Okay. I think I am going to talk about the reason for bubbles and what is actually happening.
Hopefully this helps you guys understand why there are a couple of factors that can cause bubbling. And how a higher level player may get more bubbling than a lower level player. And also how, boosting can effect bubbling.
So, when they make a sheet of rubber like, say, H3, MXP or any other rubber, the topsheet has to be glued onto the sponge. That is how the topsheet is attached to the sponge. The glue they use to attach the topsheet to the sponge is important. It is similar to the glues we use to attach the sponge to the racket. The factory may use VOC glues to attach the topsheet to the sponge, but it is still a similar kind of glue with a similar kind of bonding. Which also means similar solvents will work on this glue if you wanted to separate the topsheet from the sponge.
Now before we go into boosters, we can talk about bubbles without the need of talking about boosters. One of two things can happen when you get a bubble. If you hit the ball so hard that you break a pimple, or a couple of pimples, you will get a bubble. If you hit the ball so hard that you separate a pimple from the sponge, you will also get a bubble.
A high level player like panany could get bubbles just from how hard he swing on his opening loop. Look at how much spin and arc he gets on some of those opening loops. He is a decently high level player who plays with a lot of impact. If you add the booster into the equation, I imagine that it is quite easy for him to get bubbles or maybe quite hard for him to not get bubbles.
Also, since he is playing at quite a high level, his experience with bubbles may be different than other players who do not get as much force into their impact. So, some of the discussion may be like people talking about two different things and thinking they are talking about the same thing.
Now, lets add details about these boosters. The oils in the boosters all would function well as solvents for the glues we use to glue our rubber to our blade. If you ever felt you were having trouble getting your rubber off of your blade you could put some of that booster (whichever kind) or even mineral oil, onto the area of the sponge that was sticking and, if you waited a few minutes for the oil to sink in, it would soften the glue and help undo the bond.
If you wanted to separate the topsheet from a sponge, applying the booster to the area where the pimples attach to the sponge, and were patient, you would be able to remove the topsheet from the sponge by softening the bonds that attach each separate pimple to the sponge.
When you boost you add the booster oil to the sponge side. But, like a household sponge, the sponge on your rubber will absorb certain things. If you took a household sponge and put it on top of a small spill of water, it would absorb the water. The porous nature of a sponge is designed to do that. If you used the sponge on some oil, it would take longer, but it would absorb it too. With water or oil, that household sponge would expand. With the sponge on your rubber, water or oil will cause it to expand too. Only, water would not give you good playing characteristics because the water would fill the bubbles and it would also damage the wood. But you can test it on an old piece of rubber. If you spread water on the sponge, it will sink in and the sponge will expand. Then when the water evaporated, the sponge would return to its original size.
So, you put the booster on the sponge, and the oil sinks into the sponge and that causes the sponge to expand. Now some booster will get to the side of the sponge where the pimples are. So the glue bond between the pimple and sponge will be a little weaker for a time. If as the oil evaporates, the bond strengthens enough, you may not get bubbles. If you don't use quite as much booster, you may not get as much bubbles. If there is a little glue on the sponge to absorb some of the booster and make the booster take a little longer to get to the sponge, it may make it less likely for you to get bubbles. But if you use a lot of booster and you have good technique and brush hard with deep impact, that will make it much more likely that you separate pimples from sponge and end up with bubbles. Whereas, if you hit hard, but your contact is less tangential and more direct, that will not put as much stress on the bond between the pimples and the sponge.
So, lower level technique will be less likely to cause bubbles than the technique of a higher level player.
However, as far as I am concerned, a process that takes a whole week, like boosting, before you can put your rubber onto your racket is too fussy for me. So I stopped using H3 years ago and use whatever tensor or tenergy like rubber is on my racket at the moment.
Anyway, I hope this information helps you guys understand why a guy like panany has such a different experience with Blue Sponge Bubbling than most of the forum members.
Now I am going to go back and watch few more of panany's opening loops because they are a thing of beauty.
