I will give igor a huge like for that. It's really a cool design to store. I have never seen anything like that, tho I only seen "pro" tables and really shitty plastic Tesco outdoor tables all my life.
I think best bang for the buck tables are made by Sponeta. It's a fairly unknown brand but I'm pretty sure they are made in the same German factory as most of tables. (Joola, Donic, Tibhar etc etc)
You could also buy 2nd hand tables since a lot of clubs are replacing their tables all the time. At home I have a billion year old Artis Dominator table and honestly it's the next best thing to the Stiga Expert tables from the 80s...
But the Artis' are pretty heavy and have no wheels so difficult to move around. But the old Stiga Experts have wheels but those are made form Gold or Uranium or the core of black holes, they are MOFO heavy. Actual GOOOOD wood has a heft to it. Honestly I could imagine that those old Stiga Experts would be good for blade wood materials. (Like how some crafty manufacturers bought 500+ year old wood from catholic church benches to make violins!)
I agree with Zwill's comments regarding both heavier tables, and timber weight vs quality in general.
In terms of tables (in my own limited experience) I find to get ITTF-legal bounce from a table (ie: at least a 240mm rebound from a 300mm drop using an ITTF approved 3-star 40+ ball) you need one of two things:
- either at least a 15mm top with a very hard factory coating, or
- a 25mm+ top with heavy steel underpinning, to provide the necessary mass.
There's something about the extra mass of a 25+ mm top table, that makes getting proper bounce out of it a no-brainer.
With thinner tops however, I've found it's more of a mixed bag -- many thinner tables can satisfy the minimum bounce but a lot of them also don't get anywhere near it.
The thing about proper wood having a real heft to it is a little bit of a truism, as wood density can naturally vary quite a bit depending on the species of tree its come from (faster growing species are particularly prone to this.)
That said, it's also true that older trees in general can often (but not always) tend to provide heavier and better quality timber than younger trees. (NB: the question of whether aged dried timber is any better than young dried timber in a blade, is another matter entirely, and outside the scope of this thread 😉)
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