Need Help for Blade Selection

Burak · Jul 4, 2022

Hello everyone,

After a long break, I wanna start playing table tennis again but my current blade (XIOM Stradivarius) feels too stiff for me. My old blade was Yinhe N11 and I used to have more dwell time with that blade while looping, which allowed me to add more spin on the ball. I don't wanna go back to the same blade (N11) since when I tried to peel off my rubbers out of it, the blade was damaged even though I did it with lots of care. So I want to have a good quality blade that will last years for me and it must also be very flexible, allowing me to feel the ball and add heavy spin. With Stradivarius, I feel like the ball just directly leaves the racket as soon as I make contact.

To conclude, I have four wishes from my future blade:

Must be flexible and allow me to add my spin before shooting off the ball.
Must give me good feedback of the ball so that I can feel the spin on the ball.
Must be made out of decent materials such that it will last at least 5 years if taken care well and played 8 hours a week.
Must have a large head. I noticed Stradivarius blade's head was smaller compared to N11, which felt like a less sweet spot area.

I was looking for Stiga blades but when I saw the recent reviews about them, people tend to say they are not the same quality anymore.
Just in case anyone wonders, I have DHS Hurricane 2 Neo on FH and XIOM Omega VII Euro on BH.

Appreciate any advices from you guys,
Thank you in advance 😊

Lazer · Jul 4, 2022

Regarding removing rubber. You should do it side to side and NOT top to bottom, The reason for this is that against the grain the wood is stronger than with the grain. On the top layer of a blade the grain always run top to bottom.

Cheers
L-zr

Burak · Jul 4, 2022

Lazer said:
Regarding removing rubber. You should do it side to side and NOT top to bottom, The reason for this is that against the grain the wood is stronger than with the grain. On the top layer of a blade the grain always run top to bottom.

Cheers
L-zr

Actually didn't know this and most likely I peeled it off from the top 😅

Thank you so much for the info 😊

Scarfed Garchomp · Jul 4, 2022

Try Yinhe 896 or W6. They have the same headsize as the N-11 but while the N-11 is much thicker and stiffer, 896 and W6 are both flexible. The 896 is softer and the W6 is harder. It's recommended that you seal both these blades with a polyurethane wood sealer, a spray-on wipe-off or liquid wipe-on product should do fine to make a thin layer.

Burak · Jul 4, 2022

Scarfed Garchomp said:
Try Yinhe 896 or W6. They have the same headsize as the N-11 but while the N-11 is much thicker and stiffer, 896 and W6 are both flexible. The 896 is softer and the W6 is harder. It's recommended that you seal both these blades with a polyurethane wood sealer, a spray-on wipe-off or liquid wipe-on product should do fine to make a thin layer.

Thank you so much for the suggestions, but unfortunately I couldn't find these blades in any of the TT equipment sellers in my country 🙁

Gonna surely apply wood sealer to my new blade for protection, thank you for the info 👍

Scarfed Garchomp · Jul 4, 2022

Yinhe makes blades with headsize between 158mm to 160mm tall, like DHS blades. Both the Tibhar Stratus Powerwood and the Butterfly Petr Korbel have 158mm talk headsizes do they may be in line with what you are looking for, they are a bit more flexible than the N-11 but I felt they have better ball feeling and loop-ability. They Korbel flared handle is on the smaller side and the SPW has a large handle. The DHS Fang Bo Carbon has a nice feeling and is fairly flexible deposits it's carbon layers, it also has a 160mm tall headsize, but the handle is also very small.

Lazer · Jul 5, 2022

If You want a flexible blade I have 2 suggestions:
1 - Stiga Offensive classic (or maybe allround classic)
2 - Butterfly innerforce ALC.S. (An all+ to off- blade)

I do not buy that Stiga is of any lower quality than before. What is different is that the handles are a bit rougher but this is (I believe) due to the fact that it grips better. The Butterfly is one of my favorites but the handle is really tiny so therefore I don't use it. Maybe I can wrap it but that is not optimal. I currently do not own an offensive classic, but I own an allround evolution and its absolutely perfect (except also for the handle size).

Cheers
L-zr

Burak · Jul 5, 2022

Scarfed Garchomp said:
Yinhe makes blades with headsize between 158mm to 160mm tall, like DHS blades. Both the Tibhar Stratus Powerwood and the Butterfly Petr Korbel have 158mm talk headsizes do they may be in line with what you are looking for, they are a bit more flexible than the N-11 but I felt they have better ball feeling and loop-ability. They Korbel flared handle is on the smaller side and the SPW has a large handle. The DHS Fang Bo Carbon has a nice feeling and is fairly flexible deposits it's carbon layers, it also has a 160mm tall headsize, but the handle is also very small.

Oh I was continueing my research after the post and I also came across Tibhar Stratus Powerwood blade and now seeing your comment makes the blade very appealing. I didn't know it also had relatively big handle too, that makes it near perfect, thank you 😊

Another choice in my mind is Nittaku Acoustic large handle version. I wonder if you had a chance to come across with this blade, or have any opinion about it.

jk1980 · Jul 5, 2022

Burak said:
Another choice in my mind is Nittaku Acoustic large handle version. I wonder if you had a chance to come across with this blade, or have any opinion about it.

If the price is not that important to you i think the Nittaku Acoustic or even the Violin could be a good match for you. I think they do come with a slightly smaller head though and yes the handles are probably (too?) small for some people. I got an regular handle Violin which is totally ok for my hand size. The Nittaku Violin is regarded as one of the all wood blades that give you the best/most clear feeling on ball contact and surely something you can spin with. Depending on the weight (mine is 87g) it might be in the ALL+ or OFF- category. If you think you need something faster, then i think the Acoustic could be a good option. Both are pretty much similar in price (around 160€) where i come from.

DukeGaGa · Jul 5, 2022

Burak said:
Oh I was continueing my research after the post and I also came across Tibhar Stratus Powerwood blade and now seeing your comment makes the blade very appealing. I didn't know it also had relatively big handle too, that makes it near perfect, thank you 😊

Another choice in my mind is Nittaku Acoustic large handle version. I wonder if you had a chance to come across with this blade, or have any opinion about it.

Instead of Nittaku Acoustic, I suggest you Nittaku Ludeack Power, softer with more feel than Acoustic, I personally own six of these for testing different rubber setups.

Burak · Jul 5, 2022

Lazer said:
If You want a flexible blade I have 2 suggestions:
1 - Stiga Offensive classic (or maybe allround classic)
2 - Butterfly innerforce ALC.S. (An all+ to off- blade)

I do not buy that Stiga is of any lower quality than before. What is different is that the handles are a bit rougher but this is (I believe) due to the fact that it grips better. The Butterfly is one of my favorites but the handle is really tiny so therefore I don't use it. Maybe I can wrap it but that is not optimal. I currently do not own an offensive classic, but I own an allround evolution and its absolutely perfect (except also for the handle size).

Cheers
L-zr

After your comment, I did more research on Stiga blades and now Stiga Allround Classic is also around the top of my list. It seems like a pretty consistent blade. Have you ever had a chance to use Tibhar Stratus Powerwood or Nittaku Acoustic blades? I would also love to hear your opinions about these ones.

Thanks once again 😊

Burak · Jul 5, 2022

jk1980 said:
I think they do come with a slightly smaller head though and yes the handles are probably (too?) small for some people.

Ohhh it doesn't look like it has small head in the reviews and unboxing videos though. Maybe not as small as the XIOM Stradivarus blade's head.

Since I wanna use the blade for long time, the price range of up to 175€ is fine with me.

jk1980 · Jul 5, 2022

The head size was only smaller than the YSE head by a mm i think, so nothing really to worry about.
I just measured both and they seemed alike. Even the handle was 99mm on both, so perhaps it is not that different after all. When i researched the Nittaku Violin the data i got from the net pointed to a few mm difference, but having both here they are nearly the same size.

Violin Head size: 156 x 149 mm
YSE Head Size 156 x 150 mm

The Stradivarus allegedly got a Head Size of 157x149mm so i guess these three blades share a similar small head.
I just measured my Stiga Infinity VPS V and it has 156x150mm as well. I am not sure if these all have small heads or this being a very standard size for a blade.
Perhaps measure your Xiom Blade's Head and tell us how big it is.

Lazer · Jul 6, 2022

Burak said:
After your comment, I did more research on Stiga blades and now Stiga Allround Classic is also around the top of my list. It seems like a pretty consistent blade. Have you ever had a chance to use Tibhar Stratus Powerwood or Nittaku Acoustic blades? I would also love to hear your opinions about these ones.

Thanks once again 😊

No I don’t sorry, but I do know that Nittaku is equal to quality so I would have no problem choosing an acoustic. I am old fashioned and hooked on 5 ply all wood blades. They can be quite fast too.

What I have found is that a really slow rubber can tame a really fast blade. I was playing with a Butterfly primorac carbon that was given to me and I succeeded to tame it with Rakza 7 soft. But then the trajectory was quite low a bit low for security. I then contacted hipnotic and he made an all wood blade for me where the Carbon layer was replaced with a wood layer. This is still a fast blade but significantly slower. With this blade I decided rubber wise to start from the bottom. So I selected a good old Mark V. The top sheet of this rubber is great you can basically do anything but nothing is the best. It turned out to be to slow. So I went up one step to Mark V HPS. This has a different sponge but the same top sheet and I found this to be perfect. I have to work a little bit harder to get power but blocking is a dream, the trajectory is perfect it’s like it has a homing function and I can almost not miss as long as I get to the ball so for now I will stay there. A little less spin but I can make up for this. I am convinced that most people are overestimating themselves and plays with too fast equipment…

Cheers
L -zr

kiranbedis · Jul 6, 2022

I hear a lot about Blade Selection but what is Proper Information, what are the problems, how to do Best Blade Selection, I got information from here also, I want to know more information through website, if anyone can share here, please share Proper Information. .

jk1980 · Jul 6, 2022

Burak said:
Ohhh it doesn't look like it has small head in the reviews and unboxing videos though. Maybe not as small as the XIOM Stradivarus blade's head.

I read up on a few head sizes and then went to OSP blades' website where you can basically have them customize your own blade and choose a head size.
If we were to believe their categories, the blade sizes are very very similar and probably not even noticable without having a head to head comparision.

For OSP Blades the width of the blade head is always 150mm. By choosing either S, M, L you only change the height of the head.
S having a height of 157mm, M being 158mm and L being 159mm. I doubt that anybody below a very advanced player would even notice.

kiranbedis said:
I hear a lot about Blade Selection but what is Proper Information, what are the problems, how to do Best Blade Selection, I got information from here also, I want to know more information through website, if anyone can share here, please share Proper Information. .

It is hard to select a proper blade for you without you actually trying one out and trying to convey what you dont like of its properties.
If you have a blade from manufacturer X you can have a look at the manufacturers ratings of their other blades and try to form a conclusion from that but all in all it is very hard to compare blades from different vendors without being very subjective.

Need Help for Blade Selection

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