Donic Autograph Blade

Customer Reviews

All reviews listed are from verified customers who have purchased this product.

13/11/2018 A hidden gem for defenders Review by agent00F

Quality

This blade is part of my setup for more casual play. Thickness is 5.4mm and weight around 125g, so not terribly heavy given the size of 18x19cm, when the Butterfly Joo blade is often ~100g. Speed is on the slow side, lower than a Donic Defplay and on par with old fashioned def blades, which makes it most appropriate for classical long defense.

Counterattacks a la modern def is can be unwieldy, but looping is still possible with some anticipation, and its lower speed makes spin shots forgiving. A high performance rubber is advisable should you choose to play any attacking style, and the resulting throw is fairly high. Also, it would obviously be pretty heavy with inverted or thick sponge on both sides so that's probably not the best idea.

One problem you might encounter is that since this blade is greatly oversized, even if you glue an uncut sheet onto the middle, the corners only come up to the edges of the blade. The solution I found for the backhand is to use one of those "expanded" Сhinese long pips, which come in a sheet large enough to cover the blade. For the forehand, a second sheet of rubber is needed, to cut into properly fitted shapes to fill around the sheet glued in the middle. There's arguably some doubt as to the legality of such a setup for sanctioned/ITTF tournaments, but there's also some doubt as to whether anyone would take a goof that far.

A benefit of this blade might be that should you run into any famous player, you can tear off one of the cut rubber pieces at the edges, and let them sign that area. Then using some light lacquer on that area and pasting the rubber back on would allow future play with it to continue, with prized signature protected.

01/11/2016 Fun blade Review by Tadeusz Grys

Quality

Nice and cheap.