non-tacky chinese rubber, medium soft?

I am going to experiment a bit. Looking for a Chinese sponge with approx. 40 - 42 Euro hardness, non-tacky, relatively light, durable, good for topspin drives and hitting, counter hits, blocking, and some looping. Any Chinese rubber that approximates these characteristics? Thanks.

 

1. Friendship Focus III Snipe - Fits your description except it might be softer than 40 deg.  I am not very good at estimating sponge hardness

 

2. Gambler Outlaw - Fits your descriptions but might be a little harder than what you want.  Most often describing as a good blocking and hitting rubber but slightly less spinny than loopers might prefer.  I found it to be pretty fast, though certainly not in Tenergy class.

 

3. Dawei IQUL -  Slightly tacky, but most sheets lose that tackiness fairly quickly (within a week).  Comes in what they call 35, 40, and 42 deg sponge so one version is likely to be close to the hardness you want.  This is my personal rubber.   I have been using this for a little over 2 yrs and am totally satisfied.  Spinnier than Outlaw and little faster than Focus III.  Fits in kind of between the first two.

 

Good luck in your search.

 

Mark

 

 

Thanks much for your suggestions. I will do some research on them. As I said, I am just going to do some cheap experimentation to satisfy some curiosity.

First, when you say 40 degrees, do you mean the hardness scale that Europeans use(Shore C I think) or the Chinese use(Shore A)?  I seriously doubt that an ESN rubber like the Fortissimo is 42 degrees on the Chinese scale(which would be about 56-58 degrees on the Euro scale), it sounds like a pretty common hardness for an Euro rubber.

Now, if you're looking for something that's 40 degrees on Euro scale(33-34 on the Chinese scale), I can't really help you since I never use something that soft.  If you're looking for something that's 40 degrees on the Shore A scale, there's hardly any rubber in that range that doesn't have at least medium-ish tackiness.  I'd guess that the new(red sponge) Haifu BW2 Hard comes the closest if you get a harder sheet.  At that hardness, there's also nothing that's light-weight.

If you're looking for a Chinese rubber that simulates the playing characteristics of the Fortissimo, you probably won't find one.  I've only played with the IQUL for a few minutes, and never with the Outlaw, but I've had quite a few hours on the Focus 3.  It's soft like Euro rubbers, I'd estimate around 34 degrees(~42 Euro), but it's not bouncy at lower impact like Euro rubbers and thus require a much more active stroke than the Eurojap rubbers I've tried like the T05 or the S1.

My cousin told me that I should change to a wood blade, and he picked the H-WN for me.  He's got like 40 years of playing experience in China, so I listened.  The H-WN is ~90 grams with a larger than normal head, which made it pretty much impossible to stick the T88-I on it.  My setup would be nearly 200 grams!

Thanks. I will look into DHS TNT as an option.

Rich

 

do not overestimate yourself at this stage. you are in a good path to improve but now it is important to be with the right equipment.

 

otherwise you are going to train things that are not the right things. to train things to have speed. to adapt to what you have in hands instead. this will not pay off.

 

keep on developing first. try to do the right strokes. put your developing technique in the hit.

 

do not get used to not care about control. afterwards in competition you are going to be crushed.

 

in short do not complicate your developing path.

 

not even wlq could handle well a h-wn with a commercial h3 neo max. that blade lacks good control and touch and besides there is a slow mushy thick h3 neo commercial on it. 0 feeling and touch. what you are going to develop this way. an equipment struggling stroke. 

Well I used the T-11 with pretty fast rubbers when I was in the US1300-1400 range, and I'm probably 1800+ now, 6 months later.  Today, I just beat some 1700ish level guy whom I'd never beaten before and lost to in 3 straight(albeit close) sets just last month, and I did so in 3 straight sets.  That's 2 weeks after I switched to a setup that ejmeister considers too uncontrollable to me.  Playing with a setup that's too fast for you is no problem if you don't care about losing or winning and focus only on executing the correct stroke in the correct situation.

For example, I was most likely better than that guy even last month, but his services are very fast and spinny with many variations.  I always have trouble against services like that, because I make it a point to attack all long services and my skill simply wasn't enough to allow me to do that consistently.  Now, I could've just chopped his services back and I'd probably won(he's terrible at initiating and sustaining attacks, there's a reason he's 1700 despite having much higher level services).  I didn't do that, because being able to attack all long services is much more important to me than winning the match.

Certain gear may make progress more difficult, if the gear doesn't suit your style.  But as long as it suits your style, you should be able to progress at similar rates regardless of the gear's speed.  The key is to stay hungry, never be satisfied.  If you can hit a shot consistently, then it's time to step it up, whether with a different, more aggressive shot, or simply adding more power/spin or better placement with the same shot.  You'll always be playing at a level below your true skill level, but you'll always ensure maximal growth.  In (short) time, even you playing at a lower level will be better than those who always play at their optimal levels but never improved.

Thanks for the recommendation. I'll check into it. I did edit the post title. Where do you pruchase TinArc?

Thanks for the info.