legal thickness limit for sealant
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Topic: legal thickness limit for sealant
Posted By: wankhao
Subject: legal thickness limit for sealant
Date Posted: 03/03/2015 at 6:44am
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Is there a legal thickness limit for sealant? |
Replies:
Posted By: atomant
Date Posted: 03/03/2015 at 8:41am
| There is no set limit on thickness. The rule states that the blade is the racket without the rubber. 85% of the blade must be of natural wood and can be in any shape, size and weight. Since the sealant is apply directly onto the blade, it is consider part of the blade and thus subjected to the 85% rule. |
Posted By: Baal
Date Posted: 03/03/2015 at 8:42am
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You have to be able to see and feel the grain of the wood. |
Posted By: cole_ely
Date Posted: 03/03/2015 at 9:00am
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Back in the day, Wang Liqin fans here used to claim that he literally soaked his stiga off in shellac. ------------- Wavestone St with Illumina 1.9r, defender1.7b Please let me know if I can be of assistance. |
Posted By: Baal
Date Posted: 03/03/2015 at 9:11am
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ITTF Technical Leaflet T4 says there is in fact a legal limit as to how much sealant you can use on the surface. http://www.ittf.com/stories/pictures/T4_Racket_Coverings_forBoD42014.pdf" rel="nofollow - http://www.ittf.com/stories/pictures/T4_Racket_Coverings_forBoD42014.pdf A. 2. Blade A very thin layer of lacquer is permitted on the blade, only for the purpose of anchoring wood fibres, thereby facilitating replacement of the racket covering. Anything more than this will be deemed to constitute a layer of plastic, and will not be permitted. This layer may be no more than 0.1 mm thick, and should not hide the wood from sight or touch. It is considered to be part of the blade, rather than part of the thickness of the racket covering. A number of years ago, Butterfly made a big mistake with their Kreanga carbon blade, which had an opaque silver colored lacquer on the whole surface, which was illegal. So they stopped making that blade after less than a year. |
Posted By: tt-panopticum
Date Posted: 03/03/2015 at 10:36am
Correct, that's the recently changed rule... That's mainly due to the methods of rubber thickness measurement at events. Many Pro's started to apply a partial, rather thick layer of sealant on the "wings", but not to the rest of blade surface - this helps to stay in the "safe" area below 4.05 mm - as the feeler tip of the dial gauge measures on the wing surface. A 1/10 of varnish in that place can help quite a lot - some more even more....  |
Baal wrote:Posted By: wturber
Date Posted: 03/03/2015 at 10:44am
That dates back to at least 2009, the oldest T4 I have on my laptop. The T4 is probably more correctly considered a guide/directive of how the ITTF is going to be interpreting the Laws of Table Tennis. I'm not sure if it is appropriate to consider it a "rule" or not. These things are not voted upon. But either way, it has the effect of a rule and will probably be enforced that way. BTW, the uneven varnish layer is against the rules even if it is routinely not detected. ------------- Jay Turberville www.jayandwanda.com Hardbat: Nittaku Resist w/ Dr. Evil or Friendship 802-40 OX |
Posted By: Baal
Date Posted: 03/03/2015 at 8:56pm
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Jay is correct, it is not anything very new. I don't know if it's a rule, but if you are at a tournament, they can disallow a blade if they see it is in violation of the directives in those leaflets. Technical leaflets are also the basis for how they will put their stamp or approval on balls, rubbers, nets, tables, etc. They do change them from time to time. |