boosting .. when again

[pedro.dantas]

I play ~12h/week and use normal Haifu Seamoon. In my experience, it takes around a month for the reduction in the booster's effect to become noticeable enough to make me consider reboosting. It is definitely a gradual process, but at some point the signs become too obvious to ignore:

- Looping underspin becomes more difficult, and more shots go into the net.
- The same usual mechanics yield lower-quality shots, and you have to hit extra hard for the shot to feel right and produce a "click" sound.
- You simply feel less kick/catapult effect from the rubber, and short swings become less and less viable.
- I tend to leave a bit of overhang so that re-aligning the rubber doesn't become too difficult when I re-glue. As the booster evaporates, it appears to me that the rubber somewhat shrinks (even before peeling it off!) and the overhang looks smaller than before.

I also find myself way more sensitive to changes in the rubber's playing properties on the BH side compared to FH. I'm quite a big-hitter with my FH, so I have less trouble producing high-quality shots even with a barely boosted rubber. BH is a different story though — especially on softer inner carbon blades — and thus I feel like I have to rely more on the rubber for that extra zip. Sometimes I would leave the FH rubber on the blade, and just reboost the BH side.

So you reboost every month?

 

[BlueInGreen]

So you reboost every month?

Yes, pretty much. I try to persevere and stretch it to around 2 months for the sake of not decreasing the rubber's lifespan too much, but it's an extremely difficult temptation to resist. 😄

In practice I tend to do a light reboost every ~40 days, just one thin layer though.