Ahead of “Marty Supreme,” We Met the Makers of Bespoke Table Tennis Blades
Timothée Chalamet has wielded many well-made weapons. A medieval longsword in The King. Dune’s sacred crysknife. Even an axe — that tasty sunburst Stratocaster with which his Bob Dylan went electric. Most recently, however, the actor has been swinging a blade of a different sort: a precision-cut ping-pong paddle.
Marty Supreme, loosely based on the exploits of table tennis champion Marty Reisman, arrives on Christmas Day. And while Chalamet’s take on the character (renamed Marty Mauser for the film) is beguiled by custom balls, the real-life Reisman worked with Indiana craftsman Bernard Hock to create bespoke bats. In a 1977 interview for Sports Illustrated, Reisman even declared Hock “the Stradivarius of bats.”
These days, global brands including Stiga and Butterfly control the paddle market, and materials like carbon fibre have made it harder for artisanal bat-makers to compete. (“Paddle” and “bat” are the common terms; “racket” is rarer; “blade” refers only to the wooden part of the paddle). Yet Hock, who died in 1999, still has his spiritual successors — those who continue to champion custom kit.
“Although not everyone needs a custom bat,” says Michael Schneider, founder of German brand Soulspin. “If you want to play at a certain level, the small details make a big difference. It’s like a runner wearing shoes that don’t fit — you can run with them, but you won’t perform well.”
A bespoke paddle can even help offset weaker technique, says Schneider, particularly when it’s tailored to a player’s specific game. “It’s the same with handles,” he adds. “Some people have large hands, others small — yet all grips are almost the same.”
But we’re jumping several sets ahead here. Shape and ergonomics may matter, but the bespoke process starts with selecting the right woods. Paul Keith, founder of Wood Nut Blades, explains that these timbers — which include rarer options such as African coralwood, purpleheart wood, and black walnut — are “the most important part of blade-making. And, from the inner core to the outer veneer, there are a multitude of combinations which will make the blade play fast or slow.”
This is determined largely by a wood’s hardness, which is measured using the Janka Scale. Balsa is soft, sycamore firmer, mahogany even stiffer still — and each wood gifts a paddle its own unique flair and fortes. Róbert Palatinus, who runs a blade-making studio in Hungary, crafts his blades from both common and rarer woods.
“Walnut, for example, adds wonderful dynamics to a blade,” Palatinus explains, “and mahogany brings a slightly crisper, more vibrant sensation upon contact. We often use exotic woods because their naturally open pores make them lighter and more responsive.”
Despite the continued appeal of custom paddles, there is no single “textbook on blade-making,” Palatinus says. “The craft relies on experimentation,” he adds, “and on feedback from elite players. But the continuous search for refinement is what keeps it alive and, for me, endlessly inspiring”.
Marty Reisman was similarly enchanted by the craft. In his Sports Illustrated profile, Reisman revealed that while foam-layered “sandwich bats” were starting to emerge, he remained content with his simple Hock Special. Times change, however, as Will Kazez of Lucky Dog Custom Blades points out. “Back in Reisman’s day, they’d glue a single sheet of rubber on the flat side of the blade, pips facing out. Now, a piece of rubber consists of a piece of sponge, allowing the ball to sink in slightly and giving it vastly more spin than was possible before.”
Some blades, Kazez adds, are softer and slower, built for heavy spin. Others are stiffer, suited to fast, close-to-the-table counterpunching. To achieve these distinct qualities, he says each bespoke build is “essentially precision plywood engineering,” beginning with the selection and thickness of woods for the standard five- or seven-ply paddle construction.
From this near-infinite set of choices, Soulspin’s Michael Schneider says the process follows a similar path across builds. “We start by cutting veneers from a raw block of wood, and each veneer is dried for 24 hours to remove its residual moisture. Then, depending on the model, we glue several veneers of different thicknesses together to form a ‘blank,’ from which we’ll later mill the bat.”
“After gluing,” he continues, “the blanks are left to dry and harden for several days. We also build blanks for the handles, in varying colours depending on the design. Once these parts are ready, the blade and handles are milled out, the two handle parts glued to the blade, and it’s left to dry overnight.”
Then comes the hand-finishing and polishing, Schneider’s favourite part of the process. Each artisan has their own high point, and each views the craft itself differently. Paul Keith equates it to making pool cues. Will Kazez places it somewhere between fine cabinetmaking and the building of musical instruments: “You’re doing very exact woodworking with laminations, joints, and finishes, but it all exists in the service of feel, feedback, and performance in the player’s hand.”
Soulspin actually sources some of its wood — notably spruce — from musical instrument suppliers. And Róbert Palatinus takes the musical metaphor one step further, having studied violin- and bow-making to learn traditional gluing and finishing techniques. “Two blades may look similar, yet their inner properties can differ as distinctly as the voices of two instruments,” he explains. “Finding the right one allows a player to feel a natural rhythm and confidence in every stroke. When this harmony is achieved, the blade truly becomes an extension of the hand.”
They may not be the Fender or Gibson guitars that earned Chalamet his last Oscar nomination, then, but the influence of Marty Reisman and Bernard Hock remains evident in every bespoke blade made today. Marty Supreme simply serves as a reminder that, behind the sport’s speed and spin, table tennis is still shaped by hand.
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