Which Hardbat Rubber?
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Printed Date: 05/06/2024 at 5:46pm
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Topic: Which Hardbat Rubber?
Posted By: Uskglass
Subject: Which Hardbat Rubber?
Date Posted: 10/05/2015 at 4:00pm
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I've decided I want to build a hardbat to try it out. There's some local guys who play and I'm interested in seeing what it's like. I'm already pretty settled on a LKT Toxic 3 blade but I'm not sure what the difference is on some of these rubbers. Seems like Dr. Evil is favored by choppers and Butterfly Orthodox by attackers? Any advice for someone just trying to get into it? I'm a shot placement-focused Two Wing Looper in normal TT terms if this helps, obviously my style will need to change quite a bit but i'm just wondering which of the hardbat list's rubbers are better for what. ------------- Yinhe Earth.3 - DHS TG3 Neo/729 Aurora |
Replies:
Posted By: berndt_mann
Date Posted: 10/05/2015 at 4:17pm
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If you want to build an oversized blade, which is not a bad idea for hardbat inasmuch as hard rubber weighs much less than sponge, you might want to go with Valor Premier, which sells for I believe $23.95 per sheet. If you prefer a smaller blade, Dr. Evil, used by Jay Turberville, a two-winged attacker, is a good choice, and not expensive. I think it goes for about $10.00 per sheet. Butterfly Orthodox, which I have used on a Hock No. 75 5-ply basswood hardbat, currently sells for about $11.99 per sheet. A good all-round rubber is Yasaka A-1-2, and not too expensive. Yasaka Cobalt and Cobalt Alpha are somewhat heavier and probably a bit spinnier; I don't know as I have never used them. If you are interested in being true to the old school, British Leyland, currently available (I think) from Don Varian, 2626 Varian Rd., Wooster, Ohio 44691 is the way to go. I currently use Leyland on a Master Craftsman blade made by the English racket maker Mark Bellamy. At any rate, I suggest that whatever rubber you decide on you order it with a cloth backing. This makes the rubber easier to glue onto and take off of your blade and may give a slightly more cushioned response than a rubber without a cloth backing. Happy hunting!. ------------- bmann1942 Setup: Mark Bellamy Master Craftsman blade, British Leyland hard rubber |
Posted By: gnopgnipster
Date Posted: 10/06/2015 at 1:25pm
------------- Hardbat: Valor Champion/FH/BH-Valor Premier-OX Regular:Valor Big Stick FH-Apollo II & BH-Globe 979 OX |
berndt_mann wrote:Posted By: vanjr
Date Posted: 10/06/2015 at 1:31pm
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The reason why table tennis message boards were not as popular in the 1940s is that with hardbat, there was not enough difference between rubbers to allow rigorous discussions on the topic. And you can quote me on this. Signed, Honest Abe "I lie Hock" Lincoln |
Posted By: berndt_mann
Date Posted: 10/06/2015 at 5:47pm
The reason why table tennis message boards were not popular in the 1940s was because there were no desktops, no laptops, no tablets, only ham radio where your sign-on signature was not a nickname but something like BMAPLYRHBBL42. The only other alternative was smoke signals, which were impractical over long distances or continents. And yes, I have quoted you on this. Verbatim. And that there weren't magnitudes of differences between rubbers back in those halcyon days of yore was not necessarily a bad thing. John Pershing MacCrossen ------------- bmann1942 Setup: Mark Bellamy Master Craftsman blade, British Leyland hard rubber |
Posted By: wturber
Date Posted: 10/06/2015 at 7:44pm
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As our legendary posters have said, in the past there wasn't a huge amount of difference between rubbers. Keeping a similar situation was part of the goals of the USATT Hardbat Committee and that is why there isn't a whole lot of performance difference between the various Hardbat Committee approved rubbers. The biggest outlier based on my past experience was with Andro Classic which has a very mild long-pippish tendency. From a feel standpoint, Dr. Evil will feel harder. Most of the others will feel softer. But they will all offer similar amounts of spin. Berndt is correct in saying that I use Dr. Evil. But that's most due to inertia and the lack of much belief that any rubber offer much of a performance advantage. So I stick to what I'm used to. My Nittaku Resist blade, however, is slightly oversized compared to modern blades even if it is still slight smaller than the Hocks that I have. My personal opinion is that blade choice matters more than rubber choice. Here's a video I made a long time ago. It only includes three hardbat rubbers, a few non-approved short pips rubbers sans sponge, and some sponge stuff as well. Note the difference in the Andro Classic vs. the Leyland and Dr. Evil that bounce the ball pretty much the same, while giving a quite different sound (and hence feel) when the ball hits the blade. ------------- Jay Turberville www.jayandwanda.com Hardbat: Nittaku Resist w/ Dr. Evil or Friendship 802-40 OX |