The REAL problem with Chinese rubbers
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Topic: The REAL problem with Chinese rubbers
Posted By: APW46
Subject: The REAL problem with Chinese rubbers
Date Posted: 03/10/2011 at 5:51pm
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Its not the quality, its the consistency. It happens time and time again, there is a new Chinese rubber, the latest I tried Is of the 'Moon' variety. Its really exellent, plays superbly, but I know I can't play with it, because in 6 months time when I order a sheet it will be a poor reproduction of the first sheet I tried. This happens constantly. The Local guy to me who was selling Haifu has dropped it, because he was sold a batch of, basically sh*t quality rubbers. I hate saying this, but I would reccomend staying away from Chinese rubbers if you like to play with settled equipment, the reason I hate saying it is because they are Cheap, and Butterfly are taking the piss.
Its quite obvious what is going on, bonafide Chinese manufacturers develop rubbers and then they are copied to a poorer standard, if you are an importer you are looking for the cheapest price to maximise profits, the agent you last bought rubbers off offers you the 'same' rubbers but at a cheaper price, but they are not the same... ------------- The Older I get, The better I was. |
Replies:
Posted By: cls2222
Date Posted: 03/10/2011 at 5:57pm
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Do you think there is any difference between the provincial and commercial versions? ------------- Korbel Stiga Boost TX |
Posted By: tpgh2k
Date Posted: 03/10/2011 at 5:58pm
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very true. QC batches are total crap when it comes to haifu...even when you tried to get the 'national' version. luckily, DHS provincial ones are still good for quality. but if i really had to, i'd stick to my tenergys....=( ------------- www.youtube.com/gsutabletennis Timo Boll Spirit FL H3 Blue Sponge Black FH Tenergy 64 Red BH |
Posted By: APW46
Date Posted: 03/10/2011 at 6:06pm
this was an abbreviation for ' regional institute Tiagin China' which basically meant that the rubbers you were buying were the same as the national team of China. It did not take long for every manufacturer of rubbers in China to realise that stampint that logo on the rubber would ensure sales. Dealing with China is like dealing with the wild west, NO REGULATION.
I've always liked to play with Chinese rubbers on my B/hand, and really I'm not over stating this, I've had constant problems for years with the quality control. ------------- The Older I get, The better I was. |
cls2222 wrote:Posted By: lilactime031
Date Posted: 03/10/2011 at 6:10pm
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YinHe blades are ok. The YinHe rubbers aren't good. After while they loose their color. I can say that the the best Chinese rubbers manufacture is 729 (Friendship). Good quality and good prices, Dawei is also ok you can't find tacky top sheets there but the quality is very good and the prices are very cheap. DHS the commercial versions are bad rubbers. I can't play with them. Five years ago Cole made for me some Hurricane III top sheets onto Dawei Canon sponge. The result was very good. I don't know the Palio rubbers. Some said that the cheap Palio rubbers are very vulnerable. But i can't confirm that... ------------- e-pingpongshop |
Posted By: racquetsforsale
Date Posted: 03/10/2011 at 7:59pm
| I haven't been purchasing enough of the same sets of rubbers to trust, but I have faith in 729, Palio, and Dawei from Cole. |
Posted By: Ikaros21
Date Posted: 03/10/2011 at 8:03pm
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globe 999 on dawei sponge plays very good if you get it from cole. I've been playing with the same set up with good results from 3 years. ------------- I'm going up 1986 NooB Blade: Galaxy T4 FH: Globe 999 BH: Butterfly Cermet I'm not re-gluing anymore |
Posted By: prott.co.uk
Date Posted: 03/10/2011 at 8:17pm
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@APW46 |
Posted By: bluebucket
Date Posted: 03/10/2011 at 8:39pm
| China might be the biggest exporter but the problem is nothing China has made and I mean nothing is yet as good as the same products that were made in the West before they gave up manufacturing and we were used to a certain amount of quality |
Posted By: sweetstrike
Date Posted: 03/10/2011 at 9:25pm
I completely disagree. The reason manufacturing has shifted over there is because they make equal to better quality products at the best price. |
Posted By: AARDVARK
Date Posted: 03/10/2011 at 10:11pm
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I am one of the Chinese rubber distributor in my country (for Sanwei) for my case , I also have some bad experience for the first lot and I complaint out. After that , they keep focus on the lot that ship to me and so far no more issue. Right now , it's quite consistant and my customer are also quite happy. |
Posted By: kelvinyoong
Date Posted: 03/10/2011 at 10:52pm
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You have to complain alot to get the same quality from a China factory. Or else they will make changes to decrease costs and hope that you will not complain. That is why they have so many grades of the same product. Nothing goes to waste. Even the those that dun pass QC some how get sold somewhere. ------------- Andrzej Grubba AN Sriver 2.1 Sriver 1.9 |
Posted By: icontek
Date Posted: 03/10/2011 at 11:57pm
That's a good one! If you constantly EJ and never buy the same rubber twice, you'll never have your heart broken by the disappointment of a rubber you love betraying you. This topic is of personal interest to me, because I just ordered a pair of 38 degree Hurricane III Neo Provincials from a very reputable seller. If they match the quality and performance of my 6 month old (100+ hours) sheet I will be very satisfied. If they are wildly different, I will be mortified. I've finally settled down on equipment. Oh sure, I might switch setups a couple times in a play session, just fooling around; but 90% of practice and matches are the same rubber and blade I've been using for 6 months. It was a shock to me when I actually bought the same FH and BH rubbers as a replacement.
I think you mean "acceptable quality at bulk discounts". Equal to Better products? Equal to whom? Better than whom? Their cars aren't even close to Detroit's quality, let alone Japan. And look what happened once Apple shifted their production to China.... Their products used to last 5-8 years, and now you are lucky if you make it through the warranty period without having to have your device refurbed. This is a bit of a sticky issue however, because if people aren't constantly replacing cheap junk that is breaking (like lawnmowers, which can be less expensive to purchase than repair) or items that are becoming obsolete (home electronics) they are not spending money and fueling the economy. As an aside, I have a 1965 Craftsman snowblower. It was made in the USA, it starts on the first pull every winter. All I do is put gas in it, and change the oil every few years. Companies can't afford to make products like this nowadays, because they don't make any revenue once the market is saturated. ------------- http://bit.ly/vLMhuB" rel="nofollow - - RC1042 . OSP Virtuoso AC: PK50 + R42 |
Posted By: opinari
Date Posted: 03/11/2011 at 12:07am
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I haven't had a major problem with Haifu. I've been playing with untuned BWII since it came out (and haven't changed my blade for three years). The few times I got a bad batch (the rubber sheet was warped), mytt sent me a free replacement. I used the warped sheet for few practices and it actually worked pretty well. ------------- Blade: BTY Zhang Jike ALC-CS FH: BTY Tenergy 05 BH: BTY Rozena |
Posted By: bluebucket
Date Posted: 03/11/2011 at 1:36am
| I have a refrigerator thats been handed down though my family, made in 1954 in Australia, it's been running 24/7 for 57 years, never broken down and never needed new gas. I would like to see a new one out of Asia do that. The only problem with it that it's so heavy it's very hard to move and shipping these days would cost a fortune. But as far as not wasting resources goes, things that last this long are the way to go |
Posted By: Imago
Date Posted: 03/11/2011 at 2:02am
That's why I ordered http://www.eacheng.net/index.php?act=detail&ID=2918 - 10 of them , to make sure that consistency will persist. Still less than to buy two sheets of Tenergy.
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Posted By: Boss1703
Date Posted: 03/11/2011 at 4:08am
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i find that chinese rubbers are less tacky than 5 years ago... 729FX for example... ------------- https://www.facebook.com/pierrefiassemapageping updated 20.11.10 http://bosscollection.skyrock.com http://tennisdetablecomtests.skyrock.com |
Posted By: Ndragon88
Date Posted: 03/11/2011 at 4:21am
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My older 3 year hurricane 2 and 3 are more tacky and play better than the recent ones I got like 4 months ago.
Either way they were £9 each and still play fine as it doesn't affect me too much because I'm not a high level player. So I can't complain for only £9. ------------- Stiga Clipper Skyline TG3 NEO/Palio Thors www.youtube.com/ndragon88 |
Posted By: sweetstrike
Date Posted: 03/11/2011 at 4:41am
I think where Apple faulted was rushing their devices to market. What types of failures are you referring to? They are more likely to be design issues than a manufacturing ones. Apple transferred their manufacturing technologies to China, if they couldn't reproduce the same quality and control it, they would not release the product made there. There's no way a company like Apple will put their reputation on the line like that. Also your notion that certain items are purposely made so that they break is a bit tough to take. In a competitive market, all of the manufacturers would have to be in on it, otherwise the companies doing it will lose their reputation and go out of business. And engine technology has improved drastically over the past 30 years, I'm sure you'll also be able to find a much better snowblower now that will last just as long and runs more efficiently. You just haven't had to look for one. |
Posted By: APW46
Date Posted: 03/11/2011 at 5:22am
------------- The Older I get, The better I was. |
Posted By: racquetsforsale
Date Posted: 03/11/2011 at 5:26am
 ...I actually haven't had to change rubbers yet. My 729 Super FX looks a bit worn out, but I'm not fanatic about getting optimal performance from my rubbers, so I'll keep playing with them for some time. On your advice, I switched back to them, and I must say I'm liking them more and more, even more than my once favorite Desto F3, because what you put in is what you get, nothing more, nothing less. It's a bit challenging to use Super FX on the backhand though. If my technique is a bit sloppy and the racket doesn't stay on plane at contact, the looping attempt turns into a topspin hit or a counter, and if I'm swinging fast, the ball usually goes long. Passive blocking is a bit challenging as well, because the sponge is not elastic. |
Posted By: mayuki24
Date Posted: 03/11/2011 at 7:46am
Yeah chinese rubbers have different batch qualities. I have bought my dhs h3 neo earlier than my team mate's dhs h3 neo. My rubber is 4-6 months old already and my team mate's is only 2 months old but the quality of my rubber is still like new, super tacky just like when it was brand new but unfortunately when i checked my team mate's dhs h3 neo and his rubber is like a sh*tty crap, the tackiness of the rubber was already worn out and i couldnt see any good spots to hit his rubber. Hope china would produce many batches of good quality rubbers not to produce many batches of rubber but with different kind of qualities.  ------------- Nittaku Runlox (C-Pen) FH: Andro Rasant Powergrip BH: Andro Rasant Grip |
Posted By: prott.co.uk
Date Posted: 03/11/2011 at 8:31am
Yorkshire dales? I live in south west. |
Posted By: icontek
Date Posted: 03/11/2011 at 10:53am
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APW, You mentioned this, but the thread hasn't really focused on how much of the lack of product consistency comes from fakes and corruption. By fakes, I mean people producing copies of well known brands/products. By corruption, I mean employees of the rubber manufacturers stealing the pile of rubbers that failed QC and reselling them as regular rubbers. 729/RITC at least pulls these failed QC rubbers and sells them as training rubbers. I used to think that DHS was horribly inconsistent, batch to batch, but found that once I used "Genuine DHS Resellers" (the people who buy directly from DHS) and stopped looking for "great deals" from ebay and other questionable sellers, I managed to get the same rubbers, batch to batch to batch. However, this doesn't work for Provincials, and you just have to "know someone" :D Disregard below if you don't want to read OFF TOPIC sideways discussion about what "Made in China" often means.
I'm sorry that I was not clear. I wasn't referring to "antennagate" (a design issue); I was referring to devices that were designed to last a "product cycle". Cell phones are a good example here, as every 2 years (the usual contract length) there are "compelling upgrade options" (reasons to resign contracts). Phones with minimal use might last 4-6 years, but heavy users tend to "wear out" both the "penny phones" and the "high end smartphones" in about that time frame; sometimes somewhat earlier, sometimes somewhat later. Because the pace of change in this industry is so fast, and because people have incentives to replace their equipment every 2 years, it doesn't make sense to use components that will last 10 years of regular use; manufacturers use less expensive components and labor. Apple is particularly guilty of having annual marketing events that get people excited about incremental upgrades and willing to replace their existing devices before wear and general use lead to failure. It's similar to BMW, a brand that Apple long emulated. A high style, high performance brand that charges a premium. Just like BMW's lease options which help keep you in the latest "ultimate driving machine" (and help you avoid costly repairs by getting rid of the car before it becomes more of a money pit) Apple has found a market where they can succeed. But in many ways, they've surpassed BMW (by marketing a phone that's been designed so Joe-Sixpack can use it, but selling the idea that he is now Joe-Latte). BMW hasn't had that kind of mass-market penetration. But I'm way off topic here.
It's not the engine I'm worried about; it's all the other cheaply manufactured plastic parts that are likely to crack and need replacing from general use. The only plastic on my 1965 is are the little tips of some of the levers. The rest is steel ;) ------------- http://bit.ly/vLMhuB" rel="nofollow - - RC1042 . OSP Virtuoso AC: PK50 + R42 |
Posted By: cole_ely
Date Posted: 03/11/2011 at 11:07am
This is, unfortunately, pretty much true. Partly too it's the fault of the dealers. Some dealers, esp in asia, are always hammering the manufacturers on price. So eventually they end up making cheaper stuff to sell to those guys who are mostly interested in cheap. The problems come when:
a) people buy them from one of these distributors expecting the same quality or
b) the manufacturers end up with too much of the cheap stuff and decide to unload some of it on the dealers who are happy to pay full price but they want quality.
I know there's a lot of talk about the odd galaxy rubbers lately, but I still think their best rubbers by far are still venus and apollo. The rest of the stuff is obviously made by palio, and typically it's whatever they want to get rid of. Every time I get an odd galaxy rubber to sample I'm disappointed. That's just my opinion and experience. Moon and sun are probably like wild dragon or something like that, just repackaged. Basically you can tell by the price. None of their rubbers cost more (for dealers) than the two I carry. None are near the quality, again, IMO.
I'm pretty sure they don't actually make rubbers at yinhe. But they do make good blades and their consistency is excellent at that. Oh, I also tried some new version of saviga I got from eacheng in a foil pack. I think all the foil packs are coming from palio, and this was definitely a palio make. You can tell by the pastel cherry pink sponge. They also like light purple and other pastel type colors. ------------- Wavestone St with Illumina 1.9r, defender1.7b Please let me know if I can be of assistance. |
Posted By: JimT
Date Posted: 03/11/2011 at 11:20am
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That's why there are only a few methods tat we could utilize a) buy from dealers who are pushing the vendors for consistency and quality and make sure that tehy do not get crappy product - like Aardvark and Cole, .. and I am sure some others. b) buy a product which is manufactured in a more transparent and known way. Unfortunately, except for Palio tensors I do not know any other Chinese rubber made outside of China - there must be some others... right? ------------- Single Ply Hinoki Club, Founding Member Say "no!" to expensive table tennis equipment. Please... |
Posted By: cole_ely
Date Posted: 03/11/2011 at 11:24am
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Palio is the only Chinese company I know actually buying rubbers from japan or europe and selling them under their name. Chinese rubbers with "Japan" sponges are typically very low quality japanese sponges or chinese sponges in disguise. ------------- Wavestone St with Illumina 1.9r, defender1.7b Please let me know if I can be of assistance. |
Posted By: addoydude
Date Posted: 03/11/2011 at 5:29pm
your refrigerator is blowing a hole through the ozone layer. Replace it already. ------------- Yasaka Ma Lin Carbon H3 NEO / 388-D1 |
Posted By: addoydude
Date Posted: 03/11/2011 at 5:34pm
inconsistency is a quality issue ------------- Yasaka Ma Lin Carbon H3 NEO / 388-D1 |
Posted By: popperlocker
Date Posted: 03/11/2011 at 5:47pm
| you want a Chinese rubber? buy butterfly. You want quality control, you need to pay for it :D |
Posted By: beeray1
Date Posted: 03/11/2011 at 6:29pm
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The thing is for me, specifically in the case of H3 'provincial' that the rubber lasts much longer and keeps its performance much longer than, say, tenergy. No matter what I use, I'm not going to expect the exact same thing as last time. But for, say, tenergy, which degrades so badly that if you want to make it last longer than 2 months playing 2-3 times a week, then you better get used to the idea of having a whole different rubber when you buy more, anyway. So in the end, I don't care that much. All the sheets of BW2 or H3 provincial that I have used are close enough to the last one that it doesnt matter to me all that much. I bet the sheet I just got in the mail is pretty different to the very first sheet I ever used, but the changes are gradual just like the degrading performance of tenergy, so I don't notice so much. That's one of the perks of sticking to the same equipment. Even if quality is varying, your next sheet compared to your current sheet, or current to last, aren't going to be so huge. Minor adjustments will always have to be there regardless of what rubber you use. It works out in the end for me, and I'm satisfied.
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Posted By: bluebucket
Date Posted: 03/11/2011 at 10:07pm
It actually doesn't use anymore power than a new one, you know the cost to the environment in building something new from scratch (like a car) with the same amount of pollution it takes to mine the ore to finished car, with that you could drive an old car for the rest of your life. Something to think about :)
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Posted By: vvu.tee
Date Posted: 03/12/2011 at 5:46am
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well, I see a lots of negative comments on Palio rubbers, and I guess this is mainly due to poor quality of CJ800 rubbers in the last 2 years; however, Palio has some very good designs (such as HK1997 Biotech, PME), and some of them offer excellent price to performance ratio. My experience is, that the quality of Palio's rubbers is on par with Friendship's. Some vendors say Dawei offers excellent rubbers; however, I have recently purchased a batch of 20 IQUL 40 degree rubbers direcly from a reputable vendor, and I was surpriced to see a +/-4 grams variation in the weight of uncut rubber sheets of the same color, thickness and size. DHS commercial rubbers are getting more inconsistent by the year as well; however, in general, if you purchase provincial versions from official resellers the quality is excellent and specifications are very consistent. I don't know how many of you have tried DHS H2, H3, TGs and Neos national versions, but as hardness of the sponge + top sheet is concerned for example, these seem to be closer to the commercial, than the provincial versions right after you glue them...?! ------------- (1) BTY T64 - BTY M.MAZE - BTY T05 (2) BTY T64 - BTY M.MAZE - DHS H3 Neo Provincial |
Posted By: takaaki
Date Posted: 03/12/2011 at 6:07am
yes, totally agree, though i guess another way of putting it is that the problem is not chinese rubber, per se, but chinese rubber manufacturers and/or salesman (but not necessarily the importers). the problem is that over there, the business model is "get away with whatever you can to make a fast buck (or yuan)." i've never had any chinese rubber that was good to play with for longer than 2 wks. which is why i avoid them like the plague. i often wonder how these people survive, cuz you would think, after making a few bad sheets, they would go out of business, but, actually, when you have a whole bunch of ej'ing n00bies who are supposedly trying to save money, yet don't know how to play, thus don't know how to properly evaluate a rubber, then you can see how they could survive by just continuously coming out with "new product" or more preciously, old product with a new name! some of the n00bies here have been advocating a boycott of BUTTERFLY products, and i have nothing against that, but i think the more appropriate boycott should be of chinese products. but it probably wouldn't do much damage anyway, cuz the american market is probably just a drop in the bucket for them. so, why bother?? |
Posted By: APW46
Date Posted: 03/12/2011 at 6:17am
 ------------- The Older I get, The better I was. |
Posted By: Fruit loop
Date Posted: 03/12/2011 at 6:24am
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=3 On the topic of this thread, I've only had one bad sheet of bw2 (out of about 8). And every dhs h3 neo has been great, not too much different between the sheets. However i've never bought a commercial version ------------- Timo Boll Spirit FL Dr Evil ox both sides. |
Posted By: BH-Man
Date Posted: 03/12/2011 at 11:16am
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I gave a clubmate here in Korea one of my Apollo sheets at cost. Two days later, he showed me where the topsheet separated center of the rubber. I gave him another black sheet for free. The very next week, I had a sheet of my own Apollo do the very same thing 1 day after putting it on the blade! What to do? Toss it? Heck no! It was a good chance to separate the entire topsheet and re-glue it to the sponge. Endstate, an even faster, yet super spinny version of Apollo. Sometimes you have to make lemon juice from your lemons.
On the other hand, the Dawei XP 2008 Super Power Cole sells and the 999 on Quattro sponge he makes last 6 months and 12 months respectively, minumum. ------------- Korea Foreign Table Tennis Club Search for us on Facebook: koreaforeignttc |
Posted By: emihet
Date Posted: 03/12/2011 at 4:39pm
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Bought about 12 Tuttle Beijing 3 rubbers---3 were good and the same...the rest i dont' know what to say Bought 3 Neo H3 none of them played the same even the sponge looked different on one of them G666 bought 7, same issue Haifu Whale 2 tuned, 3 sheets same issues PF4 4 sheets, 1 was excellent the other 3 were not as good but similar in play Apollo bought 3 of them the red ones almost feel the same, the black bubbled after 2 hours of play...i took the topsheet from the top of the blade and i hardly had to pull and it came right off the sponge but only half way down, then i had to pull really hard to get the other half off and thus breaking some pips and tearing small bits off the sponge...once i was donte the top half of the sponge was clean and the bottom half was a bit whitish ...i can't explain this but that they decided to put less on top or switched glues or one bottle of glue finished and they used another one...so i guess there could be glue consistency issues  as well...who knows...but i am having a hard time with the consistency of the chinese rubbers as well...but i also encountered better Tenergies from Japan then when i bought them elsewhere...------------- Viscaria, Ma Long 5, Old Clippers, BTY Ovtcharov and Various Custom blades |
Posted By: tomas.gt
Date Posted: 03/14/2011 at 5:32am
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APW is right. There was only one chinese rubber I used more than once, because the new sheet was the same as older one. It was 729-08 at 49degrees. The same properties for both sheets. I might be lucky with that.
But apart from this, I have the same problem. Since DHS H3 NEO release, I have bought many sheets. But only 2 or 3 of them were good for me. The thing is that some sheets react differently to tuning. I would like to prepare my rubbers the way I like them, but they behave differently. So I bought provincial versions, but damn, it looks better, but still not ready to play without tuning.
Btw, I noticed some differences in Grip-S rubbers as well, however Joola Braves were the same. But, not to blame only chinese rubbers, the tenergy rubbers are changing as well. Tackiness D is not the same as it was years ago. So I am not that much angry, but some chinese rubbers are really different, like day and night.
Inconsistency between 2 sheets is only one issue, there is another issue - inconsistency of the same rubber sheet. It is probably in the sponge, which has different density or elasticity on different spots of the sponge. I usualy overcome this by tuning the sponge, but ... I talk about tuning quite a lot and I am not happy for this, but it is the only way for me how to use chinese rubbers. ------------- Kokutaku Bishu no.1 ST - H3N red , BTfly Spinart 2.1 black |
Posted By: davidz
Date Posted: 03/14/2011 at 8:54am
When I find a Chinese rubber which I like, I try to buy more sheets to aviod the quality issue. I will stick with TG2 Chinese rubber, since there is no better rubber for me to replace it according to my playing style.
------------- PG7 (Skyline 2, LKT XP) YEO (Skyline 2, Skyline 3) |
Posted By: friendship
Date Posted: 03/14/2011 at 10:40am
and still you risked to get 10 rubbers from another batch with different characteristics than one you ordered at first place
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Posted By: friendship
Date Posted: 03/14/2011 at 10:55am
yet, palio with 'japanese sponge' declaration on it is much better quality than palio without such declaration. in fact, two palio rubbers with japanese sponge declaration were rare rubbers for which i haven't got any complaints - they are well worth in respect to their cost. so, be it japanese sponge or not, it is better than other option
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