‘Foundation’ series is a new blade family of KTS (Kim Taek Soo) which is the Korean table tennis brand. It is positioned between the two blades families of KTS – high-end ‘Problade’ series for professional or highly skilled players and entry-level ‘Ngineered’ series for entry ~ middle class players. The concept of newly added ‘Foundation’ series is to provide professional class blades like ‘Problade’ series at a reasonable price close to that of ‘Ngineered’ series. ‘Foundation’ series consists of four fiber blades, and among those four three models – ‘Foundation ALC’, ‘Foundation GF.K’ and ‘Foundation GF.K Ebony Special’ – were first released in October 2024. And ‘Founcation AMC’ which is the fastest model in the series is released in January 2025.

‘Foundation ALC’ is an outer-type blade whose artificial material is ALC (= Arylate Carbon). It is one of the ‘Viscaria-type’ blade, and provides high ability of topspin and high level of balance at the same time. KTS is explaining that ‘Foundation ALC’ provides improved convenience of performing spin-oriented technics when compared with existing outer-ALC blades in the market. Among the first announced three models in the same family, ‘Foundation ALC’ is the fastest model. It is more elastic than ‘Foundation GF.K’ or ‘Foundation GF.K Ebony special’.

‘Foundation ALC’ is a fiber blade whose artificial material is Arylate Carbon (= ALC). It lays emphasis on the power and the balance of attack by topspin. Four models in ‘Foundation’ series share the same graphic design, and each model is distinguished by the point color of the handle wood block and the head printing. The theme color of ‘Foundation ALC’ is dark blue.

‘Foundation ALC’ is an outer-type fiber blade of 5+2 ply construction. The top layer is Koto, the middle layer is Ayous, and the center layer is Kiri. Arylate Carbon is inserted directly under the top layer. Overall thickness is around 5.6mm. This construction look very similar to that of ‘Problade Fury KC’ which is another model in KTS blade range. But, the actual playing characteristics of ‘Foundation ALC’ is totally different from that of ‘Problade Fury KC’.

The size of head is around 157mm x 150mm. There can be small differences by piece.

This FL handle is completely flat on the top and bottom, and it doesn’t have bulged section between the root section and the narrowest section. The width of FL handle is around 27mm (at top) ~ 26mm (at narrowest section) ~ 34mm (at the end), and the thickness of handle is around 22mm (at thumb) ~ 23.5mm (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’ or ‘Primorac Carbon’, although the FL handle of KTS blade is rounded at the edge differently from that of ‘Gergely’. Although this FL handle isn’t a wide or semi-wide handle, it provides quite good stability thanks to the flat top and bottom.

The Tiger Face ‘金擇洙(Kim Taeksoo)’ logo which is also applied to the top blade family – ‘Problade’ series – is printed on the top of the foreside of blade head. And, on the bottom of blade head, the logo of ‘Foundation’ series, the name of blade model, the name of artificial fiber, the construction and speed sign (= OFF) are printed. In the standard of KTS, the speed sign ‘OFF’ means that the blades is for offensive play by topspin, and the speed sign ‘OFF+’ means that the blade lays emphasis on speed.

The aluminum plate that includes the Tiger Face ‘金擇洙(Kim Taeksoo)’ logo is applied at both sides of handle.

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

The printing and the aluminum panel are applied also at the backside. Because the backside of handle is same as the foreside of handle, we can’t tell the foreside from the backside when the rubbers are attached on the head.

On the backside of head, the information on brand and company is printed at top, and the kind of artificial material and the name of series are printed at bottom.

The first announced three models in ‘Foundation’ series are optimized for the offensive strategy by topspin. KTS is writing the speed sign ‘OFF’ for this kind of blades.

‘Foundation ALC’ (left) which is the outer ALC blade with Koto top layer is the most elastic among three models released in 2024. ‘Foundation GF.K’ (middle) which is the outer glass fiber blade with Koto top layer provide moderate elasticity. ‘Foundation GF.K Ebony Special’ (right) which is also called as ‘Foundation Ebony’ is an inner glass fiber blade with Ebony top layer. ‘Foundation GF.K Ebony Special’ is the least elastic among three. But, it provides greatly enhanced stability of very aggressive topspin

‘Foundation GF.K (left) and ‘Foundation ALC’ (right) are outer-type fiber blades whose artificial fibers are placed directly under the top layers.

From above pictures, we can observe that the blade constructions of two models – ‘Foundation GF.K (left) and ‘Foundation ALC’ (right) are similar to each other. Top layer is Koto, middle layer is Ayous, and the cetner layer is Kiri. The difference between two models is in the kind of artificial fiber – Glass Fiber and Arylate Carbon as the 2nd names of those two models indicate.

Both of two models – ‘Foundation GF.K (left) and ‘Foundation ALC’ (right) pursue the ease of spin-oriented offensive technics. ‘Foundation ALC’ provides higher elasticity for the players who lay more emphasis on the power of topspin, while ‘Foundation GF.K’ provides a bit lower elasticity for more control-oriented topspin strategy. (‘Foundation ALC’ provides similar elasticity level as many outer-ALC blades for example ‘Viscaria’ or ‘Fan Zhendong ALC’, while ‘Foundation GF.K’ provides similar elasticity level as many non-carbon outer-type blades such as ‘Timo Boll ZLF’ or ‘Hugo HAL’.)

‘Foundation ALC’ is a well-balanced offensive blade that provides both of high power and good control at the same time. It is a kind of typical outer-ALC blade with Koto top layer whose construction is like that of Butterfly ‘Viscaria’. But, according to KTS, ‘Foundation ALC’ provides higher level of convenience in performing spin-oriented technics. And, we can also expect that kind of characteristics from measured Performance Indices. . ‘Foundation ALC’ is recommended for most of the offensive players who play mainly with topspin.

Following are the performance indices of KTS Foundation ALC (avg.weight = 85.7g) :

– Ep = 1.77

– Ec = 1.58 (Ec/Ep = 0.89)

– Vp = 1.20

– Vl = 1.30 (Vl/Vp = 1.08)

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

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