Daily Table Tennis Chit Chat

[Jirrex]

Last week I got the blades for the cheap club rackets I wanted to build (the rubbers I received already a few weeks ago).

When I glued my first rubber and removed the plastic from the topsheet (Dawei 2008 XP rubber), I noticed that the surface of the topsheet was a bit wobbly. At first I thought it was caused by a bad glue job, but when I removed the rubber from the blade, it looked the same (I didn't see that before because of the plastic foil in the rubber). Is it normal that certain (cheaper) rubbers have this?

I made a picture from another sheet which appeared to have the same:



I can't really complain taking the low price of the rubbers into consideration, but I was just wondering.

 

[Boogar]

can't see it on the photo. I guess that is normal tho

 

[NextLevel]

Jirrex, I think people like you have superpowers. My equipment looks worse than that.

 

[Jirrex]

can't see it on the photo. I guess that is normal tho

You are right, it can't be seen very well on that picture.

I made another picture from the glued rubber on the racket:

 

[NextLevel]

You are right, it can't be seen very well on that picture.

I made another picture from the glued rubber on the racket:

Like I said, my equipment looks worse than that. Once I can loop with it, the rest is moot.

 

[Der_Echte]

I used XP 2008 for years on BH. Your pic doesn't indicate much out of normal. Be aware that XP 2008 oxidizes faster than many rubbers, but it will still play well for a long time.

 

[Jirrex]

Like I said, my equipment looks worse than that. Once I can loop with it, the rest is moot.

I know that how it plays is the only thing that actually matters, but such things can occupy my mind. The rubbers on the racket that I'm using don't have this 'wobbly' surface, so that was making me wonder.

 

[NextLevel]

I know that how it plays is the only thing that actually matters, but such things can occupy my mind. The rubbers on the racket that I'm using don't have this 'wobbly' surface, so that was making me wonder.

I know. Everyone is different. I know people who change their Tenergy because they don't like how it looks after 1 month of play.

 

[Boogar]

this rubber looks fine to me... I have seen people playing with rubbers looking far worse!

 

[Archosaurus]

That looks beautiful compared to my current, old sheet.

If it still spins, it's good, isn't it?

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Like I said, my equipment looks worse than that. Once I can loop with it, the rest is moot.

I think this is the important information here. If it works, it is pretty okay. Especially if it is for an inexpensive racket for people who are learning to use.


Sent from The Subterranean Workshop by Telepathy

 

[Jirrex]

A tip for people that are using an X-acto knife to cut their rubbers:

I'm using the blade that Carl recommended (it's a really nice blade to cut rubbers with), which can be seen on the picture below:



After having cut the 5th rubber with it, I noticed it wasn't as sharp anymore as it used to be and it took an extra pass to cut through the rubber, and it wasn't as clean anymore as before. Since these particular blades seem impossible to get in Holland, I sharpened it myself.

I made a simple file from a paint stirring stick by gluing #240 grid sandpaper on one side and #400 grid sandpaper on the other:



On a very closed angle I scraped the blade upwards and downwards on the sanding surface, lets say 30 seconds for each side of the blade. Of course I started with #240 first. You can also just hold the sandpaper on a straight surface.

The next steps are optional, I continued to do the same on #800, #1000 and #2000 grid sandpaper. I ended up with a blade that's much sharper than it ever was, for just a few minutes of work.

 

[Flatstyk]

Switching topics a bit...

I am on the verge of purchasing a robot and am nearing ready to actually commit to the Paddle Palace labeled top of their line model at about $1800. My hesitation is that I have not seen much discussion about this machine. Does anybody have any insight to suggest to me it is a great choice or a bad choice?

 

[Garrison]

My legs were very quick today, it felt like I could reach every shot. Hopefully it is like that on my next match on friday, we need every point to get into the next division. Sadly when I am in a really good mood my playstyle gets a bit cocky and I try to get too many stylepoints instead of just being efficent. Then it feels like my opponent has no chance, I ask for the score and he tells me he is leading 9 to 6 haha

Hopefully I can provide some video footage some time but I don't have a camera other than my phone and nothing to hold it either

 

[NextLevel]

My legs were very quick today, it felt like I could reach every shot. Hopefully it is like that on my next match on friday, we need every point to get into the next division. Sadly when I am in a really good mood my playstyle gets a bit cocky and I try to get too many stylepoints instead of just being efficent. Then it feels like my opponent has no chance, I ask for the score and he tells me he is leading 9 to 6 haha

Hopefully I can provide some video footage some time but I don't have a camera other than my phone and nothing to hold it either

Usually, when I am up 10 - 4 or something like that, if I do a flashy point to end the match/game and miss, I can call a timeout to remind myself of what is important. I have learned my lesson from doing that and watching others to not assume that you have things so under control that there is no way you can lose. There is always a way, especially when you are not playing in the best possible way to win.

 

[Takkyu_wa_inochi]

Today I played 2 hours at the club. played 1 hour doing drills with my usual partner. then spent 1 hour doing matches. Strange feeling. I think I played rather well today, many nice rallies, i think my serve/receive was rather good. but i won only 1 set, and lost 4 matches to 4 different players...they were simply better than me, and also played well today...I had quite a few chances but didn't convert them...

I can't be happy about the results, but I'm happy with my level.

 

[NextLevel]

I haven't gotten too much into counterlooping yet, but I know that contacting the ball on the side is better based on my experiences looping against push. When I loop against the weak pushes of the local 1600 players, the consistency of my BH loop is quite good. But when I have to play my 2000 level buddy who has a nasty, heavy push (like you!), I start spraying balls all over the place. I can't deal with the heavier spin.

I just did these FH loops against easy balls on the robot about 15 minutes ago. What do you think? I tried aiming more at the side of the ball and keeping the tip of the rubber facing the floor on the backswing.

I feel like this stroke looks quite a bit different than what I was doing in the "53 loops video", but I'm still not completely sure I am doing what you are asking me to do.

I am curious where you are with this. Looking at your usage of your arm, there is still a little room for improvement there but I am curious as to whether this perspective on looping has improved your approach to the ball. If you compare both this video and your previous 53 loops video to a pro looping the ball, you will see that this looks much more like what many pros are doing on many shots.

 

[SchemeSC]

I am curious where you are with this. Looking at your usage of your arm, there is still a little room for improvement there but I am curious as to whether this perspective on looping has improved your approach to the ball. If you compare both this video and your previous 53 loops video to a pro looping the ball, you will see that this looks much more like what many pros are doing on many shots.

Unfortunately, I don't have any new footage to share since I haven't played much over the past 4-5 days. I did have an 1100 player push to my backhand as heavy as he could and I experimented with adding some "upward tilt" to the paddle angle, in order to contact the ball more on the side. Right now, I am having a serious problem with swinging too vertically and falling back on my heels when BH looping against backspin. I am hoping that changing my contact point to the side of ball instead of the back will give me the confidence to swing more forward instead of upwards.

You mentioned that I could still improve my arm usage on the FH side. Is this anything you can describe in words over the Internet?

 

[NextLevel]

Unfortunately, I don't have any new footage to share since I haven't played much over the past 4-5 days. I did have an 1100 player push to my backhand as heavy as he could and I experimented with adding some "upward tilt" to the paddle angle, in order to contact the ball more on the side. Right now, I am having a serious problem with swinging too vertically and falling back on my heels when BH looping against backspin. I am hoping that changing my contact point to the side of ball instead of the back will give me the confidence to swing more forward instead of upwards.

You mentioned that I could still improve my arm usage on the FH side. Is this anything you can describe in words over the Internet?

You use your body very well, so it is not easy to isolate it. The backswing should feel like you are slowly throwing something behind you until the ball shows up and forward swing should feel as if you have ended that motion and recoiling from it. You have short arms so you might be doing something like this and I just can't see it.

 

[NextLevel]

This is the video. Some people do what he does and instead of playing over the ball, they wipe the ball with a fade sidespin. His is better, but both can be effective as long as you know what you are selecting. The most important thing is to have a good elbow position so you can have a good turning point for a large circle for your swing. For someone with arms like yours, I wouldn't be surprised if you could actually get a decent swing from the shoulder like Kreanga as long as you protected it with good body rotation.