Does glue affect racket performance ? Strange problem…

[returnee]

Hi everyone,
I've been reading the forum for a long time, but this is my first time posting.

I’m still an active player at 58 years old. In our local club, which competes in the third division of our country, I’m more or less the guy who glues rubbers for most teammates and friends. For the past 7 years we’ve been using only Revolution No. 3 (normal viscosity), and we’ve never had any complaints or strange behavior reported by any of the players. Some players re-glue every 4–5 months, some even more often. No one ever felt that their racket behaved differently after a fresh re-glue. The only thing that sometimes happens is that the racket is maybe 5% faster in the first couple of days — which is normal.
Before applying fresh glue, I always carefully remove the previous layers. In 90% of cases, I apply two layers of glue on the blade and two on the rubber.

About 15 days ago we ran out of Revolution No. 3, so we bought a small bottle of DHS No.15, just enough to re-glue two MX-P rubbers on a Timo Boll ALC (85g) blade. The rubbers are 6 months old and the young player will replace them soon anyway.
By coincidence, I tested his racket the day before re-gluing. Everything felt excellent — great touch, superb control, minimal and very pleasant vibration. Every time I had used his racket before, I loved it; it felt like an extension of my own hand.

This DHS glue is noticeably thicker than Revolution No. 3 — I noticed that immediately. I first tested it on an old rubber to see how it spreads and dries, and then proceeded to glue his actual rubbers: one layer on the blade, two on each rubber.

He took the racket to the evening practice, and afterwards he messaged me saying that the racket doesn’t feel the same at all.
He said: much less control, noticeably higher speed, and most importantly — a new, annoying vibration
Even the sound when bouncing the ball was different — both on the rubber and during play. Let me emphasize that this is a very talented young player, who has been using this exact setup for years and knows his equipment extremely well.

Next day I tested it myself

And honestly… he was right about everything.

The sound was no longer that short, crisp “click” with a gentle pleasant vibration. Instead, it became a deeper, almost “drum-like” sound with a kind of resonance. I’m not even sure how to describe it properly.On service receive, it became much harder to keep the ball short and low — everything was bouncing higher, and overall control was significantly reduced.It also felt like the whole setup had about 10–15% higher arc when looping. All in all, everything maybe could be tolerated, but this unpleasant vibration was bothering both him and me a lot.

We still don’t have Revolution No. 3 to re-glue and compare…
Can the glue alone really change the entire character of the racket this much?
Has anyone experienced something similar?
Does anyone know what could be causing this?

Thanks in advance.

 

[plunder]

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[Scarfed Garchomp]

I've found different glues do give different feeling. Consistent to your findings, I felt gluing with thinner consistency glues tends to give a more muted and crisper response. Thicker glues like Nittaku Finezip, DHS No.15 give a softer and bouncier feeling especially with increased layers. The time you let each layer dry can also have an effect on the feeling of the glue job, I feel that longer wait time decreases the soft and 'wobbly' feeling

 

[returnee]

Thanks for the replies so far. You’re probably right, and maybe I’ve also gotten too used to Revolution since I’ve been using it for years. DHS #15 is almost impossible to apply in a really thin layer because it’s so much thicker.
As for drying, I rarely let the glue dry completely on its own — I always help it a little with a hair dryer on low power. But I keep the dryer more than 50 cm away from the sponge.
None of this would probably even be noticeable if it wasn’t for a genuinely good young player with excellent touch and feeling for the racket.... By the way, DHS #15 also peels off the sponge very easily, but only if there are at least two layers.

 

[BlopChock]

I've found different glues do give different feeling. Consistent to your findings, I felt gluing with thinner consistency glues tends to give a more muted and crisper response. Thicker glues like Nittaku Finezip, DHS No.15 give a softer and bouncier feeling especially with increased layers. The time you let each layer dry can also have an effect on the feeling of the glue job, I feel that longer wait time decreases the soft and 'wobbly' feeling

Yep. Check out this thread and video by Victor Moraga from a few years ago for another discussion on glue differences:

https://www.tabletennisdaily.com/forum/topics/table-tennis-tips-a-better-feeling-with-the-ball.27321/

 

[ttarc]

You could try thinning the glue with a bit of tap water. That's what I ended up doing when I tried to use such thick glues instead of Revolution.
Drying: Still sometimes air drying but usually hair dryer. Makes no difference for me.
Rubbers: MX-P and other ESN rubbers usually shrink a bit (factory booster vanishes). To get such a rubber back to its original cut size I usually boost it a bit instead of stretching it when gluing. Much more consistent results especially when stretching a lot (we tried many things in the speed glue era ). Stretching could explain the higher arc and speed/less control.

 

[qylw]

Yep. Check out this thread and video by Victor Moraga from a few years ago for another discussion on glue differences:

https://www.tabletennisdaily.com/forum/topics/table-tennis-tips-a-better-feeling-with-the-ball.27321/

I was going to post that too.
Additionally: you can try to mix glues: 1 layer of dhs 15 and two of rev. 3 to get different effects

 

[returnee]

Okay, thanks everyone. Our shipment of Revolution glue should arrive in about 15 days. In the meantime I’ll try thinning DHS 15 a little with distilled water, re-glue the racket, and then share some feedback.
Another thing I’ve been thinking about is that the MX-P rubbers may have already lost most of their factory booster (they’ve been used for quite a long time), so the issue might not be only the glue, but also the current condition of the sponge.
Maybe it’s a combination of everything, which could explain why the racket suddenly feels so different.
Still, when I removed the rubbers, completely cleaned off the old Revolution layers, the sheets were perfectly flat, and they had shrunk by no more than about 1 mm compared to their original size when cut from the factory square. So nothing unusual there.

I have one more question. We have never boosted inverted rubbers in our club — nobody here uses boosters like Haifu, Falco, etc. I recently read a bit about it, so I’m wondering: would it be okay to apply a very thin layer of baby oil to the sponge on these old MX-P rubbers and let it dry completely?

 

[Scarfed Garchomp]

Baby oil really only makes the rubber slightly softer, the tension and the increase in elasticity from baby oil is not so comparable to a true booster even like Falco, it might give a little life back to the rubber but not for long. Though if the rubbers are going to be replaced soon anyways, I don't see any harm in conducting a little experiment

 

[returnee]

In the meantime I removed the rubbers from that racket (Timo Boll ALC + two MX-P). I peeled off the DHS glue very easily, almost in one single piece. I even measured the weight of the dried glue “balls”, and was a bit surprised — each one weighed around 4 grams. I’ve never measured glue weight before, but that seems quite heavy to me. I diluted the DHS glue, so that in a total of 50 ml of glue I added 10% distilled water (5 ml) ... 45ml glue + 5ml water = 50ml. The viscosity is now much better, and I think it’s very close to the consistency of Revolution 3 Normal. I re-glued the rubbers using one thin layer on the blade and one thin layer on the sponge. It’s a lot easier to work with now. The weight difference between a clean rubber (no glue) and the same rubber after the glue dried was only 1 gram — I measured that on a digital scale before mounting them. We’ll see how it plays later today when we go to the hall to test it. I’ll report back…

 

[rbtitco]

Okay, thanks everyone. Our shipment of Revolution glue should arrive in about 15 days. In the meantime I’ll try thinning DHS 15 a little with distilled water, re-glue the racket, and then share some feedback.
Another thing I’ve been thinking about is that the MX-P rubbers may have already lost most of their factory booster (they’ve been used for quite a long time), so the issue might not be only the glue, but also the current condition of the sponge.
Maybe it’s a combination of everything, which could explain why the racket suddenly feels so different.
Still, when I removed the rubbers, completely cleaned off the old Revolution layers, the sheets were perfectly flat, and they had shrunk by no more than about 1 mm compared to their original size when cut from the factory square. So nothing unusual there.

I have one more question. We have never boosted inverted rubbers in our club — nobody here uses boosters like Haifu, Falco, etc. I recently read a bit about it, so I’m wondering: would it be okay to apply a very thin layer of baby oil to the sponge on these old MX-P rubbers and let it dry completely?

Igor will hunt you down and attack. If you arexprepared for this possibility you can proceed with boosting.

 

[MORTtheORT]

I am not sure if it is mental or not with different glues but I would assume you are more likely to notice any difference in the first few session. I use DHS No15, each layers has to be thin IMO. I put 3ml down per layer to maintain consistency across my glueing.

 

[K.K]

i worked with different glues on the same rubbers and there is definitely a difference. as somebody mentioned the thinner smelly glues like revolution make the rubber softer and sometimes a bit faster. the thicker glues like nittaku, dhs and the new glues by andro and tibhar (pro glu/ power glu) give the rubber more elasticity and a deeper sound, a bit of a thock. then there are the old glues that don't give any special feeling (donic vario, butterfly freechack, etc.) but they are super hard or even impossible to remove.

an amazing glue i found and will use now till it is no longer available is the chinese glue sueke no.2. i got it as an recommendation here on the forum and it is just amazing. does not alter the feeling, is thick enough to spread it evenly without drying to fast, holds on the blade really well even with boosted rubbers and sealed blade, but is still easy to remove from the sponge.

 

[Syyynd]

i worked with different glues on the same rubbers and there is definitely a difference. as somebody mentioned the thinner smelly glues like revolution make the rubber softer and sometimes a bit faster. the thicker glues like nittaku, dhs and the new glues by andro and tibhar (pro glu/ power glu) give the rubber more elasticity and a deeper sound, a bit of a thock. then there are the old glues that don't give any special feeling (donic vario, butterfly freechack, etc.) but they are super hard or even impossible to remove.

an amazing glue i found and will use now till it is no longer available is the chinese glue sueke no.2. i got it as an recommendation here on the forum and it is just amazing. does not alter the feeling, is thick enough to spread it evenly without drying to fast, holds on the blade really well even with boosted rubbers and sealed blade, but is still easy to remove from the sponge.

Hello, I would like to test sueke no2 instead of revolution no3 normal, since you live in Germany, how do you acquire sueke no2?
Of the two sellers that I find on Aliexpress, the first store "Dreiser Good Sporting Store" does not ship to Sweden and the other store "happy every year sporting store" claim to have 954 items in stock but at the same time the shop says "sorry this item is no longer available" and you can't add it to the cart only choose find similar.

OnT: I don't know if the feeling is placebo or real between revolution no3 and freechalk 2 pro, if there is a difference it would be very small in my opinion, but it is for sure a lot easier to remove revolution no3 then freechalk from the sponge.

 

[K.K]

Hello, I would like to test sueke no2 instead of revolution no3 normal, since you live in Germany, how do you acquire sueke no2?
Of the two sellers that I find on Aliexpress, the first store "Dreiser Good Sporting Store" does not ship to Sweden and the other store "happy every year sporting store" claim to have 954 items in stock but at the same time the shop says "sorry this item is no longer available" and you can't add it to the cart only choose find similar.

OnT: I don't know if the feeling is placebo or real between revolution no3 and freechalk 2 pro, if there is a difference it would be very small in my opinion, but it is for sure a lot easier to remove revolution no3 then freechalk from the sponge.

you can try suke instead of sueke, it is nearly the same glue but easier to get

 

[returnee]

Just wanted to share some impressions from last night’s testing session at our club.
Using a smaller amount of DHS 15 glue and applying very thin layers (1 on the blade + 1 on the sponge) calmed down the Timo Boll ALC + 2 × MX-P setup quite a lot. The racket now has less vibration, and the ball trajectory is lower (less catapult). Both my young club teammate and I tested it. His opinion is more relevant, of course, since he has been playing with this combination for a long time. He said the control is now much better and the vibration is at an acceptable level.

As for my overall impression… I think this whole issue was caused by a combination of two factors.
First — the rubbers somehow lost part of their original sponge characteristics (probably due to the factory booster fading over time, and also because removing the old Revolution glue slightly changed the size/shape of the rubber. With Revolution on, the rubbers were still in their original size from the first cut, but after peeling the glue off, they shrank a little).
Second — the viscosity of the new glue definitely contributed as well, being much thicker and heavier than the previous one.

Most likely, even without re-gluing with the thinned glue, everything would eventually return to normal after some time and a few solid training sessions — the young player would gradually regain the same level of control. But if he had played an official tournament immediately after the first glue job with thick layers of DHS 15, he might have had real problems because the feel was noticeably different.

This is just my personal opinion — maybe I wouldn’t have even noticed all of this if he hadn’t pointed it out to me.