American Hinoki 1-ply review (AW-8)

Just got the blade from ahinoki (http://www.badeola.com/ahtest/). Sealed it lightly. Review will follow. Here is a couple of pics (before the rubbers)

http://img238.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ttahaw8aki6.jpg
http://img219.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ttahaw8bno9.jpg

Weight 80 g
Thickness 8.5 mm
Handle: let's call it pseudo-anatomic
Name: AHAW-8 or AW-8

tiehwen wrote: the An. handle looks/is pretty "Raw" but can be sanded to suit ur liking. Not even an issue here as per my "sanding" experience...

Yes, I did it a tiny bit already to smooth some edges. The balsa handle is extremely soft...

I have put the rubbers on - two Hurricane 3 Provincials. Perhaps they are a bit too heavy for this blade, it feels a bit head heavy with them, but we will see... if they don't fit, I have a couple of other rubbers to use.

that i s pretty much what i have wanted to say,too.

now i have 2 hinoki blades.one ply and 7 ply.both are excellent,and with 7 ply blade i have one hammond pro@ sheet and another joola tango.works fine.totally don't know how it is going to work,but i just ordered joola gp with the intention of putting them to 1 ply blade.i ordered in 2.0 thichkness.

GenomicsKnight wrote: JimT wrote: ... The 1-ply Hinoki is famous for the softness of touch and, man, they are not kidding. ... Wait till you try a real Japanese Hinoki...

I did! I played Darker Tanpan - but with different rubbers. I should say that the overall feeling is pretty darn close...

That's why I thought I'd try this one...

ahinoki wrote: Hi guys , Just wanted to let you know I am getting my real site up and running at www.americanHinoki.com. I have added a FAQ section and a wood comparsion section. Will have more info and pictures up shortly. and JimT, I am glad that you like the blade for the most part and thanks for the purchase. ahinoki

Kevin, many thanks for the service - the blade is very good, even if not exactly my bag of chips... but who knows, maybe it is. I am putting new rubbers on it right now and will try it again on Wednesday.

By the way, it could be just my prototype, but you lost about 5 mm of the blade's face height - as a result, when I put the pre-cut rubbers (from my spare T-4) on AW-8, they overhang by 5-6 mm and I had to cut them again. The handle length is proper - 100 mm, but it seems that the overall length of the blade is a bit less than usual. Was that intentional?

ahinoki wrote: JimT I only have one template for my shakehand blades and it is approx 156 mm from top of handle to tip of blade and about 147mm wide. And approx 257mm in total length. Close to butterflies Michael Maze blade (157x149) Is a t-4 an oversized blade ? I will put dimension info on my site. ahinoki

Hmm... no T-4 is certainly not an oversize... just a regular one. When I put it next to AW-8 they had the same dimensions. But the distance from the top of the handle (basically the lower edge of the rubber) to the top of the blade is less than on T-4.

Not that it matters much - one can always leave a few mms of free space when gluing the rubbers on.

ahinoki wrote: JimT After you get done playing with the blade for a bit. Aside from posting the blade dimensions, let me know how I could better describe the playing characteristics. You have the first official AW-8 so any feedback will help as I don't want to misrepresent the blades. I did just get an order for 2 AW-8 from my prototype tester. But every player is different. How would you describe your playing style ? ahinoki

It's kinda mixed. I used to play allround game with some elements of defense and occasional attack when opportunity presented itself. Now I am trying for more aggression - quick blocking, counter-drive, control looping close to the table. I try to attack more often - mostly from a couple of steps back from the table. Loop/attack from FH is not my strong suit but again, I am working on that. My current USATT rating is around 1800 (a long long time ago when I was young and spry, it was around 2000-2100). I play from mid-zone (2-6 feet away) quite often by control looping or by counter-attack.

Unfortunately, when some energy is gone (which often happens midway thru a tourney or by the end of a practice session) I often find myself slipping into the old allround/defensive habits (20 years of doing the same thing make themselves known); I become more rigid, stop attacking, and start pushing/chopping/defending waiting for a mistake from the opponent which quite often doesn't come before mine. So control in the short game is very important to me - that's why I cannot use all-offensive rubbers with less control or fast and heavy uncontrollable blades.

sbd1 wrote: JimT, Any time one blade was replaced with the new one there is a udjustment to be made.You have to get used to it and that will not come in a week time.Some elements of your game will work fine others may not. Just give it some time to get used to it .Cracking sound is  normal thing with the 1 ply blades. Good Luck with the new blade Borko&Son ***Power is Nothing Without Control***

Borko,

I agree with you wholeheartedly. The question is this: there are hundreds of blades (thousands really) - you cannot simply try and play with even a fraction of them, then make a decision and stick with it for some protracted period of time. Life is, alas, too short. Also, I don't want to spend months of my life doing even a small portion of that (and in a few years I might not be able to play TT as well as I do now because time is running out and I am not getting any younger).

Therefore I have a decision to make and relatively quick, too. Do I try and break my habits (some of them rather deeply immersed), adjust my technique and my overall style to suit the new blade? It will take some time and it will probably mean never reverting back to my other blades - as I mentioned before, making that switch is pretty difficult.

The fact that I am not immediately returning back to my previous setup already speaks volumes about quality of the AW-8. It is a very very good blade, and I enjoyed playing with it tremendously. Perhaps it is not 100% suited to my game at the moment, but then again what is?

Thanks for the cracking sound clarification - some of the guys I played thought the ball was cracked but I was pretty sure that it was the blade making that sound.

ahinoki graciously tells me that he is quite willing to replace it or even reimburse me (that would be not fair considering his time and expenses, so I won't go for that). I am not even sure now that it's the right thing to do - I definitely want to play with it some more! I want to see if I can improve my offensive game; defense is already much better with it than with any of my previous setups.

So I will invest another full practice session on Friday, and I will be back with installment #3. That's a promise!

Okey-dokey, here comes installment #3:

I blame society, I blame TV, and I blame the vast government conspiracy... ok, I am kidding, I only blame my flu and LKT Torrent with its unpredictable catapult effect. Torrent is off now and I have just replaced it with Sriver EL 2.1 (after the practice, though).

Anyway, I am keeping this blade! It plays superbly and it is growing on me faster than mold on NYC subway walls... I am just a fountain of metaphors today, aren't I... well, I blame my parents and I blame society... oh not again.

I have adjusted my game and almost everything works now. Perhaps the quick attack topspin on the forehand lacks a bit of speed but that could be just me, I was never a fast topspin guy...

The only problem that I need advice with (perhaps ahinoki himself will help me here) is the fragility of the cork handle. Every single time I bump the bottom of the blade into the table (and that happens roughly once every 1-2 hours) a little piece of cork chips off.

Perhaps I should buy a sheet of thin cork in a crafts & arts store, cut a little piece out of it and glue it at on the bottom of the handle - so that the next time I hit the table, that extra "buffer" piece will protect the original handle... does that sound reasonable? I wonder which glue I should use?

Please let me know what you guys think. Perhaps Borko himself will also weigh in on this issue.

JimT:  I learned that it might take trying a few different rubbers to find the perfect match.  I have used LKT on my one-plies, too, and it's not the idea rubber.  The topsheet is not bad, but the sponge is far from the best.  Sriver-EL should start to work out better for you.  Most of my favorite rubbers have worked well on my blade, but not all.  This is the way it is with most blades, IMO.  Anyway, continue to experiment with other rubbers on it as you get the chance.  The super-soft feel can masquarade as being slow at first, but the more you play it, the more power you should find in it.  It's incredible value in this day when some one-ply blades cost much more.  But then again, one-ply blades is not always suitable for all players and all styles of play, either. 

I went to Home Depot and bought a small can of Minwax "golden oak" Plastic Wood filler (about $3). They didn't have any cork however, so I drove another mile to the arts&crafts store (A.C.Moore) and got myself some corkboard (not the real cork but more like the pressed cork particle board) about 3-4 mm thick ($3 more).

It worked pretty well - I used my regular X-acto knife to cut out a rough approximation of a buffer piece, then cut it some more, then glued it on, sanded it down, and then filled the cracks with the filler.

Looks great! Let's hope it holds well during the actual games!

ahinoki wrote: JimT If you find the fix not durable enough, instead of cork sheeting get some rubber sheeting from a hardware store. I used to ding the edges of my blades quite a bit and tried everything from edge tape, epoxy to hard rubber, and the rubber worked the best. But remember you are adding weight. ahinoki

what exactly is this rubber sheeting - kind of a rubberized tape?