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Are they all the same except for their appearance? Please tell me what’s best and what rubber goes with it! Thank you!
Difference between Viscaria, TB ALC, and ZJK ALC?
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Handle is the main thing. I've owned quite a few of each. The variation in playing qualities overlap. Some Viscaria are faster than TB ALC and vice versa. They are intended for the same type of player. They do something to the top surface of TB ALC that makes it slightly harder but I don't think it affects play much.
The main thing though is handle and that is just personal preference. Only way to know is to try, but even there you will get used to any of them after awhile.
They are all great blades.
The main thing though is handle and that is just personal preference. Only way to know is to try, but even there you will get used to any of them after awhile.
They are all great blades.
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I have an OTC which I used to use until I swtiched to a 5 ply all wood blade, and I would test the TB ALC from a friend. As much as I could tell, seeing that these are the same brand, Baal is right that it is just the handle. Even BTFLY'S ratings say so. They are all similar. In my opinion, the OTC with the TB ALC were very very similar, even though they are not the same brand. So I think you can just choose one of those blades without trouble. If I were you, I would pick what you have tried and what felt good.
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Like Baal said, Viscaria, TB ALC and ZJK ALC are more or less the same blades. You can add TB Spirit and LGY ALC to that list.
It mostly comes down to handle size, then design and price.
TB ALC and Spirit have a thinner 100 x 24 x 34 mm handle with a thin neck.
Viscaria, ZJK ALC and LGY ALC have a thicker 100 x 25 x 34 mm handle with a thick wavy neck.
It mostly comes down to handle size, then design and price.
TB ALC and Spirit have a thinner 100 x 24 x 34 mm handle with a thin neck.
Viscaria, ZJK ALC and LGY ALC have a thicker 100 x 25 x 34 mm handle with a thick wavy neck.
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I agree about OTC also (I've had a few of those too). Again, very similar, ESPECIALLY to the Btfly ZJK ALC blades.
Over a couple of years I sold all those extra blades and now I own only three carefully selected Viscarias and hope to never again buy or sell any blades.
Over a couple of years I sold all those extra blades and now I own only three carefully selected Viscarias and hope to never again buy or sell any blades.
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I had bought or traded for a bunch of them over a period of several years. I sold all but three, which were the ones that felt best to me. The three I kept were all right around 90 grams, two of the three have black tags. The ones I sold were mostly lighter. They were sitting in a closet so I sold them. I used the money for my expensive road cycling habit.
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What's the most Viscarias you had at one given time?
With the three you've kept, have you noticed they have more straight lines in the wood grain, are more cream or yellow color rather than white, have a high pitch or low pitch sound when bouncing the ball on them without rubbers?
Could you pick them out in a shop without trying them with rubbers on?
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At one point I think I had about eight of them simultaneously. Looking back, it was absolutely freaking insane.
The only thing I can say is that I purchased them over a period of years, tried them once or twice, and then tended to put them in the closet, AND I actually sold them at a profit (as older blades became much in demand). Same with the TB-ALCs, and ZJK-ALCs, and the Donic True Carbons. Somewhere in there I had a Xiom Stradivarius too.
I think the only thing that really mattered was weight. But that is what I think, I don't know for sure. In fact, the ones I kept, which I liked better from playing with them, I can't actually prove that I played better with them. One thing I know for sure is that the "fish scale" appearance did not seem to correlate with whether I personally like them, but certainly increased what I sold them for at MyTT.
I just created a thread about how little of what I think I know about TT is based on anything rational. Our sport does not lend itself to quantification. There is even a question recently posed about how do we know how fast a blade is? It is actually a good question, and that ought to be the simplest of claims that we all make to test.
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8's a lot, yet I expected even more! lol
Good to hear your impressions. I've been meaning to read the thread you're referring to in detail.
The Viscaria I had several years ago felt terrible, vibrations like a frying pan, same weight (85g) as the one I'm using now (bought used for 60€) which feels great, so I sold it and made a huge profit. I think one blade can make a difference over the next if it simply doesn't feel good to you, however this one blade with more of this or more of that, not so much.
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Definitely no two things made mostly of wood are ever identical. ALC blades in general should not have a lot of vibrations at all, in fact that is the whole thing that gives them their unique feel. It is due to the Vectran (arylate) which as a liquid crystal material has the property of absorbing vibrations (especially high frequency ones), a property that I think is shared with Zylon.
So an ALC blade that has a lot of vibrations is essentially defective. I had one like that, a used one, a very old black tag, very clearly dinged up around the outside, and I figured it had cracks somewhere in it that I couldn't see owing to a hard life. Anyway, I sold it immediately.
Here is an interesting website from one of the vendors showing some of the properties of Vectran and its various uses. One of the things they mention is vibration damping, and there is a lot more on this to be found elsewhere. Butterfly found the magic formula when they used fabrics woven out of Vectran and carbon fibers, so the blade would have that soft feel without being too slow.
https://www.kuraray.com/products/vectran
[url]http://www.kuraray.co.jp/vectran/en/tokutyou/s09.html#g9_1
[/URL]
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