Tibhar Balsa Allround 50

Playing this with a flair handle. The handle is somewhat slim in the middle, but wide and squarish towards the end—perfect for me and probably the most comfortable handle I have tried. The blade is thick—8.3 mm. The 5 mm balsa core is covered with four fairly thick wooden plies: the upper looks like spruce or pine (may be spruce/pine-based fineline though), and the second ply looks like koto (but not sure). Of course, the blade is stiff, but it has a mid-hard touch. Different rubbers were tried on the FH, but I ended up with Tenergy 64. The blade was bought to use with anti on the BH—it works well with Nittaku Best Anti 1.3.

Short game is good, and a lot of gears are there. Passive blocks and active blocks against not-very-powerful shots can be played easily, varying the ball length and speed of return. Powerful shot blocking needs adjustment and skill (at least with the anti, which I am trying to master and understand).

FH loopdrives are great and powerful; if one wants a more spinnym loop, a more open angle and softer touch are needed.

All in all, a very good blade for a combo playstyle. It also works well with two inverted rubbers, but maybe will not suit loopers, as the dwell time is short and a brush move with high impact will not work—the ball can drop off.

The quality of this blade is outstanding; the weight and balance are very good for a close-to-the-table blocking game.

A balsa core blade with unique playing characteristics. The workmanship is high-quality, and the flared handle is thick and rectangular, providing a comfortable grip.

Physically, the blade has an impressive thickness of over 8mm, of which the balsa core is only 5mm thick. The woods used for the upper plies are fineline (not an actual wood species), which doesn’t seem to be very hard or dense. Its thickness helps provide some feeling and a good touch on slow hits.

The blade is definitely stiff (it produces noticeably high-pitched sound on ball impact with mild vibrations), but the surface is not hard. It may be misleading to rate it as an “allround” blade, as it exhibits high dynamics. For slow ball impacts, there is almost no catapult response from the blade, making it suitable for drop shots and pushes with various lengths. However, the dwell time is at most average.

Adding pace reveals the potential of the thick balsa core, with a steep but gradual increase in response. At higher gears, this blade even enables playing at solid OFF speeds, but a drastic reduction in dwell time is noticeable, meaning that looping ability will depend on the installed rubbers and your wrist technique. Thus, the blade does not really favor looping playing style. When looping with it, expect very flat and long trajectories.

The blade’s top speed is enough for stepping away from the table, but then looping will be even more difficult due to the short dwell time. For players who prefer varying pace suddenly, and win points by fast hits and precise placements (short pips users?), this could be a good blade to try. (My setup only consists of inverted rubbers though, weighing 171g in total out of the box (but three months later, 163g as the balsa core lost water) - I have Victas VJ 07 Stiff max on FH and VJ 07 Limber max on BH. With these rubbers, the blade feels perfectly balanced, and it is easy for my wrists.).