Butterfly Blades

Butterfly table tennis blades — the frame a custom racket is built on, including the Innerforce series, the Timo Boll line and Viscaria. Buy one once and keep it; the rubbers glued to it get replaced as they wear, not the blade.

Butterfly rates blades on reaction and vibration, not on a speed-and-control opinion scale, so read the numbers that way. Reaction is how hard the blade throws the ball back; vibration is how much feedback reaches your hand, which is what players mean by "feel". A higher reaction number means faster, not better — don't assume the top of the range suits you best.

The fibre in the name is the actual specification, so read it before the model name. ALC (arylate-carbon) balances speed with a forgiving feel; ZLC (Zylon carbon) is faster and stiffer; Super ALC and Super ZLC are the higher-stiffness versions of each; CNF and CAF use natural and carbon-aramid fibre for a softer response. An all-wood blade names no fibre at all and gives you the most direct feedback of the range.

Where the fibre sits matters as much as which fibre it is. An Innerforce blade carries its fibre layer next to the core, which keeps a wood-like feel on soft touch and adds power on hard strokes — a good compromise if you don't want to trade away feel for speed. An outer-fibre blade puts the layer directly beneath the rubber for a more immediate, faster response, which suits a more committed offensive style.

Handle shape is a variant, not a different blade — flared (FL) widens toward the base, straight (ST) is even along its length, anatomic (AN) is contoured to the palm. Pick by hand feel rather than by habit.