Sanding blade surface + general gluing difficulties

Hi all.

I've had a Stiga Rosewood blade for about 3 years now and over that time I've learnt how to glue table tennis rubbers properly when changing or regluing rubbers!

However a recent issue I've been having is that the rubbers keep having air bubbles underneath and I'm finding it impossible to glue the edges down because they keep peeling off themselves almost immediately after I finish gluing...

I'm not a novice and I use a rolling pin, sponges to spread the glue, etc.

I've tried peeling the dried glue from the sponge to see if that helps (and it does a little bit) but nothing really seems to work. My blade has suddenly stopped wanting to play nice...

The only thing I can think of is that the surface of the blade which is usually covered by the rubber is now quite smooth because of all the times I've applied glue to it and the solution may be to carefully sand the blade surface.

TLDR:

1) Could the build-up of glue on the surface of my blade be causing me issues in gluing rubbers?

2) If so then should I be thinking of carefully sanding my blade surface?

3) If so how should I do it without destroying my blade???

yogi_bear said:

you have to remove the glue residue from the rubber. Also, which glue are you using?

Click to expand...

I've removed the glue residue from the rubber but do I need to remove it from the blade as well? If so, what would be the best way of doing this?