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Some very useful web pages
2008-12-01 00:10:00
Over the years I've collected a lot of links to websites or pages, that I find very useful. Below I've listed a few that others might find useful too.Table tennis wiki - table tennis has quite a comprehensive page on the wiki, with a great summary of most aspects of our sport.Martinspin videos - A great and well organised site for table tennis videos, totally free!Sponge hardness measurement table - Since all manufacturers seem to use a difference scale for specifying the hardness of the sponge of your rubber, this website has measurement from a range of different brands, allowing you to compare between them... updated regularly.Sponge weight measurement table - We all know that the weight of a rubber can significantly change the balance of a bat, as it accounts for roughly half the weight of a bat. This table catagorises the weight of wide range of rubbers of different brands.... updated regularly.Table tennis manufacturers - Are you interested to know more about the different t...
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ITTF's Adham Sharara visits a table tennis forum
2008-11-21 10:35:00
Adham Sharara, the president of the ITTF, has recently started visiting the table tennis forum - One of a Kind Forum s to discuss the rules and decisions they make, with the table tennis online community.With the recently highly controversial changes to equipment and approval by the ITTF, there has been much debate over merits and fairness of these decisions. The most commonly discussed topics are the ban of the frictionless pimple rubbers, the ban of speed glue, and more recently the issue on whether tuners/boosters are banned as well.Adham has shown courage and initiative by visiting the forum, and explain the reasons why some of these decisions were made. Debates on these topics, and also a range of other topics, such and improvement to rules, promotion of our sport, etc are all being discussed in the forum, and with Adham regular visits, it's been a great opportunity for players to communicate directly with the ITTF, instead of having to go through all the red tape of the nation...
More About: Tennis , Table , Table Tennis

The 30% drop in AUD$ can bring some Bargains
2008-10-22 08:16:00
As some of you may be aware, there have been some huge fluctuations in international currencies lately. In particular the Australian dollar has dropped a huge amount compared to most other currencies, including the USD$ and the Yen.This can bring some good bargains from Australian online table tennis shops for buyers outside Australia... prices can be as much as 30% lower than they were a month ago!Although eventually these shops will have to increase their prices because their import costs will rise as a result of the drop the AUD$, in the short term they will be selling current stock at current prices, so this should result in some real bargains if you're buying with anything but the AUD$.
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If boosters are illegal, so are Tensors!
2008-09-18 02:30:00
As some of you know, the ITTF recently introduced a new rule:“2.04.07 The covering material should be used as it has been authorised by the ITTF without any physical, chemical or other treatment, changing or modifying playing properties, friction, outlook, colour, structure, surface, etc. “Although I believe this was initially brought in to ban any treatment of long pimple rubbers, it seems to have gone well beyond this. The ITTF is now claiming this makes tuners/boosters illegal as well, much to the annoyance of many players who assumed this VOC free alternative would be perfectly legal! Although the ITTF ONLY approved topsheets not sponges, they claim it’s impossible to treat the sponge (while attached to the topsheet) without having some affect on the topsheet. This effect therefore ‘modifies’ playing properties, making it illegal.Many claim (and I agree) this would make German ESN factory made “Tensor rubbers” by far the closest option for those that demand a ‘g...
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Avalox AVX Pronte mini review
2008-07-31 09:57:00
Finally got around to trying this rubber;AVX Pronte 2.2mm Soft on a Dr N Firewall+ balsa bladeTopsheet is quite tacky and is one of the thinnest I’ve seen. It feels fairly soft too, but it’s a little hard to judge since it’s thinner. Sponge is marked as Soft, but did not really feel that soft, measured at about 39/40 deg. The Sterco seems to also have such a thin topsheet, but is totally non-tacky, and the sponge is softer.The throw on loops for the Pronte is quite high as expected, but I had little trouble adjusting to it since the throw of my 999 Nat is high too. Speed was higher than I expected, similar to a lightly glued 999 Nat. that’s been well primed or worn in.The thin and tacky topsheet seems to give it two definite gears which I really like. On slow brush loops it comes off very spinny, and you can feel the topsheet stretching a little, and then catapulting it back… result is a very spinny but slow loop. But when you hit through the ball a little more, the sponge...
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The Inventor of the Sponge Racket Deceased
2008-07-31 04:07:00
Waldemar Fritsch passed away on 15th May 2008 at the age of eighty-five at his home town Bregenz. The Austrian shocked the table tennis world on the occasion of the World Championships in Vienna 1951.Fritsch remained unbeaten in the team event by using his revolutionary three millimetres thick black sponge.Milestone in the History of Table TennisIn Zdenko Uzorinac’s book Table Tennis Legends, Waldemar Fritsch described the genesis of the sponge as follows. “Sometime in early 1951 one of my fellow players in our table tennis club, who had been taken prisoner by the Americans, gave me a racket with very worn-out rubber. At the time you couldn’t buy new rubber linings. By chance, completely by chance, I remembered seeing a sponge-like material in the basement, so I cut it, patterned it to match the racket, glued it on the wood and tried to play with it. I hit the ball as strongly as I could and was amazed – the ball flew away noiselessly as if catapulted!”A Multi-Talent at Sp...
More About: Deceased , Sponge , Inventor , The Sponge

Proposed ITTF ruling on tuners/boosters
2008-07-05 12:26:00
We get so many questions and angry opinions on booster/tuners, that I think it's worth writing a letter to the ITTF and outlining some of our concerns... It may have to come through formal channels to get anywhere, but if we don't say anything or question yet another one of the ITTF proposed changes of rules, they'll pat themselves on the back for doing another great job I've started a thread with my proposed letter in a forum here:Proposed letter to ITTF regarding the banning of boosters / tunersI'm sick of the ITTF changing the rules on us, especially with no formal announcement, no reasons and no advanced notice, and I'm really interested to hear how this decision will actually benefit table tennis!I would encourage everyone to read it and offer suggestions on how we can best construct the letter... An excellent suggestion by SquidTT from DTTW, was to also run a petition, so I'll look into that as well, when the letter has been formulated.
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Table tennis glue will kill ya!
2008-06-20 08:22:00
Table tennis glue will kill you? Well if you're a fly, most definitely, heh heh! I was gluing up a bat for someone recently, and left the rubber to dry for about 1 min, while I left the room (garage). When I came back, there was a fly stuck to the rubber... obviously landed on the sticky glue! What surprised me though was that the fly was dead... all in 1 min!I still use thinned down rubber cement to glue all my rubbers (basically most VOC based table tennis glues are the same), since I feel that for all offensive rubbers, a bit of this glue in the sponge improves perforance perminently... The water based glues and glue sheets are better for long pimple or anti-spin rubber, as they are usuallty meant to be slow and less lively.The dead fly was a bit of an eye opener for me... obviously the stuff is very toxic, but I didn't think it would kill a fly that quick... Will I stop using the rubber cement? Probably not for now, as I still think performance is very important... but I'll b...
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Table tennis review website - major facelift and upgrade!
2008-05-26 05:11:00
I've been spending a lot of time lately giving our main review website a face-lift to make it look a bit more professional, as I was always bothered by it's very poor looks...In the process I've added some new features, such as a search across all our websites, which I think is really useful as it can be very hard to find things sometimes....A few more updates and new features will continue for the next few weeks, hopefully without too many hick-ups. I've also rewritten quite a few of the guides, fixed up broken links, improved loading speed by reducing files sizes, etc... I'd love to hear any feedback on what people think of it, while I'm still working on the changes and not gone too far with the major changes.I've also been adding a lot more reviews of other brands, like the very recent Butterfly Tenergy review, Donic JO Coppa Platin Review and Hallmark Phoenix Review. A lot more features and reviews are in the pipeline!I've still got a few sections to comp...
More About: Website , Tennis , Facelift , Table

Donic rubber and blade combinations
2008-05-08 12:56:00
I have recently spend a fair bit of time building the Donic Online Australia website, which I provide a lot more details about donic products, such as comments, reviews and hi-res pictures.I've also added a section called Donic Solutions, where I've spent many hours trying to figure out the best Donic blades and rubbers combinations for specific styles.I've tried to explain the reasons of my combination choices in the descriptions, so that players understand why certain combinations work well together, which can help them make decision for other rubber and blade combinations as well.I've got a bit more work to do on the site, but it's starting to look quite nice now, and I'm sure it will be useful to some players as well...Any comments on the site or blade and rubber combinations would be very much appreciated!
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Donic JO Coppa Platin and Platin Soft - NEW!
2008-05-07 15:47:00
Donic has just released 2 new rubbers in their tensor range, the Donic JO Coppa Platin and the Donic JO Coppa Platin Soft .I have been very impressed with their latest ones, the JO Coppa Gold, the Desto F3 Big Slam and particularly the JO Coppa Silver, bring the best glue effect I've felt to date. These new ones promises even better glue effect an more speed.... Truth or marketing at it's best? Time will tell...I've got got both these new rubbers on order, and will test them in a few weeks time, and will publish my review here....

Donic Desto F3 Big Slam
2008-04-29 12:40:00
I had a go with this rubber on a Dawei Navigator blade the other day, wow the glue effect built into this rubber is huge!The sponge is really soft (around 30degrees I reckon) and the topsheet thin, sensitive and very grippy. It's amazing how little effort it takes to open up with a loop with this rubber, and it's so easy to generate huge spin! I've never come across a rubber where you can generate a medium pace and very spinny loop with such little effort!I reminds me very much of the Joola Tango, but the glue effect and sound is a LOT higher.I think it suits a backhand more than a forehand, as it's great for an opening loop or a flick, followed by a powerful forehand. The rubber is not real fast on loops, although it hits really well, coming off fast with a very loud click.So it suits a more control and spin based game, but combined with a faster and firmer sponged forehand, it can suit a very offensive style game. With a thinner sponge (1.8mm is the thinnest) it would work ver...
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JUIC Leggy vs TSP P-1R
2008-03-25 23:36:00
I've finally decided to change over to JUIC Leggy 1.0mm from the TSP P-1r 1.2mm. Although they are similar in many ways and both excellent pips, it's one unique property of the leggy that suits my game particularly well that's helped me decide. The main differences are:1. The main reason I've changed to Leggy is the remarkable amount of backspin I can generate from a backspin ball. if someone pushes to the LP, you can push back hard with a little flick of the wrist (which I used to be real good at with inverted) and get quite good backspin and it's easy to keep it low.. and if you keep it deep it often forces another push which you can attack, or a weaker loop which you can either attack, or get into you chopping mode. If I push the backspin ball back lightly, it reverses the spin very much like most LPs, so that option is still there.2. Chopping away from the table both LPs play similar, with the Leggy offering a bit more reversal, but the P-1r more options to manipulate the s...

Changing to thicker sponge long pimple rubber
2008-01-18 06:39:00
After having played with TSP P-1r 0.6mm for at least a year, I thought I might give a thicker (1.2mm) sponge a go. One thing I'm hoping for is to be able to generate more backspin on retrun of serves, as this can mean the difference between yuor opponent powerlooping one past you, or a slower spinny loop which is what you want...I only had one session so far, of more of a social hit, but here some of my impressions:1. Returning serves: I don't think the control has changed a lot, perhaps a little less, but I did feel I could put more spin on the ball. My returns against deeper and faster balls seemed to generate more floaters, which my opponents had more trouble with than with 0.6mm. Although this is a bonus, i need to work more on variation with this, so that I feel in control of what I'm doing...2. Chopping: It's a little more sensitive to incoming spin, so as this rubber is already quite sensitive compared to others, it's something to be weary off. A softer touch is the answ...
More About: Changing , Long , Rubber , Sponge

JUIC Australia website
2007-12-27 23:04:00
JUIC is a Japanese company that manufacturers professional table tennis equipment. Having tried a range of their products, I find them of very high quality, and certainly as good as any of the other top Japanese table tennis equipment manufacturers, and they've shown some great innovation for some of their products too!Because there is so little information on their products, I've put together a little website here:JUIC Australia onlineI've included a range of JUIC blades and JUIC rubber descriptions and reviews, and also further information on some of their unique products, like the Ecolo Expander II.I thought it would be useful to provide some suggestions on JUIC blade and rubber combinations as well, since it can be hard to choose something suitable out of such a wide range.JUIC has also just released a range of their Tune-up rubbers, which will be reviewed on this site shortly.Any feedback on this site, and how I can further improve it would be very much appreciated!
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Spinmax reviews, tests and FAQs
2007-12-03 01:53:00
I'm becoming quite a fan of Spinmax, and use it regularly now. I've done quite a few test and experiments, to determine how well it work, and what the differences are between the original Spinmax Red and the new Spinmax Aqueous.Instead of writing another article on it, which will probably just get lost and forgotten, I've set up a little website on a subdomain, with descriptions of the products, instructions on how to use it, and a FAQ section for new users or those that may want to try it; Spinmax OnlineI will continue to do more Spinmax reviews and tests and try it on different rubbers, and will add any further questions to the Spinmax FAQ section. Feel free to ask questions here or within a section of the table tennis forum so that questions (and answers) can be added to the FAQ section.
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Is JUIC Ecolo Expander II still worthwhile?
2007-11-23 06:14:00
With the introduction of a variety of VOC free speed glue alternatives, some have said that the JUIC Ecolo Expander II (EEII) is no longer a viable option for those looking a little more performance out of their rubber.I don’t agree and I do think the EEII has it's place, but it can't compete in terms of speed glue effect. It really depends on what you’re looking for and what you expectation are… and the trouble is… most people don’t know…For those that currently speed glue their rubbers with a few layers, and looking for a VOC free alternative, I would not recommend the EEII, as the effect is simply not strong enough. These people would be better off looking at other VOC free alternatives, like the VOC free glue Falco Tempo Unlimited or sponge treatment liquids like Falco Tempo Booster or Tibhar Clean Tuning, as the effect of these really is very close to several layers of speed glue.However for those that perhaps use a light layer of speed glue, or have not glued be...

Update on Falco Booster on Globe 999 National rubber
2007-11-22 05:53:00
I wrote earlier about using the Falco Booster on my Globe 999 National rubber, and how I was very impressed with it. Well I've used it for over 2 weeks now, and the effect is still great! I feel it's really helping my game having a glued up rubber that feels the same all the time...I suspect it will last till the end of 3 weeks, after which I'll remove it and re-apply 1-2 layers of booster to see if I can get the same effect. Less booster is supposed to be required to get the same effect, so hopefully I get right or close to it, so that I can get a consistant effect for life of the rubber....I will update again after the next application of the booster...
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Review JUIC Neo Anti
2007-11-12 04:10:00
I tried this rubber last weekend since a friend kindly lend me his bat to try (cheers mate!)This rubber has a very slippery feel on the surface, but the topsheet is thin and the sponge is very soft. JUIC description of the rubber is given below, and I find this quite accurate:'Juic Neo Anti kills the spin of your opponent's ball, and with its dead, slow speed gives incredible control. But the elastic surface combined with special sponge gives the added element of tricky spin when the ball is hit hard.'For chopping the control of this rubber is excellenet, similar to long pips, but it does not allow as much variation as some of the grippier long pips out there. Still I felt I could generate some spin, and it had decent spin reversal.Close-in it blocks remarkable well against fast loops... it seem to take the pace out of even the hardest loops, and return it real slow, mid-table with no spin. The soft and slow sponge is no doubt the key here...wish they used this sponge on some lon...
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Falco Booster on Chinese hard sponged rubbers
2007-11-12 00:04:00
My usual Globe 999 Nat (black) was showing signs of wear, so it was time for a new sheet, and I decided I'd give the Falco booster a go on this, and see if it would be a good enough substitude to my Tibhar Rapid Clean Deluxe speed glue, which I won't be able to us as of middle of next year...I put 3 layers of booster on it over 2 days. The dome was big, basically touching on the ends. After 24h (after the last layer) it still had a decent dome but was coming down, so I glued it down with the Falco Water glue. The dome was still quite strong especially with this firmer sponged rubbers, so it still lifted slightly on the tip but did not lift further... I'll wait a little longer next time...and will take more care putting enough glue on the tip of the blade...Well the booster softened the sponge heaps, and stretched it at least 5mm in both directions. I was VERY happy with the performance, it felt as good as with the Tibhar RCD. The sponge had softened at least as much with the boos...
More About: Chinese , Hard , Booster

New pimples website - PIPS
2007-10-18 07:04:00
With a group of friends we've started a new website dedicated to pimple rubbers and players:http://www.pipfacts.info"Pips is a table tennis equipment site set up by a group of like-minded table tennis players that are keen to educate the table tennis community about long pimpled and other pimpled rubbers. We feel these rubbers add great diversity to our game, and it's something that should be embraced, and not frowned upon or dimissed as a 'cheater's rubber'. "There are already some excellent articles on the website, and more in the pipeline. We will also continue to add more reviews on new and old pimples rubbers. The latest news will also be added shortly.Please have a look at the site and read through the articles, and any feedback would be very much appreciated! Please be brutally honest, we won't take offense!If any of you would like to contribute, that would be awesome! We're not just after people with highly technical knowledge or high level players...Contributions lik...
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Review of AVALOX AXV MO 0.5mm long pimples
2007-09-28 08:30:00
AVALOX AXV MO 0.5mmFirst impressions:The rubber looks of pretty good quality. The only words on there are AXV, MO and 'made in China'... I'm not sure what the story is between the names Avalox and AVX, but that does nto matter for this review.The colour of the rubber seems a little orange... I've seen a few rubbers like this, so it does not appear to be an issue.Pimple size looks close to maximum length... perhaps a touch shorter, but does not look a lot different to 955 or TSP P-1R. Tips are rough and feel quite grippy. the pimple are a little stiff, probably a grade stiffer than the 955 and a fair bit stiffer than the P-1R.They are spaced out more than both the 955 and TSP though...I've only had a bried hit with it so far, and found it to be quite nice alround but a little faster than both the 955 and TSP. From the bried hit i had I immediately noticed it's quite good for hitting and blocking, but I'd need to adjust to the speed for chopping...I'll get onto spin reversal a...
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Spinmax Aqueous - new VOC free spinmax
2007-09-09 07:37:00
Spinmax have come up with a new and water based version of their popular Spinmax cleaner, called Spinmax Aqueous.This appear to be the same as the Joola Spinmax Green Power, as when you check the Material safesheet data sheet for the Joola spinmax green power, it shows the Spinmax Aqueous.Although spinmax is technically classed as a rubber cleaner, it's more than this... it tends to enhance the friction coefficient of the rubber surface, making it tackier / stickier. For chinese style tacky rubbers this is great as it leaves them stickier for longer. Although many use it for non-tacky rubbers as well, you should remember that it will make these rubbers tacky as well, which is not what they were designed to be like.There are some details on this new product here: Spinmax Aqueous but I will do a full review shortly, when I've had a chance to test it.... I hear it's already quite popular in Japan and Germany, so I can't see why this new one should not be popular either...The fact t...
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Update on the experiment with different cleaners
2007-08-26 13:49:00
Well I proceeded to give the old rubber a real, good coating of the same olive oil. It take about 15min before it started to soak on several places on the surface.As recommended by those mentioned before, the oil should be spread out again to prevent some minor markings on the surface. The next day I checked the rubber and there were no marks, and all the oil had been soaked up.Testing the rubber the next day showed the rejuvination processes worked really well. Although it did not feel as good as a new rubber, it felt better than a rubber with just a good clean...I would not recommend you use this procedure on a regular basis, as I suspect it may soften the topsheet more and more, and will make the rubber heavier as well. But for a occasional good clean it seemed to work really well! Plus it's cheap and every tends to have this in their kitchen... according to others most vegetable oils work well, so I don't think it needs to olive oil.
More About: Experiment , Update , Cleaners , Rime , Diff

Experimenting with different cleaners
2007-08-19 09:59:00
I've heard many stories of players and friends using all sort of liquids to clean or rejuvinate their rubbers. I decided to put some of these to the test.I found an old rubber (Dawei Sprungfeder A-4) which has had a lot of use and is well worn. It's now totally non-tacky and has even lost a lot of it's grip... feels quite smooth. As you can see below I have divided up the rubber into 4 sections with masking tape, each section can be treated with a different cleaner so that we can compare the results. I know water will not revive this rubber, so I won't use this as a test.Here are the 4 cleaners I decided to use:I used a seperate cotton cloth to wipe the liquids in. In hindside something less absorbing and lint-free would have been better, but I don't think it will affect the results.Thanks goes to hookshot, pongcrazy, LawOCG and a few other (see forum thread, sorry if I missed you) for all the excellent suggestions and advice.The results are not as conclusive as I had hoped... ...
More About: Cleaners , Rime , Diff

Table tennis videos
2007-08-11 00:55:00
I'm working on making a collection of YouTube videos, and organising them all on a series of web pages. YouTube videos are good in that that are easy to embed into any webpages, and you don't have to download the video to see it.I'd like to organise the pages into catagories of Defenders, attackers and clips from some of the all-time greats and some of the current top players. I would also like to set aside a section for videos of us novices, so that you can share with others...This is what I've collected so far (I've only just started): Table tennis videosIf you have any comments or suggestions on this, it would be very much appreciated! Also if you have some of your own table tennis related videos on YouTube and would like it to be shown on the website, please send me the links.This is fun!!!
More About: Videos , Tennis , Table Tennis

The elusive DHS Hurricane National / Provincial version rubbers
2007-07-20 07:06:00
There is no doubt that the DHS hurricane II and III rubbers are one of the most popular in the world. No doubt the marketing and sponsoring by DHS has a lot to do with this, but the fact the many of the top Chinese players use this rubber does indicate that they have some very good properties.It is well known that the top Chinese players may not be using the same version as the commercial version that’s available to the public. DHS has special versions of the hurricane rubbers for their Provincial and National team players. Whether these rubbers are actually manufactured differently, or whether they are hand-picked as the best ones from the production of the standard version is unknown. However according to DHS they ARE hand picked from the normal production run.The standard commercial versions have an orange sponge for both the red and black rubbers. It is well known that there is significant variation in sponge hardness between batch to batch, or possible within each batch. This...
More About: Version , Hurricane

Super Priming your rubbers - Giving your rubbers a boost!
2007-07-17 05:04:00
A lot of players see the task of gluing rubbers to a blade as meaningless procedure simply to attach the rubbers. They will also often find that rubbers take a long to time be ‘worn in’, meaning it takes quite a number of sessions for the rubber to reach peak performance.However some applications of table tennis glue and the right procedure, you can get the best performance out of your rubber almost immediately, and may well give you performance that you did not think possible! See here for more details:Ultimate guide to priming and gluing - Super priming
More About: Giving , Boost , Prim

Review XIOM Guillotine .S long pimple Part 2
2007-07-09 06:19:00
I testing it on my Stiga Energy wood WRB, finally had a chance to try it:In general this rubber has very good control, and is an excellent alround long pimple rubber. The 1.0mm medium soft sponge gave the rubber soft feel and it felt springy, but it did not suffer that much in the short game...Return of serve: Control was pretty good, was a little sensitive to incoming spin, but not bad at all. This rubber has real good grip... the harder to brush the better the grip.Generate spin: I did not feel I could generate a lot of spin with this rubber on serves, although the fact that it's almost a year old might be a big factor. You need to dig the ball in a little further to get more spin.Blocking against loops: Control is good for this, and produced a good sink effect. It reminded me a bit of the Curl TSP p1-r 0.6mm although it was faster and more lively. I could actually feel the tensor effect in the sponge... felt quite nice and seemed to enhance control.The bat face must be closed a ...
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Review XIOM Guillotine .S long pimple
2007-07-05 03:28:00
A friend (thanks Greggy) kindly lend me his sheet of XIOM Guillotine.S 1.0mm black. Here are my first impression, followed by a review when I've had a chance to try it. The sheet looks of good quality, and in very good condition considering it's almost a year old! Pimple are long and narrow, probably a bit shorter than max length. tips are rough and quite grippy. The pips are fairly soft, probably not quite as soft as Cloud & Fog III or Dawei 388d-1, but definitely softer than my galaxy 955. Running my finger over the tips it feels very grippy, meaning you can probably generate decent spin with this rubber. Bounching a ball on it it also feels quite bounchy. I immediately noticed the tensor mark on the topsheet, meaning that at least the sponge, or possible the whole rubber is made in Germany. The sponge feel a little firm, but not hard. I would expect it to be more of a choppers rubber away from the table, because of the soft grippy pips, but the tensor sponge my well give it som...
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