tabletennisJunkie.com - table tennis and ping pong forum for equipment junkies!

[varghese]

1) Blade Speed - generally faster blades tend to be used by the more aggressive players, and slower blades by the defensive players (uses more spin ), because they believe that a slower blade increases the amount of time the ball is in contact with the rubber, giving them more time to put spin on the ball. On the contrary, faster blades have less control, whereas the slower blades have more control....

6) Blade Head Size - the difference in air resistance between large headed table tennis blades and smaller headed blades is pretty much insignificant, so the main issue of concern here is that larger rackets require more rubber to cover the surface, which makes the racket heavier and also tends to move the centre of gravity of the blade away from the handle. Example of these are the Japanese/Korean penhold blades witch has "squarish" head as compared with Chinese penhold and shakehand blades.

Great topic 729. I would consider the following also (1) price as rokphish said (2) vibration in the handle (3) vibration on the face of the blade (4) handle shape (5) handle material (6) Availability (7) finish (8) style of the player.

[729 fx]

Thank you for the compliments, varghese. But I doubt that I will be a tt mogul someday.

Yes, I would agree with your assessment that price (as proposed by rokphish), vibration (either on handle or the blade itself), finish etc also plays a part as deciding factors in choosing a blade.

[729 fx]

A followed up question: do you like to get popular and/or common setups (e.g. TBS with Sriver or Korbel with Mark V)? I tend to try uncommon blades that lack reviews--Kokutaku, Dr N, and discontinued blades--paired with common rubbers.

For me, I would like to get less popular/uncommon set-ups like Galaxy(Yin Her/Milky Way), Dawei, Andro blades with common rubbers for review. But if I were to ask for a review on rubber, I would use a set-up that I am used to with the uncommon rubber.

[ejunkie]

Thanks Varghese for pointing out the bad side of getting a hard-to-get blade. I have never stick with one blade too long but soon I will have to stick with just one or two, and I better have a few of the same for backup......

It is true that quality first and price second in some sense for me. I would prefer to get the more expensive, better quality blade than a cheaper one with less quality. But I don't like to pay more. Since I have no problem using second hand I often buy the good ones used from our tt forums.

On using a defense blades, most are not only oversized but also very thick; some over 12mm. Do you have any problem using such thinck blade for your short game and service?

[729 fx]

I have try a few defensive blades(shakehand) and mostly are oversized. I do not have problem with the oversized surface area but only the weight (some are really weighty) as I prefer medium to light blades.

Just a thought, the oversize blades will have a greater sweetspot and gives the player the confident as compared with a square-shaped (smaller size blade) penholder.