? To stop splintering or smth else? Do you varnish them?

ttarc said:

What amazes me with the 729 BA is the amount of spin I can generate compared to my YEO or V14Pro. Even players that know me had problems blocking my spinny opening loops before they adjusted. FH: usual H3 39° boosted.

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Exactly. Expected much less spin compared to inner carbon Stuor Long 5 or all wood blades. Didn't mention it because thought that B2 Gold just a magic rubber. Don't have any other outer carbon blades so can't really compare. Today played with the coach's racket. Viscaria and D09C couldn't create as much spin as my BA and B2 Gold. Only H3 National BS(on Vis too) could be compared to mine setup. Everyone knows that Viscaria is one of the most spinny outer ALC out there. BA is at least on Viscaria's level.

What about the handle, I like it. Haven't changed something.

It's so funny to share my experience. Will try to do it more often😀

Fnub said:

I don't sand blades and, TBH, discovered it from you right now. For what do you sand your blades? To stop splintering or smth else? Do you varnish them?

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Exactly: When I sand the blade face until it's completely smooth (neither my fingers feel something nor swiping with some cloth should reveal some tiny splinters etc.) then I usually don't see splintering or just some negligible splintering when removing rubbers. Some blades might still splinter (e.g. DHS PGx) but I haven't seen that with my 729 Blue Arylates nor with my Donic Persson Powerplays. Varnishing might help but depending on the varnish and how much varnish was used it might be impossible to keep the edges of a boosted rubbers on the blade. So you need to sand at least the edges of the blade again until the rubbers keep sticking or use edge tape
V14Pro is different because the koto outer is really thin and I've seen parts of the top ply being lifted from the ALC layer when removing rubbers although that blade was varnished quite thick at the factory. Thankfully this happened only at the edges which is fixable with some superglue.
If sanding with 400 grit or 600 grit it usually takes maybe 10 or more rounds until the printing on the blade face is completely gone.

Exactly. Expected much less spin compared to inner carbon Stuor Long 5 or all wood blades. Didn't mention it because thought that B2 Gold just a magic rubber. Don't have any other outer carbon blades so can't really compare. Today played with the coach's racket. Viscaria and D09C couldn't create as much spin as my BA and B2 Gold. Only H3 National BS(on Vis too) could be compared to mine setup. Everyone knows that Viscaria is one of the most spinny outer ALC out there. BA is at least on Viscaria's level.

What about the handle, I like it. Haven't changed something.

It's so funny to share my experience. Will try to do it more often😀

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Handle: It's not too narrow/thin although it's narrower/thinner than e.g. Yasaka handles but it is just too long. Had this issue before with my Tibhar Lebesson which has an even longer handle (105 mm afair). So I used less wrist. The steep thumb rest prevented using the usual amount of pressure from thumb and index finger when contacting the ball.
Minor issues that I could adapt to but some filing and sanding takes less time