Information about older (special) blades

[SenseiJM]

Hi everyone.

I talked with someone recently about my blade, and we came over an interesting subject. As I am fairly new to table tennis and even newer to table tennis equipment, I wanted to see if there would be some people capable of helping me. The person who I talked with told me that there were blades with aluminum between the different woods. Apparently, and if I recall correctly, he said that it gave a better sweetspot or a better control on the ball, without sacrificing the speed. I am not exactly sure anymore of the details, but I hope this helps get the debate going. In short : I am searching desperately to at least find some info on these aluminum blades. I am really not sure where to begin my research, so I'm asking the TTD community !

Thanks in advance to everyone.

 

[zeio]

Stiga experimented with a lot of material between the late 80s and early 2000s. Pretty much all of them never caught on and became collectors' items.

Say, Tube Aluminum and Titanium 5.4. Rather than a layer of solid aluminum/titanium, which I think is prohibited by the rules, they ground the aluminum/titanium into bits and mixed them with the glue.

The lesson? Synthetic fibers are the way to go. The ability to weave them is monumental. You can play with so many parameters such as pattern, linear density, thread count, fabric weight and so on.

 

[Ray]

Tibhar Ikarus ALX, but it has been discontinued.

 

[Manto76]

Dingo Swiss make a blade with Aluminium. There's not much detail, but you'll see it at the bottom-right of this page: http://www.dingyitt.com/index.php/en/blades
There are contact details on the site if you want to get in touch with them to find out more.

 

[Airoc]

I am searching desperately to at least find some info on these aluminum blades.

You´ll find that TEXALIUM was used in a few blades, a fairly well-known one being Donic Li Ping Kitex.
Going from there, you´ll surely find a few more.

"Texalium was developed by a company based out of California named Hexcel. It's a fiberglass-based fabric that has a proprietary finish and a thin coating of aluminum on the surface."

 

[SenseiJM]

Great ! Thank you everyone for the help. It's really a shame so many of these blades were discontinued. I emailed Dingo Swiss to see if they can give me more info about the blade, and also to know if it's still available (and legal). Has anybody played with those blades?

 

[Airoc]

Has anybody played with those blades?

I´ve had a Killerspin Karakasevic Diamond TX and also a Podpinka PowerTex (I guess it was called) from a small series custom-made for Andras Podpinka and his business partner at the time. Both combined good speed with very good touch and control. Sometimes, when torn between ALC, ZLC and ICNTC ("I can´t see") I wish I had one of these again.

Joola have an explanation for Texalium on their site also, but I am not sure if any of the current range actually is built with it.

 

[SenseiJM]

Interesting. I might go and take a look.
As for the Dingo Swiss blade, it is still being sold, and he could ship it to me. So, if I don't find anything else, I might see it delivered to me in a near future. I'm just not sure that it's still authorized on the playing field.
The ITTF rules mention fibrous material, and I don't think you can make aluminum fibers. So, is it OK to play with it?
Anyone have a clue?