KTS (Kim Taek Soo) is the table tennis brand managed by T-Mount which is a Korean company. T-Mount has its own blade factory, and is producing high-class products among KTS blades in-house. ‘Core ALC’ which is the flagship model of KTS is also the in-house products of KTS (T-Mount).

KTS is explaining that ‘Core ALC’ is produced through special drying process for the enhancement of hitting feeling and has been developed through the testing by the legendary player (currently the chief coach of a top Korean team) – Kim Taek Soo. It is an inner-fiber blade whose artificial material is ALC woven from Arylate fiber and Carbon fiber.

‘Core ALC’ is the flagship and the bestseller blade of KTS. Its graphic design has been changed several times, and the recent version has black printing on the head. Above picture shows FL (flared) handle version.

ST (straight) handle is also available.

‘Core ALC’ is an inner-fiber blade whose artificial layer is placed between the middle layer and the center layer. Artificial fiber is ALC as its name indicates. The top layer is Limba, the middle layer is Ayous, and the center layer is also Ayous. Overall thickness is around 5.8mm.

The size of head is around 157mm x 150mm.

One of the biggest features of KTS blades is the shape of the handle. This FL handle is completely flat on the top and bottom, and doesn’t has bulged section between the root section and the narrowest section. The width of FL handle is around 25.3mm at the narrowest section, and around 34mm at the end. The thickness of handle is around 22mm at thumb, and around 24~25mm at the end. The unique FL handle whose top and bottom are completely flat reminds us the handle of old Butterfly blades such as Gergely, although the FL handle of ‘Core ALC’ is rounded at the edge differently from that of ‘Gergely’.

The ST handle is also somewhat squared and is almost flat on the top and bottom. Its width is around 28mm, and its thickness is around 23mm.

Aluminum name plate is applied for both sides of handle. Foreside plate (right) incudes KTS logo, and backside plate (left) includes the name of blade with ‘IN’ which indicates that this is an inner-fiber blade.

Aluminum logo plate that includes KTS logo is applied at the end of handle.

The information of blade is printed on the foreside of head in black color.

The information on brand and company is printed on the backside of head.

Left is FL handle version and right is ST handle version.

Following are the performance indices of KTS Core ALC (avg.weight = 89.9g) :

– Ep = 1.69

– Ec = 1.54 (Ec/Ep = 0.91)

– Vp = 1.16

– Vl = 1.21 (Vl/Vp = 1.04)

Please note that above are average values and can be updated by further measurement.

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