Choice of all-wood offensive blade - Survey

Equaaz · Sep 30, 2022

Hello,

I suggest you imagine that you are a young table tennis player (20 years old) with 3 years of experience, a ranking in progress and gestures that are clean but still perfectible. You have an offensive game based on backhand flips and forehand loops (therefore quite modern). So far you have played with a control blade like the Yasaka Sweden Extra or the Donic Appelgren Allplay with a Hurricane 3 Neo (FH) and a Rakza 7 (BH).

Here are 10 very popular blades, which one would you choose to continue your progression?
The price IS NOT a selection criterion in this choice

Here is the survey link, thank you
https://strawpoll.com/polls/B2ZB3PxGByJ

You can of course explain your choice in response to this post.

Equaaz · Oct 6, 2022

Update 6 October 2022

Shooter40 · Oct 23, 2022

Butterfly Falcima. The lastest all wood blade from butterfly

Haraold · Oct 23, 2022

Probably Acoustic or Rosewood.

SFF_lib · Oct 23, 2022

Acoustic and Korbel are both too soft and too much flex for the new ball. Rosewood is good if you have enough control as it's hard.

Infinity is right in between due to its thickness.

Equaaz · Nov 17, 2022

SFF_lib said:
Acoustic and Korbel are both too soft and too much flex for the new ball. Rosewood is good if you have enough control as it's hard.

Infinity is right in between due to its thickness.

Just out of curiosity, what rubbers would you recommend to this same player to accompany his Rosewood?

Equaaz · Feb 11, 2023

NextLevel · Feb 11, 2023

Yasaka Extra is still an good blade and is close enough to some of these. The one thing I will say is that the Acoustic can be the beginning of a progression to Carbon. None of the other blades offer that path.

Equaaz · Feb 11, 2023

NextLevel said:
Yasaka Extra is still an good blade and is close enough to some of these. The one thing I will say is that the Acoustic can be the beginning of a progression to Carbon. None of the other blades offer that path.

Very interesting !
Last 2 years, i played with Novacell Off, Sweden Extra, PG-7, Sanwei Fextra, Xiom Offensive S, ... and finaly Primorac Japan ( I have to test a lot of equipment).
Actually, I don't consider myself ready for carbon but too limited in speed by my blade. According to your description, the Acoustic would be a perfect medium, but is it really worth its price ?

NextLevel · Feb 11, 2023

Equaaz said:
Very interesting !
Last 2 years, i played with Novacell Off, Sweden Extra, PG-7, Sanwei Fextra, Xiom Offensive S, ... and finaly Primorac Japan ( I have to test a lot of equipment).
Actually, I don't consider myself ready for carbon but too limited in speed by my blade. According to your description, the Acoustic would be a perfect medium, but is it really worth its price ?

Table tennis is a relatively cheap sport, but with price, the real issue is usually to find more money, but you are 20 years old so it makes sense. Blades are lifetime investments, so one should rarely be thinking about how expensive something you are going to use over a long period is if you are serious about TT. But if the money is not there, it isn't there. The risk is not liking the blade, but that is why you usually should only buy expensive stuff that you have tried or which you can try and return. It is best to get something of high quality, put in the training hours with the right coaching to master it, and then stick with it. You can do this with something very cheap as well. I have a high level coach friend who uses Mercury on a Waldner Legend and uses baby oil to boost it.

There is nothing that makes you not ready for Carbon, especially with the new ball and even more if you are using Chinese rubber on your forehand. The main thing a slower blade does is give you a better idea of what it is like to hit the ball in the sweetspot. If you have mastered hitting the ball mostly in the sweetspot (in the upper half of the blade), then the rest is to learn the highest frequency that the blade vibrates at which you can tolerate the feeling. For me, I find that my tolerance (and I started playing late) is around 1400Hz, which makes even the Viscaria lack feeling for me relative to its speed. So the very stiff blades never really work, but if I can feel something, I can use it. If a blade is too fast, you can put sticky rubber to make it a bit easier to control. In the end though, nothing is as important as the training hours.

turbozed · Feb 11, 2023

NextLevel said:
I have a high level coach friend who uses Mercury on a Waldner Legend and uses baby oil to boost it.

I'm a developing beginner player currently using an Acoustic with Mercury 2 for my FH. Will there be any benefit for someone like me to boost with baby oil, or is that something I don't have to worry about for a few years? Currently practicing 4 or 5 times a week (3 of those with a coach).

I'm guessing having more consistency with rubber characteristics is more important, and that Mercury 2 plays well enough for beginners unboosted. When should I start even thinking about changing to a faster more advanced rubber? Are there any helpful milestones or time horizons to keep in mind for that?

My coach says that the Mercury 2 is not gripping the ball well enough compared to the previous Fastarc C1 I had on my FH. I'm wondering whether humidity is playing a role here (currently in Vietnam where humidity can get up to 80%). I found that the Fastarc was too fast for me, and I'm enjoying putting more power into my strokes. I'm investing a good amount of time and money into improving currently (not on the rubber though of course haha) so would like to know the best course of action. Sorry for hijacking the discussion with a bunch of questions!

NextLevel · Feb 11, 2023

turbozed said:
I'm a developing beginner player currently using an Acoustic with Mercury 2 for my FH. Will there be any benefit for someone like me to boost with baby oil, or is that something I don't have to worry about for a few years? Currently practicing 4 or 5 times a week (3 of those with a coach).

I'm guessing having more consistency with rubber characteristics is more important, and that Mercury 2 plays well enough for beginners unboosted. When should I start even thinking about changing to a faster more advanced rubber? Are there any helpful milestones or time horizons to keep in mind for that?

My coach says that the Mercury 2 is not gripping the ball well enough compared to the previous Fastarc C1 I had on my FH. I'm wondering whether humidity is playing a role here (currently in Vietnam where humidity can get up to 80%). I found that the Fastarc was too fast for me, and I'm enjoying putting more power into my strokes. I'm investing a good amount of time and money into improving currently (not on the rubber though of course haha) so would like to know the best course of action. Sorry for hijacking the discussion with a bunch of questions!

First of all, Fastarc C1 is a fine rubber, I used it for a long time.

Secondly, I know exactly what you mean when you say that you enjoy putting more power into your strokes and that Fastarc was too fast for you. The main reason I stay away from the Mercurys and Jupiters and Big Dippers of the world is that I don't want to deal with quality control and boosting. But my current rubber is exactly along those lines.

Thirdly, I think I know what the coach means when he says Mercury isn't gripping the ball as well - there are 3 possibilities

1) it might be humidity,
2) but he likely also has a certain vision for your strokes, and maybe your choice of equipment isn't helping that vision. If I play with Fastarc C1, my balls have beautiful arc, I am consistent off the table. If I play with my current harder tacky rubbers, I can hit the ball harder, which flattens out the arc, but doesn't look at beautiful. The most important thing is to be able to demonstrate you can spin the ball with arc on demand.
3) It is also quite possible that the sponge of Mercury is not very responsive unless you boost it a little bit. The quality might just not give easy spin. My coach friend doesn't boost to get extra speed, he boosts to make the rubber playable for him because there needs to be some tension. So you don't need to heavily boost the rubber, you just need to add *something* so it isn't extremely hard to use if you have good strokes for it. Maybe the lack responsiveness is part of the problem. Since Mercury is cheap, maybe you can test it with very little oil and see whether that improves its playing characteristics.

Equaaz · Feb 11, 2023

NextLevel said:
Table tennis is a relatively cheap sport, but with price, the real issue is usually to find more money, but you are 20 years old so it makes sense. Blades are lifetime investments, so one should rarely be thinking about how expensive something you are going to use over a long period is if you are serious about TT. But if the money is not there, it isn't there. The risk is not liking the blade, but that is why you usually should only buy expensive stuff that you have tried or which you can try and return. It is best to get something of high quality, put in the training hours with the right coaching to master it, and then stick with it. You can do this with something very cheap as well. I have a high level coach friend who uses Mercury on a Waldner Legend and uses baby oil to boost it.

There is nothing that makes you not ready for Carbon, especially with the new ball and even more if you are using Chinese rubber on your forehand. The main thing a slower blade does is give you a better idea of what it is like to hit the ball in the sweetspot. If you have mastered hitting the ball mostly in the sweetspot (in the upper half of the blade), then the rest is to learn the highest frequency that the blade vibrates at which you can tolerate the feeling. For me, I find that my tolerance (and I started playing late) is around 1400Hz, which makes even the Viscaria lack feeling for me relative to its speed. So the very stiff blades never really work, but if I can feel something, I can use it. If a blade is too fast, you can put sticky rubber to make it a bit easier to control. In the end though, nothing is as important as the training hours.

I planned to change my setup in july (too much change right now with my new club, new training method, new progression...), and at the moment there are two blade in my wish list :
Nittaku Acoustic if I choose allwood blade, Tibhar SK Hybrid AC if I feel ok with carbone (I prefer inner).
It's very difficult to have an objective view of his own abilities, but it is certain that if I pass a carbon blade, I will not increase the speed of my rubber (btw I alternate between H3 and FX-S for my forehand, both are interesting for different reasons).

turbozed · Feb 12, 2023

NextLevel said:
3) It is also quite possible that the sponge of Mercury is not very responsive unless you boost it a little bit. The quality might just not give easy spin. My coach friend doesn't boost to get extra speed, he boosts to make the rubber playable for him because there needs to be some tension. So you don't need to heavily boost the rubber, you just need to add *something* so it isn't extremely hard to use if you have good strokes for it. Maybe the lack responsiveness is part of the problem. Since Mercury is cheap, maybe you can test it with very little oil and see whether that improves its playing characteristics.

Thank you very much for your reply and I'll think about your suggestions. I have the C-1 on a Yasaka Sweden Extra right now so maybe I'll try practicing with that for a bit and ask my coach what he thinks.

For boosting the Mercury, how would I go about it? Just one layer on the sponge before gluing? How long would the effect last, and should I reboost at that point or just use a fresh sheet? At $4 a pop I don't mind experimenting a bit.

NextLevel · Feb 12, 2023

turbozed said:
Thank you very much for your reply and I'll think about your suggestions. I have the C-1 on a Yasaka Sweden Extra right now so maybe I'll try practicing with that for a bit and ask my coach what he thinks.

For boosting the Mercury, how would I go about it? Just one layer on the sponge before gluing? How long would the effect last, and should I reboost at that point or just use a fresh sheet? At $4 a pop I don't mind experimenting a bit.

So I asked my friend and he said that his old school background from the speed glue days influenced his approach and there is some chemistry involved. He boosts two sheets at the same time using baby oil or seamoon (baby oil lasts longer but seamoon is more effective) and then puts them in a bag with the sponges touching each other . He repeats the process two or three times and then he is good to use the sheets for a few months.

For those of use who are not chemists. and even if you sre an aspiring chemist, just adding some oil to the sponge would be fine, it will make it play better. You need to give it time to absorb.yhrn badger it has dried out and stretched you can glue it on the blade. That said I am not a boosting expert, so anyone who has good YouTube video on the subject that mimics their experience is welcome to share.

NextLevel · Feb 12, 2023

Equaaz said:
I planned to change my setup in july (too much change right now with my new club, new training method, new progression...), and at the moment there are two blade in my wish list :
Nittaku Acoustic if I choose allwood blade, Tibhar SK Hybrid AC if I feel ok with carbone (I prefer inner).
It's very difficult to have an objective view of his own abilities, but it is certain that if I pass a carbon blade, I will not increase the speed of my rubber (btw I alternate between H3 and FX-S for my forehand, both are interesting for different reasons).

That makes sense, and everyone's style is different. I have never been really able to understand how someone puts something like FX-S on the forehand. But usually when I see their game, it makes sense. But for my feeling it never does. Even watching Emmanje Lebesson often leaves me puzzled.

But in the end, equipment is interesting but what most people who want to play well are really looking for is found in training hours because if you have the training hours, your technique can support faster equipment. Or high level use of slower equipment. But it is all in training. When the training is pushing the limits of your equipment, a good coach will tell you.

Choice of all-wood offensive blade - Survey

Member

Member

Member

Member

Well-Known Member

Member

Member

Well-Known Member

Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Similar threads