Reuse the paddle from a premade bat to make a custom bat

Thank Alois Rosario, this answer helps.

I was planning to put Yasaka Mark V rubber on forehand and Yasaka phantom rubber on the backhand. The paddle is very light weight, will it affect the performance of rubber.

The softer wood will slow the ball down a bit but depends on how fast you want the bat to be.

Thanks for your advice.

I did this and it worked well, but i couldn't remove all the premade sponge, which caused problems every time I changed rubbers

On the other hand, good brand new blades can be found for less than the price of a single rubber, and a blade lasts for years and years if handled carefully, while rubbers wear out in a year max. So I always think that the blade is not where you should try to spend less. Unless you use really cheap Chinese rubbers maybe. I also often buy second hand blades, which are sometimes like new for half the original price.

Hi Johan,

If you do have excess sponge use a solvent like Mineral turpentine to soften it and then it will come off easily.  You can also use a fine gripper or sandpaper.

Yeah, I used sandpaper, but the wood had become really intertwined with the sponge. I managed to sandpaper it down to a nice flat surface, but the new sponge grabbed on harder to the old sponge patches than to the pure wood parts, so new rubbers would tend to break when I took them off.

I use lighter fluid, I put a little bit on a small area let it dry for about 10 seconds then scrape off the sponge and wipe the excess with a tissue. I also use it to get the glue off the back of the rubber by doing the same as I do with the blade except I rub the glue off with my thumb. Don't rub the glue when the rubber is lying on a table etc because this will wreck the playing side, hold it in one hand and rub the glue with the other hand.

Today for the first time I tried to remove the ruined rubbers from a cheap training bat from my club, to put some decent second hand rubbers on it and put it back in service. The sponge was very brittle and would come off only in very small bits. After trying several techniques, what worked best was to use a small spatula (about 1.5 inches wide). Once you get a good starting point, it works well if you take your time and don't push too hard in one time. That got rid of about 90% of the sponge, leaving only a very thin layer of it. To get rid of that, I tried Acetone, which is a very strong solvent normally, but it worked quite poorly and it took me ages to clean not even one half of one side. Then I tried "Solvent F" ("Essence F" in French), and after letting it soak in for less than a minute, I could rub off all of the remaining sponge very easily and rapidly. I would never have thought that it could work so well. No need for any sandpaper. At least for this particular bat I worked on. Use a disposable cloth though, and read the safety instructions on the solvent bottle.