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Review DHS C8 long pimple rubber
2007-06-30 13:34:00
I testing the C8 red 1.0mm on my Stiga Energy wood today. My main comparison is to my favourite Galaxy 955 0.6mm, on the same same blade.First impressions: The pimple are quite firm and stiff, a lot more than the other DHS LP Cloud & Fog III. Pimple are fairly tall and skinny, probably close to maximum aspect ratio. It has a 1mm orange sponge, which feels quite firm.The pimple feel quite grippy when you run your finger over them The sheet looks of good quality.Testing the rubber:In general this rubber has very good control, despite the fact that it had a 1.0mm sponge.Return of serve:Control was good, was a little sensitive to incoming spin, but not bad at all. The spin reversal is not great on this, it produces more of a dead ball, but the control allowed good placement, and the grip allowed me to keep it real low. Against topspin a quick block was quite easy to and with good control. Against backspin, attacking was harder, it felt a little too fast, probably due to the stiffer pip ...
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Review Higher III
2007-06-24 12:23:00
I had a bit of a go with the Higher III rubber from 729. This is the same topsheet as the normal 729 Higher rubber, but with a quality Japanese sponge.As mentioned before in other higher III reviews, this rubber is indeed a great looping rubber, but this is not all it's good at...The Japanese sponge feels quite different to the normal higher transcend sponge... a fair bit softer and more flexible. A single layer of my Tibhar long laster glue gave it a huge dome, and softened it up a fair bit more again.My loops had a loud clicking sound... with plenty of pace and great spin. It felt much more like a euro type looping rubber, as I needed to dig the ball into the rubber a little more to get the speed and lift, or it would go into the net. Once I got used to this it felt great!The surface of the rubber is tacky, but only mildly. This made is very good for serves and the short game.Blocking and counter looping was awesome, and it seemed quite insensitive to incoming spin... Also smashi...
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JUIC Masterspin Special Part 2
2007-06-24 12:00:00
Although this rubber does not really suit my style, my review may not be that comprehensive or complete, but I figure it's better than nothing, so here it goes:Firstly as a long pimple player I was amazed by how well I could drop shots with this JUIC rubber! On slow blocking or touch it's slower than my long pimple rubber!It has very good grip, almost tacky, allowing me to impart fairly heavy backspin, similar to a spinny short pimple rubber.Returning serve worked well too, I could even flip some short backspinserves. The grip and soft feel really help here. It was a little sensitive to incoming spin, but this was to be expected of course... you can't have it both ways! Against loops I could chop, but it felt quite a bit faster then, so harder to control, I don't think this rubber is ideal for this, but it's certainly possible, especially on a slower blade.Blocking against loops was consistent with good control. There was little spin reversal, most balls returned had no spin, w...
More About: Special , Part , Mast , Aster

JUIC Masterspin Special
2007-06-23 01:45:00
This is a review of the JUIC Mast erspin Special 1.0mm red, thanks to a friend who lent me his bat (Thanks Alan if you read this!)First impressions:It looks like a quality sheet. Pimples feel soft, flexible and fairly grippy. As you can see from the picture, they are conical near the base and then cylindrical towards the tip.Pimples are probably somewhere between and short and medium pip.Sponge is yellow, feels fairly soft, but hard to judge the hardness of a thin sheet. The sheet has a strong smell of some sort of glue.I would expect this to behave much more like a short pip than medium/long...After gluing it onto a blade, a 729 Hao Shuai Champion Carbon Blade it actually felt quite soft and a little slow, which was a little surprising. It may be because the pimple are a little tacky, gripping the ball.Review will follow shortly...
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Long pimple ban update
2007-06-08 15:30:00
There have now been several 'unofficial' announcements that the treated long pimple ban will be effective as of 1st July 2008. A list of affected rubber will be produced.Of course a large number of long pimple rubbers will NOT be affected. Most, if not all, of the long pimple rubbers by Dr Neubauer and Hallmark will most likely be banned and well a a range of other obvious frictionless rubbers.There is still no official announcement by the ITTF...
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The long pimples ban
2007-06-08 08:45:00
The long pimple banThe proposal by the ITTF to ban certain long pimple rubbers was announced well over a year ago now. The reasoning was that some long pimple rubbers were treated, making the tips of the pimples less grippy then the sides, producing different spin depending on how far you bend the pimples. The rubber properties are supposed to be consistent throughout, so they propose these types of rubbers should be banned.Trouble is, it very hard to test if a rubber is treated or not. Because most of the treated pimples were designed to have little to no friction on the tips, the ITTF proposed to simply set a minimum friction level for long pimpled rubber, anything below it would be illegal. A device that could measure the friction coefficient was not too hard to design, and could be used at tournament for testing. They admitted that this may result in some non-treated rubber to be banned as well, but this did not seem to bother them…Since this announcement there has been very l...
More About: Long , Pimples

Speed glue ban
2007-05-27 13:00:00
The President of the ITTF released another statement regarding the ban of speed glues containing VOCs, shown below, after a player suffered serious health issue and this was blamed on the use of speedglue.This seems another dubious decision made by the ITTF, and is the timing really helpful for the players? I'm not arguing with the decision to ban the glues, but they should be decisive about it. The decision to ban starting Sept 08 at least gave us a firm date, giving everyone time to adjust. How can you expect to adjust by an announcement that's made overnight? How many of us are in the middle of a season, and have been training for some upcoming event? What are we supposed to do now?Firstly as far as I know ITTF approval for glues is meaningless, as any glue is perfectly legal to use as long as it does not contain illegal substances (which are listed on the ITTF website somewhere (the new website design will probably make it impossible to find!). ITTF approval merely means the I...
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Kokutaku 868 Blutenkirsche German 40-43deg sponge 2.2mm
2007-05-14 00:30:00
I finally had a good session with one of these rubbers. These are probably the highest quality Chinese made rubbers I've seen to date, with good performance to match! I was quite impressed... This is probably why the Japanese Kokutaku let them make their rubbers for them...Although the sheets are a little tacky, they still have good speed and are very spinny. They are not all that fast in the short game (which is good), but have a the benefits of tacky rubbers for that part of the game.When you dig the ball into the rubber a little further, the Germ an sponge really starts to shine, giving good spin and speed. This is where you get a bit of a kick, where presumably the explosion III technology starts (whatever that means?). In general it a very nice rubber for most parts of the game, particularly for looping.When I glued up this rubber, I got a huge dome even from a single layer of my Tibhar long lasting glue. The effects were very obvious, a further significant boost in performance...
More About: Sponge

TSP Curl P1-R vs Galaxy 955 Long pimples rubbers
2007-05-13 03:31:00
I've finally got an opportunity to try this famous rubber, thanks to my friend LawOCG!Well this is another remarkable rubber from TSP, I've been impressed with ALL the ones I've tried! The word out there is that this is one of the hardest rubbers to control but also among the most dangerous. Well the sponge must make quite a difference. I suspect that the word out there refers to the thicker sponge version, because I found the control on the 0.5mm very good!On my Energy wood blade, I actually found this rubber relatively slow with very good control. It was a fair bit slower than the 955, even compared to OX!It's most remarkable property that I found was blocking against fast loops... I got so many more on, and the sink was very good! It does require a positive and forward stroke, and simply putting the bat there made it really grip, and fly over the end of the table... But with a slow forward and upwards stroke, the ball landed on the table even against fast loops, with a real n...
More About: Long , Galaxy , Pimples , Gala , Curl

Testing out long pimple rubber strokes
2007-05-10 08:48:00
I decided to test some of my long pimple strokes against the ball machine, to get a better idea of exactly what and how much spin was being returned off a backspin ball using my Galaxy 955 OX(close to the table).Although I sort of know what it did, i never looked this closely... I set the machine on heavy backspin;Chopping hard produced a moderate amount of backspin, not enough to stop it from reaching the end of the table, but enough to slow it down. You need to adjust the bat angle since heavy backspin does bite in a little... Chopping lightly seemed to produce a dead ball. The ball grip just a little, giving very good control of where to put the ball. Swiping / Chopping the ball with a sideways motion puts a fair amount of sidespin on the ball combines with a little topspin. The curve on the ball was quite obvious, and directing to an opponent so that it curves into the body can be quite effective. Scooping the ball lightly produces a light amount of topspin, once again with very...
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Fun way of beating your friends at table tennis
2007-04-06 00:50:00
I've written an simple article for casual table tennis players on how to beat their friends at table tennis using long pimple rubbers... It is aimed towards the basement type players, or those that might occasionally play at work or school, not for the more serious players or those that play competition.I plan to publish this in a few places, and hope to attract more new players to actively play table tennis, by having fun with long pimple rubbers. This could not only bring more players to table tennis, but can also bring more players to long pimples, and encourage others to learn about them so that they can become more accepted in table tennis in general:Fun way of beating your friends at table tennis Please have a read and provide me with some comments. I'd really like some opinions before I go ahead and publish it... Please be honest and totally brutal!Thanks guys!
More About: Friends , Tennis , Table , Table Tennis , Beating

Avalox PUROT
2007-03-27 09:49:00
It looks of decent quality, it was expensive for a chinese rubber. Has anyone tried PUROT before? I will try this rubber myself, but I have no way of knowing if it's any different to the standard version. I guess I can compare it to the Globe national, which seems like a similar rubber and I know it well....Although this rubber is supposed to be a national team version, and the source is very reliable, I have my doubts... There are no special marking on there, except on the back of the sponge it has: TOP- GRADE SPONGE, MADE IN JAPAN, 2.2mm 45deg it does not feel like 45deg to me, probably more like 42deg. The 'Made in Japan' must refer to the sponge, since the topsheet has 'made in China' on it.Well I just had a brief hit with it (not speed glued). The topsheet is soft and tacky, and very shiny. It's the shiniest topsheet I've seen. Looping against backspin, it has quite a low throw and is not that fast, but very spinny. Pushing/serving is very nice, great spin and control. A...

Long Pimple Rubbers - OX versus sponge
2007-02-20 06:21:00
After playing with a sponged long pimple rubber for so long, I decided to give OX (no sponge) another go, and here are some of my findings. Rubber tested was Galaxy (Milky Way) 955 with 0.6mm sponge versus OX, on a Stiga Energy Wood Blade. I feel my finding are likely to be the case for most sponged vs OX long pimple rubbers:- OX: Spin reversal and other LP effects were certainly significantly improved...and made it more fun to play with.- chopping away from the table, OX is harder to control. The hard feel of the blade reduces dwell time and make it come off quicker. For this stroke this rubber is faster OX than with sponge. Spin manipulation was still very good. I was getting very heavy backspin, but could easily change to a float. The contrast was probably a little better with OX, but I did not get as many on.- Attacking backspin still worked very well, but once again it was faster, so I had to be careful not to hit too hard. Hitting was very nice and fast.- blocking: drop shots ...
More About: Versus , Long , Sponge

JUIC table tennis rubbers and blades
2007-02-02 23:33:00
Got a range of JUIC table tennis rubbers and blades now, hope to test at least a few of them shortly. JUIC is a Japanese company that makes some very good and high quality products.Got the following:Rubbers: Nano Cannon, Couga, Varites, Driva Smash Ultima, Leggy Defense 1.0mm, JUIC 999 Elite Ultima, Offense Ultima.Blades : Hinoki Shake, Air Texa, Bamboo Shot, TexaliumEcolo Expander IIFirst of the ranks is the JUIC Leggy Defence 1.0mm:First impressions:- Very high quality- It plays like a grippy pip- Feel a little fast on chopping but good feel and some grip- excellent on counterhitting or attacking backspin.- Flat blocks takes the spin off against topspin, not that much reversal- Excellent for chop block or sidespin blocks- Dropshots are tough since it feels a little springy.Seems like it's got good potential... I hope to try it against some real players tomorrow. The ball machine never seems good for testing wobble balls, nor does it show the unintential variation in spin, so I'l...
More About: Tennis , Table , Table Tennis

Globe 889-2 follow up
2007-01-14 10:20:00
Well I tried this rubber without glue this time, although it was still a little stretched from the previous gluing.Well it played very similarly, but was simply slower and offered more control, especially on pushes and chops. In fact unless you really need the extra speed, this rubber plays very nicely without glue.Don't let the ball drop if you wish to loop or counterloop, since the rubber obviously has a very low throw, and is harder to lift if you let it drop. Strokes should be played near the top of the bounch.An excellent rubber for those that struggle a little with incoming spin, and do not have an spin based attack style. It can generate plenty of spin, but not like many inverted rubbers. It offers plenty of speed, and probably a lot more on a faster blade...
More About: Globe

Globe 889-2 review
2006-12-31 11:11:00
I tried this Globe 889-2 1.8mm 38deg sponge black on a Stiga Energy wood blade:This is one of the latest rubbers from Globe, supposedly a spinnier version of the Globe 889. Because it's quite new and no top players use it (as far as I know) I could find no information on it.I speed glued this rubber since I wanted to see how well and fast it would for looping. I used the glass plate method and used 2 layers of Dawei speed glue. Well I was a little surprised when I got a huge dome out of it. When I put in on my blade it had stretched almost 10mm! In hindsight one layer would probably have been enough.This rubber reminded me very much like Friendship's 802-40, also with wide conical and grippy pimples, with a soft sponge. The sponge is orange and I'm not sure if it's Chinese or Japanese. From feedback from users of the Globe 889 rubber, we found that 1.8mm 38deg sponge was the best combination, so that why the 889-2 was also ordered with the same specs.I set up the machine for top...
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