Yinhe Big Dipper 38d: practical and non-serious review

[_ak]

Shortly about myself: I am a returning both wings looper with a powerful FH, who didn’t play in 2016-2022 for a stupid irrelevant reason. I am a bit older and bigger than Timo Boll but still quite fit. So I began playing again, joined a club and started participating in regional leagues. After some losses I’ve realised that my aggressiveness and top-spin quality are far beyond my past abilities about footwork and stuff, and I can’t attack every 3rd ball any more so perhaps I should slow down a bit and wait for a 5th, 7th or just a good opportunity to attack. For this I felt a need in a less bouncy and safer rubber in short game but still allowing me to attack without hurting my back too much.

I’ve spotted the Big Dipper rubber mentioned somewhere and decided to try it on my spare blade. Why not, just 16 eur on Ali, ordered a black 38d sheet. So I glued it on Xiom Offensive S 89g 1340Hz with Hexer Grip on BH (Used factory glue layer and leftovers of Andro TurboFix on the blade). My current competition setup is Tibhar BS1 85g (didn’t measure Hz), Hexer PowerGrip + Grip, which I leave intact till the season end. In the beginning it felt not completely dead but still kinda slow, it was very easy to dump the ball to the net. It was a bit difficult in the beginning of warm-ups or in last resort chops, when the ball was just dropping. Ok, I’ve got it, it needs a bit more commitment so here we go. I played some training sessions with it and some friendly matches but always reverted to my main setup before competition matches.

Eventually I began feeling it. It definitely wanted accentuated acceleration during contact to produce spin instead of semi-flat ball, so once again, a bit more commitment than with tensors is required. It wasn’t a big deal to me as I was taught to use my legs and waist for power. Chinese say “power from the ground”, my European coach told and taught me exactly the same but without Chinese philosophy and PingSunday's pathos, it’s just a top-spin, not Chinese or Australian or whatever else. Eventually I tried to play some official matches with it. It’s not a magic rubber but it didn’t let me down. Lost some, won some.

What I liked about Big Dipper:

• It’s definitely less bouncy in short game but not completely dead without a booster but still lets me launch powerful and spinny topspins.
• I’ve seen claims that it’s impossible to play with a thin contact but yet I’ve managed to do it. It’s possible when you accelerate the bat enough.
• Easy to lift backspin. I can do either high arc with thin contact or more direct shoot with thicker contact, both work fine to me.
• Pushes can be long, fast and very low over the net suddenly dropping on the back-line.
• It still allows some lazy and passive shots, I am not that young to always attack every ball any more.
• It’s easy to cut with scissors or a knife. Using a knife is much more problematic with AK-47, GA8 and many other rubbers.
• It seems to be quite durable, no signs of wear and tear after a month of playing.

What I didn’t like:

• I wish it was as light as Palio AK47 🙂. The cut weight to 157x150 blade is 50g and 48g after removing glue. However, the Hexer Grip with WBG weighs 48g, so it’s not so bad though.
• It didn’t do any magic. I can overshoot or dump to the net exactly the same shots with tensors. Just kidding but yes, there is no magic that would suddenly fix your mistakes.

I didn't like my setup on Xiom Off S blade because of being too head heavy. I had no glue for a while but finally received my order from Ali. Turned out that Loki glue is a speed glue. I used it to move the same BD sheet to a brand new Sanwei 75 inner blade, also 89g but higher frequency, about 1420Hz. It has the bulkiest ST handle I have ever seen 29x23mm, bigger than on my Tibhar BS1. In this case BH rubber was GA8 47.5d. So I accidentally boosted my rubbers. I can’t say anything specific about GA8, it feels just like yet another tensor. I wouldn’t add a lot of updates about BD on this blade as well. Played a friendly match today with it. It felt nice with typical ALC click sound on harder shots, still controllable and no surprises. Sanwei is rather heavy as well, perhaps a bit less head heavy due bulkier handle, it's the things what I hate about Chinese blades. Would happily swap for something lighter.

Pretty much now I can switch between Big Dipper and Hexer Power Grip without many issues. Hexer is easier to bottom out though, perhaps a bit harder tensor or hybrid would suit me as well, but it’s difficult to beat BD about price/quality. Likely my experience with 39 or 40d would be different. But so far I am happy with 38d and don’t really want to go harder.

 

[igorponger]

Leo Tolstoy eats his hat, indead. ✍✍✍

BRIEF REFERENCE.
Leo Tolstoy, was a Russian writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential authors of all time.[3][4] He received nominations for the Nobel Prize in Literature every year from 1902 to 1906 and for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1901, 1902, and 1909.

 

[TensorBackhand]

BD is very good and I always love the magical feeling of coming back to BD after putting it down for some months. You can also try boosting the BD, and it becomes more powerful

 

[_ak]

BD is very good and I always love the magical feeling of coming back to BD after putting it down for some months. You can also try boosting the BD, and it becomes more powerful

I did it in fact with speed glue. Need to play a bit more with it and see. It seems to be quite powerful, not sure how long the effect will last.

 

[_ak]

By the way, moved this sheet of BD together with GA8 to my main Tibhar BS1 blade. Finally I measured it
It's circa 1400Hz a bit less than my Sanwei 75 inner (1420) but more than Xiom Off S(1340-50), however Xiom still feels faster.

It seems that I got used to it a bit too much that I struggled to lift backspin with thicker contact with tensors.

It's quite easy to remove old glue from BD sponge, my GA8 sheet now has quite many layers of glue due to regluing and still it's impossible to remove any glue and it became rather heavy.

Tibhar BS1 is a thinner Clipper like blade, a bit higher throw, still wouldn't call it really soft. Throw angle is a little bit higher but it didn't require any noticeable adaptation. I feel absence of inner ALC kick so it behaves much more linear like it or not.