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[varghese]

Too many manuracturers. Too many blades. Too many rubbers. It is hard to find the right combination of a rubber to a blade. What kind of blade a Butterfly tenergy rubber is good on is a question comes from players often. Let us discuss the blade and rubber combinations.

[ejunkie]

From years of buying equipments (of offensive combinations) I would have to say that a slower blade, anything 5-ply and below, is good with something fast like japanese rubbers while a fast blade, anything carbon, titanium, aluminum, 7-ply, etc., goes well with a slow and spinny rubber, normally means Chinese. There are no limits of course; other combinations exist. Tenergy is good on almost any blade because it's somewhere between a traditinal Japanese rubber and a Chinese rubber, but it's more Japanese than anything else. So a medium speed, 5-ply blade is best. I would say Acoustic range.

[varghese]

From years of buying equipments (of offensive combination) I would have to say that a slower blade, anything 5-ply and below, is good with something fast like Japanese rubbers while a fast blade, anything carbon, titanium, aluminum, 7-ply, etc., goes well with a slow and spinny rubber, normally means Chinese. There are no limits of course; other combination exist. Tenergy is good on almost any blade because it's somewhere between a traditional Japanese rubber and a Chinese rubber, but it's more Japanese than anything else. So a medium speed, 5-ply blade is best. I would say Acoustic range.

Good point. You are considering one of the focal points of the game which is the speed. A 5 ply has to get speed from the rubber while a 7 ply can generate speed from its own.

That is a general rule of thumb that we can all use. There may be some exceptions where a 5 ply blade with balsa core adds more speed than a 7 ply made with some other woods.

[729 fx]

Good point. You are considering one of the focal points of the game which is the speed. A 5 ply has to get speed from the rubber while a 7 ply can generate speed from its own.

True. What about the 1-ply Hinoki blades?

[varghese]

The one ply Hinoki is a different animal itself. The one ply can generate speed and spin than some of the 9 ply or 12 ply. In the case of 1 ply, the speed increases with the thickness, and various things like the wood grains, oil content all matters.

What I have seen is that any hard rubber would go with single ply hinoki blades. Even a hard Hurrance 3 feels soft on a single ply hinoki.

[729 fx]

Oh I see. That explains why some 1-ply balde is faster than the other.
All the discussion seems to center on blades with wooden composition (1,5,7 or more plies).
What about composite blades, say carbon blade (5-ply = 3Wood, 2 carbon) which I assume is a faster and stiffer(harder) blade in general. In this case, a softer rubber will suit the blade.