Flexible Blade + short pips

Hello

I have, fairly recently, bought a 1 ply hinoki blade and converted to a Jpen looping style. I am very happy and have no interest in fiddling around with equipment on my main bat any more.

However, I also have a backup cpen blade (a Stiga Allround Classic). It is very thin and flexible and I used to use it (fairly unsuccessfully) with Hurricane. I would quite like to convert it into a ‘He Zhi Wen’ bat (1 sided penhold short pips):

a) Because the style is epic to watch and play (I have tried playing a penhold hitting style with a shakehand bat oriented to penhold and it is very fun)

b) Because classic short pips don’t need to be regularly changed — I can buy one £10 sheet of 729 802 and just be done with it. Won’t be spinny, won’t need to be spinny therefore doesn’t need to be replaced. Two bats, only one rubber to have to change (the tensor on my Jpen bat)

c) I want a cheap, non unfair bat to knock balls around with mates. Obviously playing an expensive Off+ 1 ply hinoki bat with a tensor is unfair and not fun to play against people playing with £2 premade bats.

I am, however, concerned that my blade is too flexible for this new purpose. I have heard that short pips ‘require’ a stiff blade, both for speed in hitting and stability in blocking and that using a flexible blade doesn’t work.

Would playing an uber flexible blade + short pips be so rubbish and pointless that it isn’t even worth a go? Or would it be useable enough to knock a ball around with friends for a bit of fun, if I have no intention of seriousy pursuing the style?

Thanks for any wisdom you can provide 🙂

I'm also interested in the other members answers

I have a Sanwei J7 which , obviously is a 7 layer all wood blade and indeed it is very flexible.
I have tried it with many different rubbers and used it for "social ping pong " quite successfully using palio CJ 800 1.8mm and also
61 seconds Eagle 1.5mm.

I do not use it when playing in clubs anymore. It serves simply to waste a bit of my spare time. I sometimes glue a weird combo of rubbers on it,
a couple of weeks ago I fixed friendship 802 mystery -40 on one side and an old Hurricane Neo on the other side. = Playable
Now i just glued on an old Stiga -Radical and a 61 seconds Eagle = Playable but hard work to get the ball over the net with some decent speed.
This combo btw. weighs 152 grams .

What i am trying to say here is For social play anything can be made to work after all it is just for a bit of fun right 😂

Does it even matter for social play? I like the Idea of playing short pips. Social players can't handle spin so if you want to play rallies play flat medium pace drives that they can handle.

Originally Posted by Dominikk85

Does it even matter for social play? I like the Idea of playing short pips. Social players can't handle spin so if you want to play rallies play flat medium pace drives that they can handle.

Yeah, that’s what I was thinking! Playing with fast spinny bats against people who can’t handle spin with bats that can’t create spin or speed isn’t really a fair contest. Playing short pips on a slow blade might help solve this problem.

Maybe I should try it…