People who switched from carbon back to wood, how’s it going?

DukeGaGa · Apr 29, 2022

ricospin said:
Infinity Vps might be the move lol. Or maybe Fang Bo all wood.

maybe a slower carbon?

ideally I’d want less switching on equipment and just find something that feels right.

I could just learn to love the yeo. But it feels mediocre, nothing to write home about.

Give TSP/Victas Swat series a try, you'll be surprised how good they feel. There's a reason why it's the best selling blade in Japan for many many years.

timdm · May 1, 2022

Interesting topic.

10 years ago or so, I switched to composite blades to see what that was all about.
I converged a bit between faster and slower composite blades, and eventually ended up playing an Andro Treiber CI, which in my personal opinion sits somewhere between an Innerforce and a Freitas.

For me, these kinds of composite are a nice fit.
There's a good balance between dwell and directness, between speed and control.
And as a short pips player, I can easily get a good "flat ball" with a bit of sinking effect.

As my level went up, I have however noticed some things:
(To give an idea, my current ELO is around 2000. We also get a rank indication, consisting of a letter+number, that currently puts me in the 96 percentile in my country)
There's a shift when playing in higher divisions and playing higher ranked players:
- rallies tend to last longer
- opponents get better in finding your weak spots and trying to exploit them
- you get less time, pressure is on, you're constantly being pulled out of your comfort zone

For me, this translates into some drawbacks playing (fast) composite blades:
Because I'm under pressure, have less time, and rallies last longer, I lose a lot of points due to "unforced errors".
I personally believe, apart from focussed training etc..., transitioning back to all-wood might be a way out.

I started experimenting with some all-wood blades, but haven't found a good fit yet.
Some adjustment issues I experienced:
- the crispness, the easy of playing is gone
- I have to work really hard to produce a fast shot, often resulting in an error or not recuperating fast enough for the next shot
- during slower play, there's just way too much dwell, causing me to easily pull the ball over the end of the table when looping an open-up
- the same with blocking, it feels less direct and more spin sensitive
- short pips balls are not so flat anymore

So, in short, unless I find a magical all-wood blade that fixes my composite problem without introducing new issues, I'm either in for a looooong adjustment period, or I'll have to satisfy with the double edged sword that is composite ;-)
I've also tried some softer carbon blades, e.g. Donic Waldner Senso Carbon (which I'm selling btw), but that gave the same adjustment problems.
My next experiment will be a Petr Korbel blade, let's see how that goes...

CLV · May 1, 2022

timdm said:
Interesting topic.

10 years ago or so, I switched to composite blades to see what that was all about.
I converged a bit between faster and slower composite blades, and eventually ended up playing an Andro Treiber CI, which in my personal opinion sits somewhere between an Innerforce and a Freitas.

For me, these kinds of composite are a nice fit.
There's a good balance between dwell and directness, between speed and control.
And as a short pips player, I can easily get a good "flat ball" with a bit of sinking effect.

As my level went up, I have however noticed some things:
(To give an idea, my current ELO is around 2000. We also get a rank indication, consisting of a letter+number, that currently puts me in the 96 percentile in my country)
There's a shift when playing in higher divisions and playing higher ranked players:
- rallies tend to last longer
- opponents get better in finding your weak spots and trying to exploit them
- you get less time, pressure is on, you're constantly being pulled out of your comfort zone

For me, this translates into some drawbacks playing (fast) composite blades:
Because I'm under pressure, have less time, and rallies last longer, I lose a lot of points due to "unforced errors".
I personally believe, apart from focussed training etc..., transitioning back to all-wood might be a way out.

I started experimenting with some all-wood blades, but haven't found a good fit yet.
Some adjustment issues I experienced:
- the crispness, the easy of playing is gone
- I have to work really hard to produce a fast shot, often resulting in an error or not recuperating fast enough for the next shot
- during slower play, there's just way too much dwell, causing me to easily pull the ball over the end of the table when looping an open-up
- the same with blocking, it feels less direct and more spin sensitive
- short pips balls are not so flat anymore

So, in short, unless I find a magical all-wood blade that fixes my composite problem without introducing new issues, I'm either in for a looooong adjustment period, or I'll have to satisfy with the double edged sword that is composite ;-)
I've also tried some softer carbon blades, e.g. Donic Waldner Senso Carbon (which I'm selling btw), but that gave the same adjustment problems.
My next experiment will be a Petr Korbel blade, let's see how that goes...

Hi tim,

See you are Belgian. Me too. My father is playing the same SP (killer). He´s not so high ranked as you are, but plays them on a oldskool butterfly gergely. (Cloned by sdc). It´s a stiff blade 5 ply with soft feel (hinoki). He really likes it ...

Verstuurd vanaf mijn SM-A405FN met Tapatalk

ricospin · May 2, 2022

timdm said:
Interesting topic.

10 years ago or so, I switched to composite blades to see what that was all about.
I converged a bit between faster and slower composite blades, and eventually ended up playing an Andro Treiber CI, which in my personal opinion sits somewhere between an Innerforce and a Freitas.

For me, these kinds of composite are a nice fit.
There's a good balance between dwell and directness, between speed and control.
And as a short pips player, I can easily get a good "flat ball" with a bit of sinking effect.

As my level went up, I have however noticed some things:
(To give an idea, my current ELO is around 2000. We also get a rank indication, consisting of a letter+number, that currently puts me in the 96 percentile in my country)
There's a shift when playing in higher divisions and playing higher ranked players:
- rallies tend to last longer
- opponents get better in finding your weak spots and trying to exploit them
- you get less time, pressure is on, you're constantly being pulled out of your comfort zone

For me, this translates into some drawbacks playing (fast) composite blades:
Because I'm under pressure, have less time, and rallies last longer, I lose a lot of points due to "unforced errors".
I personally believe, apart from focussed training etc..., transitioning back to all-wood might be a way out.

I started experimenting with some all-wood blades, but haven't found a good fit yet.
Some adjustment issues I experienced:
- the crispness, the easy of playing is gone
- I have to work really hard to produce a fast shot, often resulting in an error or not recuperating fast enough for the next shot
- during slower play, there's just way too much dwell, causing me to easily pull the ball over the end of the table when looping an open-up
- the same with blocking, it feels less direct and more spin sensitive
- short pips balls are not so flat anymore

So, in short, unless I find a magical all-wood blade that fixes my composite problem without introducing new issues, I'm either in for a looooong adjustment period, or I'll have to satisfy with the double edged sword that is composite ;-)
I've also tried some softer carbon blades, e.g. Donic Waldner Senso Carbon (which I'm selling btw), but that gave the same adjustment problems.
My next experiment will be a Petr Korbel blade, let's see how that goes...

I have to agree with everything you said. I recently took my carbon out to play 2 matches. Even though it's inner carbon, it was so easy to play at least compared to my yeo.

Carbon is indeed a double edged sword, the guy who I played put it nicely, "The power of carbon is great, but you have to be more accurate with it.". I have a lot of unforced errors with carbon, but also a lot more winners.\I am more consistent with landing the ball on the table with all wood.

I am also on the path to finding something similar to carbon in terms of ease of play and power- but is all wood. I have tried the yasaka variant of DWSC, the Ma Lin Carbon. It felt mediocre. Too much work to get the carbon to activate, and also it had a very glassy feeling.

ricospin · May 2, 2022

I'm starting to make this into a log to track my all wood journey.

I played today with my YEO, my boosted h3 has mellowed out, and I will say, I like it a lot!

I never was a fan on the vibrations of the yeo, but as of right now it has good ball feel, and the vibrations are pleasant enough in my opinion.
I am getting more used to the feeling of all wood, but I still prefer the benefits of carbon as stated above.

I have my heart set on getting infinity VPS. I reckon I'll have by the end of the week.

I must admit every time I play with carbon the allure of it gets to me. Make me want to try a vis structure blade. Maybe yinhe pro 01. I know it will not be good for me- oh but one can dream~

ricospin · May 3, 2022

DukeGaGa said:
Give TSP/Victas Swat series a try, you'll be surprised how good they feel. There's a reason why it's the best selling blade in Japan for many many years.

Swat is interesting but it's never appealed to me.

I also haven't seen one at the club- not that it invalidates it's a good blade, just that I have not been given the opportunity to try it.

SleepyMaster · Feb 14, 2023

Played for last 1,5 years with carbon blades, innerforce type basically: innerforce zlc, apolonia, harimoto alc; and outer type lin gaoyuan alc. For reason of pure interest, and the whole theory of “remarkable control” of wooden blades i tried to play for one session with my nittaku acoustic, that has reputation of one of the best wooden blades. Rubbers remain the same: 09c forehand and dign 80 backhand. And damn it didn’t go well. In comparison with carbon ones, that i mentioned before, there was less feeling, control - that pretty surprised me, and ofc less power - but it’s okay since there was no carbon. I guess, it’s just the matter of what we more used to, and our preferences. Not all wooden blades have better control, not all carbon have less of it. It’s all about the feeling and skill of the player who uses them

dingyibvs · Feb 14, 2023

To me wood blades' issue is on the BH side. For one, it's tougher to generate enough pace. Then you have the lack of crispness decreases consistency. Lastly, the hit box on the BH side (the position of the ball relative to your body) is already smaller, so the smaller sweet spot makes it even harder to get a quality shot.

I quite enjoy all wood blades or very woody feeling blades like HL5 on the FH side. But due to deficiencies on the BH side it's hard for me to be a two-winged looper. You can find very hard, crisp, fast wood blades, but then you lose the qualities that people look for in all wood blades.

I feel that for people who want something in between, the HL5/968 are pretty good options. The HL5 is like an all wood blade with an extra kick, I had little trouble switching from the YSE to the HL5. The 968 is like a carbon blade with a woody feel and some flex that only kicks in with the hardest shots. I actually had some more trouble switching from the HL5 to the 968 than from the YSE to the HL5.

Kolev · Feb 14, 2023

I play more or less equally well with the all-wood and carbon blades I have, considering that they are all at around OFF and love them all
I surely feel better with some than others.....and then I started practicing with a partner who is level or two higher than me. I kept on alternating between some of my carbons and all-woods with different rubbers on, meanwhile asking my partner what he thinks. He was very straight forward telling me that some of my combinations were way more troublesome than others(although I didn't feel significant difference in the quality of my shots), trying to convince me that winning it isn't all about my own comfort, but also the discomfort I may cause to my opponent. That was my salvation ....

NextLevel · Feb 15, 2023

I can play with both, but I find that all wood adds more and more weight to the head to play the way I want it to, because my preferred head size is like the Mazunov/Ovtcharov 158 by 152 and that adds weight with today's heavy rubbers. In the end, whatever a person develops sufficient feeling with is what he should use.

tackyfh · Feb 15, 2023

When I started playing tt again in university, I used a Primorac OFF+ and it was horrendous as my technique wasn't developed enough to handle the speed and the stiff feeling of it. Then I decided to switch to a Clipper, the amount of dwell time and feeling this blade has has helped my to improve my strokes and short touch significantly. I can say that for club level players that doesn't have much time and budget on their hand to practice but wish to perfect their technique, a 5 or 7 ply wood blade is the best choice.

SleepyMaster · Feb 15, 2023

tackyfh said:
When I started playing tt again in university, I used a Primorac OFF+ and it was horrendous as my technique wasn't developed enough to handle the speed and the stiff feeling of it. Then I decided to switch to a Clipper, the amount of dwell time and feeling this blade has has helped my to improve my strokes and short touch significantly. I can say that for club level players that doesn't have much time and budget on their hand to practice but wish to perfect their technique, a 5 or 7 ply wood blade is the best choice.

Agree, as for the developing player, this is true. It’s better go for pure wood. I have started from primorac and acoustic as well, when just starting to train table tennis. But, when you already mastered the basics really well, and have solid control over the ball, blade became just a tool, and you can execute all the strokes no matter does it have carbon or not. My coach for example, played with all wood and uses carbon only to feed multiballs.
In my story, i was just wondering, maybe step back to all wood racket gives me even more control that i already achieved with apolonia or harimoto, and it didn’t go as i expected. But i can play a match with all of them if needed to

Knuckle Ball · Feb 15, 2023

ricospin said:
Hey everyone, I’m in that phase where I’m switching back to all wood from carbon

I just noticed that I can’t spin as much, nor am I super consistent with carbon. The safety and surety that all wood has is something I’ve neglected.

While the feeling of immense power is good, I have to face facts- that I do not have the quality to play with carbon yet.

How has everyone’s experience been going so far? Successful? Or switched to slower carbon settup?

I’ve been reluctant to switch because I love the vibrations of my Fang Bo B2X over my Ma Lin EO, any of you guys feel this way?

*I’m also considering to buy infinity vps, because I like the vibrations more.

Viscaria, Viscaria Light, Harimoto ALC, Joola Rossi Emotion PBO-c, Aruna Off, Garaydia are the blades I have been using these past 4 years. I recently bought a Hadraw 7-ply and that playing experience was quite nice. I also got hold of a Clipper, Offensive Classic and a 5-ply Rosewood and these blades were a revelation or a revival of sorts. I sort of got re-acquianted with Clipper which over the years somehow forgot how sweet it felt with just the right amount of speed and control. Offensive Classic is a looping machine very soft and forgiving while Rosewood was firm stiff and had surprising power, real nice for long pips. Yes I totally enjoy venturing back to using the all wooden blades. These wooden blades are definitely fun. Isn't that why we play? To have fun.

ricospin · Feb 17, 2023

Boy have I been a journey since this thread was posted. For a while I stuck with Viscaria style blades from Yinhe (Pro 01, V14 Pro). I then wanted to try an inner koto blade with 75inner. I played with this blade for 2 months and was really satisfied. I have sold my infinity.

I am once again back to all wood! I’m using PG7. I hated this blade when I got it. It’s a blade that requires experimentation with rubbers. For that reason, I never really gave it a fair shot with decent rubbers. I stuck Battle 2 Max Pro on this blade and surprisingly it plays really well. It is now my main blade.

Tacky backhand rubber is ok for this blade, but there’s too much dwell with it.

People who switched from carbon back to wood, how’s it going?

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