fang bo equipment wttc 2016

andro rasant power grip vs butterfly tenergy 05

andro rasant power grip is mentioned as one of the alternatives to butterfly tenergy 05.
how equivalent are they?

spin:
they are equivalent in spin.
impossible to tell which one actually has more spin.
they both have a lot, that's all I can say.

speed:
I notice a difference in speed when doing flat hits.
andro rpw is slower and there's less bounciness in this specific shot.
the farther you go from the table the more noticeable this becomes.
it's a bit like that feeling you get from chinese rubbers like hurricane 3.
you loop and there's not that much difference with an euro rubber.
you hit a flat forward shot and it suddenly became sooooo slow.
the andro rpw is not so extreme, it's more bouncy than hurricane 3, but it still keeps a bit of this characteristic.
when looping or pushing or serving there is very little speed difference between tenergy and andro rpw.

control:
this is closely related to the speed characteristic mentioned before.
the andro rubber has this characteristic that depending on how you hit it you will get a different speed.
so it makes it a bit more unpredictable than a tenergy rubber.

I won't say that tenergy has more control in pushes or in loops or in blocks because it doesn't.
what it does have is that predictability, you almost know exactly how much speed you are going to get in each shot.

with andro rubber it's not so predictable, at least in the beginning.
I guess if you spend a lot of time with it you eventually get used to it's characteristics.
but with tenergy you don't really need to do this, somehow the speed always matches what you expect.

durability:
tenergy even though it begins to look old pretty soon lasts as long as you want it to.
you can use it for years if you want to.
andro I haven't used it for that long but it looks pretty durable and the topsheet also is very durable.

weight:
here andro loses badly.
if you put both sides tenergy in one paddle and both sides andro in another paddle (same dimensions both paddles) you get a difference of around 10 grams.
so each cut andro rubber is at least 5 grams heavier than a tenergy.
that's quite a lot and enough to make a paddle head heavy.

well that's all I got, andro rpw is totally usable and you can get used to it with time.
personally I think I have been using tenergy for too long and it's hard to change at this point.

stiga new blades low quality

sometimes I hear people ranting about how the new stiga blades have low quality and how the old ones were much better.
so I needed to write about this nonsense.

first of all, people are complaining about the slightest defects in their blades.
like this guy

http://mytabletennis.net/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=71783&PN=2#907509

"oh my blade has top layer made of two pieces."
tons of blades have this.
donic, stiga, butterfly.
and you don't go complain just because of this.

"oh my blade has knots on it".
tons of blades have knots.
I had andro blades with knots, stiga, butterfly.

all this is pretty nonsense and the guys at stiga must be having a really hard time trying to be correct and polite to these people who expect a certain level of quality on their blades.

I'm not saying that you can't expect the level of quality they are expecting.
I really don't know.
Maybe you should expect that level of quality, maybe not.
There's no way to tell really because it's not like they promise they are going to deliver their blades with this or that characteristic.

One thing I notice a lot with butterfly composites is the center ply, the kiri ply, made of more than one piece of wood.
Other brands it's the same but well everybody has butterfly as the example to follow.

another myth that goes around is that the new stiga sucks while the old stiga had such a great quality.
specially the stiga made in tranas "handmade".
I had probably more than 10 blades of the ones made in tranas like 20 years ago.
you'll get a couple that look fine with no defects.
but I've also seen very bad ones.

Knots? I owned old stiga tranas with knots, really big ones and in the middle of the top ply.

top ply made of two pieces of wood?
I owned old stiga tranas with top ply made of 3!!!! pieces of wood.

so I think if anything stiga quality has been getting better.
and also these "details" are not just in stiga, they are in every brand.

stiga titanium wood

it's a bit old paddle but sounded interesting.
looks like a donic waldner ultra carbon but with titanium instead of carbon.
shouldn't be that fast.

fake dhs w968 w997 theory

one theory says that the only real w968 and w997 blades are the ones with computer printings.
the pics of ma long's blade have this computer letters so this is their main backup for their theory.

the other ones it's not known where they come from or if they even are national blades.

this one below would be real national blade too

this is ma long's blade

again ma long's blade, you can see it has the computer letters.

butterfly hinoki carbon blades specifications

gergely alpha:
154x148
7.1mm

gergely 21:
154x148
6.9mm

sardius:
158x152
7.0mm

amultart:
157x150
7.1mm

gergely:
160x152
6.9mm

primorac carbon:
157x150
6.9mm

schlager carbon:
157x150
7.4mm

maze vs viscaria - the final veredict

when you've decided you want to use an alc blade there's really not many options.
considering that
*viscaria
*timo boll spirit
*timo boll alc
*zhang jike
*zhang jike alc
*kenta matsudaira alc

are all basically the same the only option you have if you want something different is michael maze alc.
you could say you have the innerforce alc but the difference is bigger because alc is inside.

so which one do you choose?

speed:
there's not a big difference in speed.
they are very similar in speed considering both weigh the same.
I'd put viscaria and similar just a little bit ahead.

spin:
the difference is not big either.
I think viscaria has a bit more spin with the same rubbers.

control:
I think this has two sides.
on one side the maze is a "safer" blade.
this means more balls will go in even when you make mistakes.
on the other side if you thought about yourself as the perfect player you'd say viscaria has better control because when you do the right shot the result is easier to anticipate with viscaria.

looping:
as I just said, if you want shots to go in then go for maze.
if you want control over the shot you are producing then go for viscaria.
a pro player most of the times would go for viscaria.

blocking:
maze has a bit more of dwell time so should be better for blocking.

on the other side the feeling when you block with viscaria is sharper and I really enjoy this.

short game:
here the feel of the maze is not very clear and doesn't give you much confidence.
feels soft and a bit bouncy.
as always viscaria has a more direct feel, if you are good enough where you point is where the ball goes.
the viscaria has a more direct bouncy nature, so the ball tends to go out more in a 90 degree angle of where you hit the ball.
the maze is a bit different, ball goes out a bit more in a diagonal.
this is actually beneficial in the short game.
you want something that can slice the ball without making it pop much.


serving:
koto is a bit less bouncy and gives a bit more spin.
so viscaria wins over maze.

final words:
if I have to choose one I'd go for viscaria.
I think it has more potential once you really know what you are doing.
it's not just me, if you look at chinese players in the superleague and similar players they are all using viscaria, none of them is using maze.
the only player I can think of using maze is freitas and in the past chen qi.

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some thoughts I read here and there:
"limba feels softer so it has better control in the short game".
maze feels softer and more mushy and a bit springier in the short game.
this is not better for an accurate short game.
the sharp not bouncy  feel of viscaria I feel gives more control.

"viscaria has balsa center ply".
not true, it has kiri center ply like all the other blades mentioned here.

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update:
I've been using a couple of days michael maze with andro rasant power grip.
andro rpg is a pretty hard rubber which has some similarities with chinese rubbers.
same goes for tibhar evolution mx-p.
I really like how maze behaves with these types of rubbers.
basically the new hardish tensors.
I'd leave out donic rubbers because they are always a bit softer and more elastic, which is better for viscaria.