"Hello to all, I already have 3 Soulspin woods in my possession ( really excellent handmade products I can recommend these woods to everyone- you will definitely be annoyed if you play these woods having paid a lot of money for years to big companies for expensive, actually inferior quality from mass production."
Then I got the chance to play a Waldner Legend Carbon and immediately fell in love with hinoki, even if it is only a small taste (more on this later) of "real hinoki feeling".
Meanwhile I am in possession of 5 single ply woods( 1x Speed 90 and 4x Imperial2020 ) and one 7 ply from "Darker" one of the best Producer for Kiso Hinoki. Besides Darker, of course, Kokutaku must also be mentioned, but I have not yet seen a Schakehand model and I also think that Kokutaku does not produce any.
Only with these Brands (maybe there are smaller manufactures in Japan, which I dont know ) you will have the experience of true "Hinoki-Feeling".
I also tried a Nittaku Myabi and a Palio Bow, nice but not comparable to Darker.
And even with the individual high-quality Darker woods there are huge differences (I do not mean the fakes, all real "Darker").
Because :
Each single-layer Kiso Hinoki is unique !
The Hinoki tree (belongs to the cypress family, as has already been correctly written) is a plant whose growth is dependent on various environmental influences.
Logically, if you think about yourselves. If you do not receive enough food, it is very likely that in the long run you will be scrawny and weaker.
It is the same with wood. These external conditions shape the characteristics of any wood. Strange as it may seem, a spruce that grows at a normal altitude in Germany, for example, has completely different playing characteristics than a "high mountain spruce" (Soulspin uses this for most of its outer layers).
This high mountain spruce grows at altitudes of 1500 m and above. There it is colder, the tree grows slower, gets more annual rings and become harder and denser .... and that we know table tennis players ... ->faster !!!!
This high mountain spruce is of course more expensive and rarer than his "younger brother"(Ultimately also a spruce and may be called "spruce" and sold as such).
Furthermore, it should be mentioned at Soulspin that all veneers are sawn and not "split" with a kind of knife as in almost all large-scale productions. With sliced veneers there is a lot of destruction of the cell structure.
However, to elaborate on this topic would go beyond the scope of this article :-)
Back to Hinoki resp. Kiso Hinoki
Kiso Hinoki grows only in a small, mountainous region with a lot of rainfall in Japan and is considered sacred in this region. Meanwhile, it is even protected by the government and may no longer be harvested. Only very small quantities, often diseased trees, are harvested by the forester to make room for new Hinoki trees.
Because alone the term Hinoki does not only cause enthusiasm with table tennis players Hinoki is even cultivated on special plantations. Take the genetics of Kiso Hinoki, breed them and you have a good copy of Kiso Hinoki such as Kumamoto Hinoki.
(Hinoki is also used to make the best cutting boards and those who use a high quality 200 times folded Damascus knife for several hundred dollars will not cut on anything else :-)
Both in China, Korea and Taiwan, hinoki is now grown because you can earn good money with the name.
In conclusion :
Why is Hionki so special, what makes it different from other woods ?
Probably the most important characteristic and also good feature for the quality of the wood is the particularly straight and homogeneous growth (Look closely at your Hinoki layers/woods . The strokes / grain (the dark line is the bark of the tree been each stroke looks almost like drawn with a ruler in the high quality woods).
The older the tree, the more consistant its playing characteristics are These woods are faster and more expensive.
However, only with this old Hinoki ( 250-300 years !!!!!!) have the special charakteristic : The vibrations...!!!!
Quite simply: An older Hinoki wood vibrates more than a young one; (of course there are more to consider here but even that would go beyond the scope at this point
:-) I hope to have given useful information and my experience with Hinoki-Hinoki
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