Hard Rubber More Spin?

For serving, I find it's easier to put spin on the ball using hard rubber.  Softer rubbers tend to be bouncier and the ball *seems* to jump off and carries less spin.

However, it could be comparing apple and orange here.  My hard rubbers are Chinese sticky, while my soft ones are Euro and tensor.

hard rubbers produce more brush spin in serves and more sponge spin in power loops.

Why most of top china players men use chinese rubber on their fh? Any reasons relate to hardness n spin?

Edited by nashron - 04/06/2011 at 12:45am

pablogilberto wrote: Ninglei - it's not the equipment - it's  you and your technique.

Pnachtwey;

First statement is still wrong, you still forget to mention at what height you hit the ball. If it's high enough, you can open your balde and hit forward only, with out adding any top spin at all and still clear the net and land the ball on the table.

Second statement, it's not all about hard or soft, I thought I covered this by saying if all other things are equal? What part didn't you get about that? You are comparing apples to oranges. I haven't used Reflectoid, so I don't know what it's like, but Tenergy have very high grip on the surface, which makes it easy to use even for brush looping.

Third statement, again,comparing apples to oranges. When the weight is discussed, you can not bring in other blades to the argument, as it is irrelevant.

between new soft rubber vs old hard rubber is the top layer of the rubber is different :) i wonder what is the different between chinese rubber.. the top layer and sponge compare to western/japanese rubber... both new :)

pnachtwey wrote: First statement is still wrong, you still forget to mention at what height you hit the ball. If it's high enough, you can open your balde and hit forward only, with out adding any top spin at all and still clear the net and land the ball on the table.  It isn't wrong.  I was just assuming I am playing against a good chopper than hits the ball fast, deep, and low.  I wasn't assuming I was hitting high balls from a newbie. Second statement, it's not all about hard or soft, I thought I covered this by saying if all other things are equal? So what makes the ball spin faster when hit by a hard rubber than a ball hit by a soft rubber?  Just saying so doesn't make it so.  Lets hear a rational explanation that can pass my absurdity test.   If the rubber is made twice as hard will it generate twice as much spin?  If a rubber is 10% harder than another will it generate 10% more spin with the same stroke?  If not then harder isn't always spinier and there must be something else that really causes the extra spin. What about the hard dried out rubber on my 40 year old paddle?  It is slicker than my Best Anti!  So much for harder always being spinier. Third statement, again,comparing apples to oranges. When the weight is discussed, you can not bring in other blades to the argument, as it is irrelevant. Why not? We were not talking about apples and oranges we were talking about paddles.  Many have made the general statement that heavier paddles are 'faster'.  There haven't been any qualifications made on the type of paddle. I have admitted that the speed does increase by a small percentage but not proportional to the weight of the paddle but you have now admitted that 'other' blades may make your claims invalid. No one ever answered my previous absurdity test for the mass of paddles.  If I have a paddle twice as heavy will the speed after impact be twice as fast?  If the paddle is 10% heavier than another will the speed after impact be 10% greater than the other?  If not there there is something else that really affects the speed after impact much more than the mass of the paddle. Give it up. The physics aren't on your side.

Still no web references to why hard sponge generates more spin than soft sponge?  

• Spring of the rubber
• Speed of the paddle
• Angle of the paddle
• Initial spin of the ball
• Air temperature (Cold air is more dense, thus producing more friction)
• Humidity (water is denser than air so produces more friction)
• Surface friction of the rubber

stoic wrote: I think we have to eliminate all the variables to create a fair test. A list of all the variables would be useful in this case, so here's some which come to mind:   Spring of the rubber Speed of the paddle Angle of the paddle Initial spin of the ball Air temperature (Cold air is more dense, thus producing more friction) Humidity (water is denser than air so produces more friction) Surface friction of the rubber   You get the picture, so all of the above would have to be identical for each test of a rubber. I think pnachtwey's posts are the closest to finding an answer so far:

Peter C wrote: pnatchwey When I read your posts, your Modus Operandi reminds me of the legendary Sid of Millennium. Like Sid; you have strong views, which you don't like being questioned and your riposte is to ask questions such as, "Lets hear a rational explanation that can pass my absurdity test." Why should Speedplay or any other intelligent forum member, for that matter; take you or such a question seriously and waste their time answering such a hypothetical question? And the truth is they don't need to, as it's the flaws in your thinking that deserve to be questioned; not the other way around. Speedplay has a good reputation on this forum, because he is knowledgeable about Table Tennis and gives good advice. Rather than insult him, you'd be wise to recognise that he is pointing out the flaws in your thinking, not his.

Knowing some physics isn't going to help you play table tennis if you don't understand how the game works and how the ball reacts to a rubber and blade because then you also have no clue about what physics you are talking about. That's the problem. 

Edited by bluebucket - 04/06/2011 at 2:20pm

silverhair wrote: Peter C wrote: pnatchweyWhen I read your posts, your Modus Operandi reminds me of the legendary Sid of Millennium. Like Sid; you have strong views, which you don't like being questioned and your riposte is to ask questions such as, "L<span style="">ets hear a rational explanation that can pass my absurdity test.</span>"Why should Speedplay or any other intelligent forum member, for that matter; take you or such a question seriously and waste their time answering such a hypothetical question?And the truth is they don't need to, as it's the flaws in your thinking that deserve to be questioned; not the other way around. Speedplay has a good reputation on this forum, because he is knowledgeable about Table Tennis and gives good advice.Rather than insult him, you'd be wise to recognise that he is pointing out the flaws in your thinking, not his. Why the personal attack?  Why not stay on topic?   Speedplay has produced no references to back up any of his claims.  pnatchwey is using logic to question the apparently unproven claims by Speedplay. And I don't have any confidence in the reputation of someone who cannot back their claims.

Peter C, thanks for the vote of confidence.

Silverhair, I honestly don't feel I need to spend time to back up my claims against some one who refuses to stay on topic. If he was truly interested to learn (instead of trying to teach, which he clearly isn't knowledgeble enough to do) I might consider going in to the technical aspects of this, but when he brings up his "dead" rubber as an example, it shows to me that he don't want to learn anything.

It was the same story with the paddles, as soon as he was left with out answers, he begun to bring up the fact that a heavy def blade was slower then a heavy off blade. No one was arguing about that, the discussion was always about 2 blades with virtually the same construction, and the heavier of these was always the faster one. Do I know how to explain all the science behind this? No, I don't, but I've experienced it in real life, which is enough proof for me. If Pnachtwey is as brilliant as he likes to suggest, he should rather look at his formulas and try to make them work with reality then trying to change the reality to suit his formulas.

For the record, I said that hard sponge provides a greater potential to create spin, not that it always will create more spin, cause it reqires more effort. A small hint though,why do a rubber bottom out, what happens when a rubber bottoms out and which rubber, hard or soft, is most likely to bottom out?

pnachtwey wrote:   Many are repeating hard rubbers are ALWAYS faster/spinier and can't back up their arguments.  Again there is the absurdity test.  If the rubber is twice as hard will it be twice as fast or twice as spiny?  So far this question has be dodged.

  I have played ritc 729 topsheet with several sponges and also hurricane II with softer and hard sponge. My reason to prefer the harder sponges is mainly my low speed / high spin brushloops on incoming backspin. With soft sponge there is a lack "phenom".

But soft / hard is relative. I could also put ever harder sponge upto concrete-hard underneath that ritc topsheet (for testing) and somewhere the spin will decrease. I suppose there is a certain optimum for a certain topsheet on a certain blade and for a certain player and even for one player for different strokes (to make it even more complex..). Harder then that spin decreases softr it increases. What,s beter now hard or soft ? Imposible to say it like that because of such relativety.

Second thing to not forget is that a soft sponge hardens out on the blade quicker. Bottoming out for instance things really get hard not soft and this allready can happen to a lesser extend on lower impact ; in millimeter or micrometer a soft sponge compresses more with same impact. The more compressed soft sponge can be as hard as the less compressed hard sponge but the forces are less spread over the woodsurface for the soft sponge. The hardness of the wood comes through more then. On a soft blade a softer sponge can still be softer for the setup while on a hard wood the hard sponge shields the wood it can be reversed.

A thing that has not been mentioned is the possible tangentiallity for brushing.

With a harder rubber brushed thin perpendicular to the incoming speed the ball doesn,t dig a hole in the rubber. The effective momentum put on the ball is bigger then because the effective distance between where the bal is touched with the rubber and it,s center is half the diameter. If the topsheet is also tacky it is possible to brush extremely thin creating the highest possible momentum with the lowest speed.

If the sponge is soft to get enough contact force between topsheet and ball this will make the ball penetrate the rubber more and the effective distance for spinmomentum decreases when trying to "spin the ball up" you start to hit from underneath the ball, partly lifting it instead of putting more pure spin on. That means more need to be cautious for a slow loop.
The abbillity to create extreme and variable spin/speed ratio,s decreases with that.



Edited by mercuur - 04/06/2011 at 5:01pm