Reviews: RL Red Hammer blade

I played with Red Hammer twice- one for the entire session of 2 hours straight, without sitting down. The other one - for about 20 minutes next day.

First of all - this is not a very fast blade, which is quite fine with me. I would rate it at the lower edge of OFF class.

Speed: lower OFF, upper OFF-

Second - I put not very fast linear rubbers on it so as not to confuse myself whether it's the blade playing or the rubbers.

Therefore - FH: Air Illumina Alpha (Black), BH: Giant Dragon Karate Hard 2.0 mm (Red)

Control: pretty good, although you need to watch out for the catapult of the blade

Spin: better than thick 8mm blades, that's for sure - but that is not surprising. Very decent, anyway

Throw angle: rather low on slower shots, then catapult starts working

Flex: surprisingly flexy for a 7-ply. But for me it was a bit too much - I often pushed long because flex-catapult would start working; also some of the flatter loops were not going good for me because of that. But that is all a matter of habit. I am sure that the players who use 6mm thick blades with some flex will not find anything unusual here.

Vibration: almost none

Strokes: I cannot really go through all types - didn't have time for that. I should say that RH is pretty good in opening loops but lacked a bit of power on kill loops or in playing from afar. Good blocks, very good placement game. Surprisingly good chopping - especially with slower softer rubbers. OK in flat game but nothing extraordinary imho.

My recommendation for the next guy: put a non-MAX medium hardness tensor on FH, some linear non-springy rubber on BH and try it out. If you like tacky rubbers - I think RH would be OK with that on FH. Not sure about pips on BH - certainly wouldn't recommend fast SPs or anything like that.

Looking cool!