Choosing the right blade / determining blade speed info

[6Finger]

Hello fellow TT enthusiasts,
so I started playing TT as an adult at the age of 30 and been playing for 2 years now.
I did play and even trained TT a bit (few months) as a kid at about 14 and had my blade from back than.
So 15 years later when i started to play again and learn the strokes from scratch that old balsa/carbon super fast blade
was absolutely non suitable and in pursuit for a suitable blade I did catch the EJ virus rather quickly

Since the pursuit for the holy grail of blades was and rather obsessive, expensive, lengthy and a painful experience
I thought to share some of my findings with you guys.

Before I go into my findings a bit more of back story and reasons on why finding a suitable blade was a such big thing for me.
When I first started to play as a kid I was super fit with almost 10 years of training in martial arts along with some other sports
without any health issues, now after a lower back surgery with some permanent nerve damage in my left leg and also
some nerve damage from cervical spine, the nerve that goes to your hand (playing hand ;P ) my eyesight gone quite bad and the need to wear
eyeglasses and as a result of all of this all around drop of my athletic ability I found it much much harder to learn TT techniques and
applying them at the table. Also TT ball changed from 38mm > 40 mm > 40+ plastic > latest ABS balls which resulted in much less speed and particularly spin on the ball.
Which as a result exposes flaws in technique and ability to generate speed and spin, speed we can compensate with equipment although with cost at all other components of game but spin not so much...
So its extremely important to play with a racket in a suitable speed class, not too fast so we dont compromise on server return, short game, ability to spin the ball and ability to learn TT techniques properly.

1. BLADE SPEED CLASS
this was the hardest part for me to differentiate as the blade may seem great 1st time trying it but after a few training sessions you may find it too fast or something other that you really dont like. Luckily one day i stumbeled upon this blog https://thoughtsontabletennis.wordpress.com/
and this particular article https://thoughtsontabletennis.wordpress.com/2015/04/25/introduction-to-table-tennis-blade-design/
To make it short one can pretty much determine speed of the blade by the sound it produces, hence the reason pros tend to knock at the blade when selecting it. Luckily we dont need to have perfect pitch, just a smartphone and an app that can measure sound frequency in Hz.
I found Spectrum Analyze app for android to be the most simple one and its free.
So just start the app and start bouncing the ball on a bare blade (to about eye level is enough) and check the recorded number.
Since there is no chart to interpret this and speed class markings vary different from different manufacturer this is how I interpret the numbers.

<1150 ALL /ALL+
1150 > 1250/1300 OFF-
1300 > 1500 OFF
1500 > OFF+
Speed can greatly vary on 2 additional factors, weight ( heavier is faster ) and thickness ( thicker is faster)
So for blades that are not in lets say 80-90 grams range and 5,5mm - 6,5mm thickness these 2 factors should also be considered.


2. THE HANDLE
this can be a tricky one and it took me year and a half to figure out its the second most important thing for me. For most people it
wont be a big deal but if you have large palms (and i do for a person of my height 180cm / 5ft 10") it might be.
As a reference here ill use Stigas legend handle, 1st time i tried it was a revelation, it was on a rather slow blade Stiga Alround Classic
but it was the first time i felt racket is stable in my hand, contact surface of palm and the blade is much greater and as a result feel of the ball is much greater and also ball speed with same stroke speed. Grip was also much looser and that brought all kind of other benefits too.
So no chinese baby handles for big palm guys hehee, also the ST vs FL thing is pretty important too but its a whole another story, going from ST to FL handle did wonders for me but its a preference and a different topic.

3. THE FLEX
This part i put on purpose before blade composition because two blades can have exactly the same composition but different manufacturing techniques and they can feel and play totally different and also be in different speed class.
So what I do is place my thumbs on the neck of the blade and rest of the fingers on 2 ends (handle and blade face) and i try EVER SO GENTLY to flex it just a little (DO NOT press hard or try to bend the blade much, you will damage/break it).
If i cant feel it moving even a little bit i consider it a brick

4. BLADE COMPOSITION
This is such a big subject but here are a few pointers. Companies invent new things and give crazy names to their technologies but there
are only few classic compositions and the rest are just slight variations.

limba-limba-ayous-limba-limba or limba-ayous-ayous-ayous-limba,
blade made with this plys/veneers are most classical and every company has one, few examples
Stiga Allround series
Butterfly Primorac OFF-, Petr Korbel
Tibhar Stratus Powerwood
Joola K5
Andro Kinetic ALL+
Donic Apelgren Allplay, Persson Powerallround
there are many other blades with slight ply variations like limba-spruce-ayous-spruce-limba and so on.....

koto-spruce-ayous-spruce-koto is another classic composition
Stiga Offensive classic
Avalox P500
DHS Hurricane King, Hurricane Hao, PG2, PG3
Xiom Fuga
and probably many others as well

limba-ayous-ayous-ayous-ayous-ayous-limba is another classic composition, Most famous blade with this composition is Stiga Clipper
and same as examples before all companies have at least one blade with this composition.

Whats left is carbon and other synthetic fibers blades,
pretty much it is the same story all over again with just 2nd or 3rd ply being exchanged with synthetic fibers.

So i covered here blades with limba and koto outer veneers, there are other woods like hinoki, rosewood and so on but other plys will again in most cases be the same or very slight variations

So you dont need to try all the blades in the world, top ply will pretty much matter the most for most people, once you figure
out what you like there are only few variations to try, 5 or 7 ply all wood or carbon composite blade and thats that.


5. BUILD QUALITY
This part I included just to point out that if a blade is cheap that it doesent mean its not a quality blade. For example Stiga Allround classic or Butterfly Petr Korbel are quite cheap compared to some blades but you can play with those for many many years and in fact many pros play or have played with Korbel.
Take notice when choosing a blade to pick one with straightest and densest grain, also i would never again buy a blade with core or outer veneers jointed from 2 pieces.


6. RUBBER MATCHING
This is too great of a subject and controversial as it is very subjective so there is no rules set in stone and no right answers.
General guideline is that recreational / amateur player should go with softer rubbers on harder blade or harder rubbers on soft blade,
ofc there are many more combinations with medium hard rubbers and blades. (not that i recommend soft rubber combos)
With the hard hard combination you lose dwell time and really good contact is needed but if you are a pro that's not a problem.
Butterfly alc blades for example are medium hard so pretty much any rubber will work great on those.




CONCLUSION
I know with time and as TT skills progress you can determine speed of the blade with a few minutes hitting with it but it can also vary
quite a lot with rubbers glued to the blade, I encourage you guys to test my method above and after you tryed 10 blades or so you will see that
you can recognize blade speed and other characteristics pretty much with 90% certainty without even playing with it.
It helps out a lot in stopping the EJ virus and can save you money when searching for a new blade to dismiss many candidates.
I hope this thread will be very helpful for people that play with blades that are out of production or of unknown model to find a similar replacement and also to people that are in search for their 1st racket.

I am no pro by any means and will take any sound advice to expand on this little tutorial, but in things I wrote I am fairly certain as it is something I tried not just other peoples experiences.


RECOMMENDATION FOR BEGINNERS BLADE (for all around or looping / attacking style)
Based on my findings i would recommend 5 ply all wood classic limba composition blade from any manufcturer,
main reason to chose one manufacturer over the other would be the handle and which one suits you the best.
As for rubbers i would skip soft rubbers completely and start with medium hard rubbers in 1,8 to max sponge thickness.


I am sorry for any spelling mistakes, english is not my native language.

 

[6Finger]

Reserved,


if the sound method catches on and forum members share their numbers and observations about their blades I will write them down here and update list from time to time


Few examples: (make note if blade unusually heavy/light or thick)
Butterfly ALC blades 1350 - 1500 (great range on many blades i tryed)
Yasaka Extra Offensive 1250
Tibhar Samsonov Alpha 1180
Stiga Clipper 1300-1350
Butterfly SK7 1350 (95g)
Butterfly Mazunov 1510 (103g thick blade)
Butterfly Garaydia ALC 1700+ (fastest one i tryed)
DHS Fang Bo 2 1250

Here's a spreadsheet that is going around at MyTT.com: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tnzuhP98Iwl3_ZYIKs770Z4GeEXB1cPaF6xXC3IMLfg/edit?usp=sharing

and also posted a submission form for people who want to contribute: http://goo.gl/forms/HGki3A0DqfYSXT2A3

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Looks like you are doing some work to try and learn about and understand equipment. Good job.

I have a homework assignment for you. Try some all Hinoki blades. See if you can try a 5 ply, a 7 ply and a one ply. See if they fit with your theories on the correlation between pitch and speed.

If you can get your hands on one of the old Butterfly Jonyer-H or Klampar-H blades, it would be worth testing those.

Also, with Hinoki test driving vs looping and see if there is a difference in speed with the same blade and different ways of contacting the ball.


Sent from The Subterranean Workshop by Telepathy

 

[6Finger]

Hello Carl, glad to see you posting here.
I did not test any hinoki blade so far so cant really make any claim if the speed/pitch correlation works.
It will be funn to test it out if I have a chance.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

They are worth trying. Hinoki is a unique wood. Soft and and it grabs the ball very well. Fast on spin shots and not as fast on drive shots.

Blades made of all Hinoki plies ending up having many gears.

You are doing a good job trying to learn about equipment. Keep it up and keep posting updated info that you find out in your research for this thread.


Sent from The Subterranean Workshop by Telepathy

 

[Suga D]

I have a homework assignment for you. Try some all Hinoki blades. See if you can try a 5 ply, a 7 ply and a one ply. See if they fit with your theories on the correlation between pitch and speed.

If you can get your hands on one of the old Butterfly Jonyer-H or Klampar-H blades, it would be worth testing those.

Also, with Hinoki test driving vs looping and see if there is a difference in speed with the same blade and different ways of contacting the ball.


Sent from The Subterranean Workshop by Telepathy

I just would like to add that a 3ply Hinoki might be worth trying too
[Emoji6]
Blades like the Nittaku Killton (that i use) or the Tibhar H-3-9
(Also the addition of composite material makes a very big difference here)
Anyhow, i just can repeat Carl's words.
Good job!

 

[yogi_bear]

all are good except that I do not agree on a person having a rating of 1500 to have an off+ blade. I would rather believe the off+ blades are for 2000+ ratings.

 

[6Finger]

Hello there yogi bear.

I think you might have misinterpreted the numbers in the post, numbers are frequencies measured by bouncing balls on bare blades and what blade speed class they fit according to numbers we get.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

all are good except that I do not agree on a person having a rating of 1500 to have an off+ blade. I would rather believe the off+ blades are for 2000+ ratings.

Hello there yogi bear.

I think you might have misinterpreted the numbers in the post, numbers are frequencies measured by bouncing balls on bare blades and what blade speed class they fit according to numbers we get.

This is funny. The best of us misread and interpret things incorrectly though. I could see myself making the same mistake.


Sent from The Subterranean Workshop by Telepathy

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

(Also the addition of composite material makes a very big difference here)

Adding composite blades won't show the same results of how pitch and speed are not necessarily connected. Yeah, test on everything. But the blades I talked about would show fast blades with somewhat lower pitch.

There are Hinoki blades that have a mid-deep thud sound that are quite fast. But because they are soft, the sound is not high pitched even though the blade is quite fast.

Pitch may be a better indicator of the overall hardness of the blade. But because the sample of kinds of woods, 6Finger has tested it on is limited, he has come up with a one-to-one ratio of pitch correlating to blade speed.

However, it is more complicated than that.


Sent from The Subterranean Workshop by Telepathy

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Now of course looking at other things like what a Spruce ply under the top ply does. Or what Rosewood, Ebony, White Ash, Cypress, Kiri, Mahogany, Walnut....etc are like.

But the idea that most blades are from a few simple ply constructions is still really valid.


Sent from The Subterranean Workshop by Telepathy

 

[ttmonster]

I find this thread very interesting , we could create a google doc with all the bade names and the pitch recorded from the app. anybody can go and update the doc . when they buy a new blade or change their rubber ... kind or like an open source collaboration for EJ's to figure out a scientific way to test blades .. .then we can map that to the speed rating that is normally accepted ... that way we will have enough data to make this work ... and whenever somebody goes to buy a blade they can test it against this data and check if he is getting a good deal or a ray deal .... thanks to OP for this brilliant idea ...

 

[apodra74]

A friend of mine told me about this app a few weeks ago, he has it on his phone
and we happened to try it on a table tennis shop with some blades, from what i remember
Donic True Carbon tried a few 1510-1550,
Stiga Carbonado 290 1590, Stiga Carbonado 145 1360-1380.
I got the app on my phone and tested some of my Blades,
Schlager Carbon ST 1920-1950 95gr
Schlager Carbon FL 1940-1970 100gr
Xiom Axelo FL 1940-1960 86 gr.
When I'll remove the rubbers i will test my Donic Carbospeed also.

 

[yogi_bear]

sorry, i thought those were u.s. ratings. LOL. my mistake not reading on the whole paragraph.

 

[Baal]

Adding composite blades won't show the same results of how pitch and speed are not necessarily connected. Yeah, test on everything. But the blades I talked about would show fast blades with somewhat lower pitch.

There are Hinoki blades that have a mid-deep thud sound that are quite fast. But because they are soft, the sound is not high pitched even though the blade is quite fast.

Pitch may be a better indicator of the overall hardness of the blade. But because the sample of kinds of woods, 6Finger has tested it on is limited, he has come up with a one-to-one ratio of pitch correlating to blade speed.

However, it is more complicated than that.


Sent from The Subterranean Workshop by Telepathy

ALC absorbs high frequency vibrations, but this would affect timbre more than pitch I think; not the first peak in the spectrum, but the 2nd 3rd or 4th components. This method will not yield something that correlates perfectly with blade speed, but it will still be useful, especially comparing within a blade class-- comparing one composite to another for example, which is what most people would do anyway. The advantage of this is it cheap and easy to do, reproducible, robust, and our OP has already done a lot!

Hats off to tbe OP.

 

[Baal]

Also, the OPs comment about handle size is important. I think a lot of standard handles are too small if you are, say, 185 cm tall. My playing level is much higher with grip wraps on my Viscaria. I think that handle was originally designed for someone considerably smaller than I am.

 

[Ot Ot]

Also, the OPs comment about handle size is important. I think a lot of standard handles are too small if you are, say, 185 cm tall. My playing level is much higher with grip wraps on my Viscaria. I think that handle was originally designed for someone considerably smaller than I am.

Hi,

I was holding viscaria FL and Korbel FL, seem that latter feel more solid.

 

[Baal]

They are both made of wood, so maybe by "solid" you mean larger?

I haven't held a Korbel in awhile but if memory is correct both handles are too small for someone my size, but grip wrap solves it. It kind of settles into an ideal shape for my hand. I buy the ones used for tennis rackets and use about a third of a wrap on a TT racket. Speaking of tennis, there you get a choice in handle sizes. In TT you get choice of shape but not size, which is unfortunate (unless you buy from Soulspin). If the handle is the right size for me, my grip becomes much more natural and very fast transitions between FH and BH become much much smoother, short game gets better, third ball gets better.

By the way, on a thread at MyTT some months back, someone posted pictures of all of the players at a fairly large European tournament. I commented at the time that it was notable how many German players used grip wrap (Samsonov also). In the case of Boll, there are photos that seem to show that he gets his handle modified just a bit, to make it slightly larger and asymmetric compared to the stock version. I used to think there was something wrong about my addiction to grip wrap, but now I don't since it works.

 

[Baal]

Check out this animation about vibrations of circular membranes. It gives a hint as to how complex vibrations of a table tennis racket head might be.

http://www.acs.psu.edu/drussell/Demos/MembraneCircle/Circle.html

 

[Ot Ot]

They are both made of wood, so maybe by "solid" you mean larger?

I haven't held a Korbel in awhile but if memory is correct both handles are too small for someone my size, but grip wrap solves it. It kind of settles into an ideal shape for my hand. I buy the ones used for tennis rackets and use about a third of a wrap on a TT racket. Speaking of tennis, there you get a choice in handle sizes. In TT you get choice of shape but not size, which is unfortunate (unless you buy from Soulspin). If the handle is the right size for me, my grip becomes much more natural and very fast transitions between FH and BH become much much smoother, short game gets better, third ball gets better.

By the way, on a thread at MyTT some months back, someone posted pictures of all of the players at a fairly large European tournament. I commented at the time that it was notable how many German players used grip wrap (Samsonov also). In the case of Boll, there are photos that seem to show that he gets his handle modified just a bit, to make it slightly larger and asymmetric compared to the stock version. I used to think there was something wrong about my addiction to grip wrap, but now I don't since it works.

Hi Baal,

Yes, i was at the TT shop today. It feel slightly thicker, larger.

The new version of viscaria handle seem thin or same as the older version.

I'm a cpen holder and thinking to try out shakehand.
I narrowed down to Korbel (5 plywood) as it seem same as the blade built currently im using now (YEO).