I have been playing with a Darker Tanpan single ply hinoki shakehands blade for a couple of months now.  You probabaly have seen my other posts about how great the feel of Hinoki is.

I looked at the Juic Kiso Hinoki blade at the US Open in July.  I liked the craftsmanship but the price was too high.  I just ordered one from iruiru yesterday.  I wanted to compare the feel of two different single ply blades.  I was tempted to order a Darker J-Speed 90 chinese penhold blade and use it shakehands.  In the end, I decided on the Juic blade.

I also ordered a Yasaka Super Leo blade.  This is the 3 ply blade that is a replacement for the old Yasaka Leopard.  The Leopard was supposed to be one of the fastest all wood blades ever made.  I wanted to compare the speed of the 3 ply Hinoki to my single ply ones.

superloop

Excuse for my ignorance, but could any one tell me something about this Juic company? Is it Japanese?  Is this one-ply Hinoki made in Japan or China?

I found that the 1 ply hinoki blades I tried (all Japanese/Korean style penhold) had different weights and feel and that it may have more to do with the particular piece of wood than the manufacturer. 

Juic and TSP seemed lighter and slower, while the Butterfly and Nittaku one's I tried seemed heavier and faster, but that could have a lot to do with the moisture content of those particular blades.

In general 1 ply hinoki blades will feel pretty soft and dampen vibration.  Some (myself) like this, while others think it makes them lack "touch" or "feel."

-- Andrew

After trying out my friend�s Darker one-ply Kinoki (8.5), I couldn�t resist the temptation of putting rubber on my BTY one-ply Cypress (9.6). Until last weekend, I treated this BTY simply as an art object.

I use Donic Sonex JP Soft (FH) and BTY Tackness-D (BH). The result is sentimental. In terms of feels, speed and control, both my friend and I concur that my BTY is better than his Darker.  I told my friends that I really �enjoy� playing TT when I use this one-ply Cypress.

Paddle Palace offers very good price on this Juic one-ply Kinoki (US 71.90).  Would like to hear more comments about this Juic�s product.

Cheers.

I ordered my Juic Kiso Hinoki Shake racket from iruiru but they are out of stock.  They ordered one from Juic and I hope to get it soon.  From what I have read, the Juic is 8.5mm thick while my Tanpan is over 9mm thick.  I would guess that the Juic is slower but we will see.

I was interested in a previous post that said that you could order a custom blade from Butterfly.  I would like to get a 10mm thick Kiso Hinoki shakehand blade made from the same wood as the Kim Taek Soo blade.  I heard somewhere that this wood is over 300 years old.  I would like to get one with the flared grip from the Schlager Carbon.  They said the price would be over $300 though.

I saw the Butterfly Cypress shakehands blade but I was curious why they call it Cypress and not Hinoki.  As we know, Hinoki is Japanese cypress.  Maybe the Cypress blade is made from Chinese cypress.

Hello stefanusj...I can't believe that you took my Juic Kiso Hinoki...just kidding!

I also ordered a Yasaka Super Leo blade.  It was out of stock of also.  I have always heard that the old Yasaka Leopard was one of the fastest blades ever made.

Hopefully, I will get both of them soon.

superloop

stefanusj, I agree.  I basically prefer more of Darker for its craftsmanship and its wood is generally in better quality.  Since my BTY is thicker, it is faster and has better feeling than my friend's Darker.  Have you tried its Speed 90?

For those who wants to buy this BTY or other Barker products, you can try this Taiwan store as Stefanusj mentioned above: http://www.tabletennis.com.tw/index_1.htm - http://www.tabletennis.com.tw/index_1.htm .  Its listing price is TW $ 2,500 .

I just received my Juic Kiso Hinoki Shake and Yasaka Super Leo from iruiru yesterday.  I asked them for the two blades to be as close as possible to 95g. They were both exactly 95g.

Here are the specs of my blades now.

Hello stefanusj...it will probably be next week before I get to try out my new blades.  I want to try all three of my Hinoki blades with speed glued Bryce FX.  It was interesting that the Tanpan was the thickest but the lightest of the three.

I will post a review/comparison when I get a chance.

superloop

Hey Superloop,

Did you get a chance to give them all a comparison?  How did it go?.....

Hello hipp66...I played last Sunday with my new Yasaka Super Leo blade.  I tried it with glued Bryce and Bryce Hard.  The speed was very close to my old Schlager Carbon blade but I think the control is a little better.  I think it is a bit faster than than my Tanpan but it has a much harder feel.  Even though it is pretty heavy (95g), I really liked the balance and feel of the Super Leo.  The only problem was that the head is bigger than my Schlager Carbon that my rubbers were already cut for.

I also played with my Darker Tanpan with glued Bryce FX rubbers.  I really like the control when blocking with the single-ply Tanpan.  For some reason, I could not make any of my third ball loops.  They were all hitting the white part of the net.  I think that was more because I have only played once in the last 3 weeks.  The Tanpan is probably my favorite so far and if I start playing more, it will probably become my full time blade.

I did not get a chance to play with my new Juic Hinoki Shake blade yet.  I am curious to see if it is as fast as the Tanpan because it is not quite as thick.

superloop