I accidentally made a Chinese rubber insanely tacky — so I started experimenting

[piligrim]

No, the racket was laying with the effected rubber slightly face down(partly exposed) on a shirt laying on a chair. The side that was facing upwards is long pips.

It because of long pips ))

 

[ejruk]

It because of long pips ))

What?

 

[piligrim]

What?

Other side become tacky

 

[JoeZhendong]

Appreciate your scientific research 😂. I had a 10 year old Hurricane 3 Neo Commercial that I stowed away. I was going through my stuff and found it. I was truly surprised that it was still insanely tacky. It was able to hold the ball for several seconds. All I did was clean it with water, put a film over it and put it inside an opened rubber package and film. I glued it on a blade to see how it played. The topsheet’s tack was still gripping but the sponge was completely dead though lmao. I’m not sure if I threw it away or not. But like you, I’ve been trying to find a tacky yet powerful enough rubber. It’s true that the rubbers now don’t have the same amount of tackiness it use to have. Two sheets of Battle 2 Provincial and National Blue Sponge along with two sheets of H3N Commercial have lost there extreme tack from new. I have a Gambler X3 Diamond Gold Label on my Xiom Hayabusa ZXi and it’s about a year going on two years old and the tackiness is still great. It will pull the ball up maybe stick for a couple seconds depending on how clean it is. I always keep a film over it when not played. I met with the owner of Gambler and the guy helping her run it has X3D on his blade but it was completely non tacky. The lady owner commented about how I kept the film over it and preserving the tackiness, I guess the rubber is supposed to feel much lively after the tackiness wears off?? Well I tried to wear it down but I couldn’t. Yet, I honestly think it plays better with the tackiness. I just put another sheet of X3D gold label on my FZD ALC and I’m really liking it way better than the H3N commercial I had on there. I tried the X3D unboosted but it was lacking, after two layers of haifu seamoon (although Gambler says it doesn’t need it) it plays incredibly better. I’m keeping it on my FZD ALC and see how it continues to play. Definitely try it out. The owner says they have asked the manufacturer to tone down the tackiness, so I may need to do a lifetime buy on the current stock if this one plays out great.

 

[Wakkibatty]

Nice thinking, and ambitious post 👏 i think we could get along quite well and have very interesting discussions


Very valid and interesting factors that you are bringing up with the gases released by wood.
Below is the answers to some of your questions ---->

1. The house is indeed a big old house 4 stories high if you count the attic. The attic is about 170 square meters, it is a non insulated area except for a small apartment on about 25 square meters. The house is located in Sweden. Roof height is about 2,5m in the middle where i have the table set up. So the temperatures can reach about 35-40c in the summer and it cools of quite fast during night time due to the lack of insulation.

2. The house was built 1928, all wood is completely exposed in the attic, no laminated materials or mdf so all solid high quality swedish 1920s spurce. even with the shifting temperatures i am pretty sure that the formaldehyd that the wood once contained is gone since long. When it comes to VOC i assume it is the same thing there, the release declines as 100 years go by? But sure, it could still be possible.

3. There are two small round windows in the attic, the light coming in from them could not have affected the rubber since the rubber layed semi face down on a shirt on top of a chair.

4. Pure Linseed oil is made from flaxseed/linseed, the soap i used is based on pure linseed oil, it does not contain rapeseed. But it is interesting that the treatment with the soap actually seemed to have an effect, and i will explore that further as well

5. Next summer i will try to reproduce this with several different kind of rubbers, i will make sure to update then

Bingo -- that would definitely do it. 😁😁

If the house was built in 1928 and has lots of exposed spruce timber, then the house would quite possibly be made of old-growth, forest grown spruce (if so then also -- niiiiice! 🥰🥰)

Old growth timber has old wood grain -- it's denser, stronger and has tighter growth rings to it, so a greater proportion of the wood is made up of latewood than you see with the younger plantation grown stuff. This means that the terpine count would naturally be a lot higher than with young plantation wood.

Also, there are some timbers that continue to produce terpines as they age -- and IIRC, some types of spruce fall into this category. So that also tracks. Plus old spruce timber beams from 1920 construction would be both bloody huge and very thick... and the thicker a beam of resinous softwood is, the slower it loses its terpenes (this is why the hinok roof beams you see in 600 year old Japanese temples can still smell of D-Limonine centuries after being harvested, as it's still gassing off from the timber.

Being built in a snow-prone country means the attic had a steep roof pitch to shed snow. This creates a narrow and tight but deep roof space, which helps concentrate gaseous volate extractives in the air to higher than normal levels.... just like the pitched roof of a fume tent.

The presence of the window just means that UV radiation can enter the room, and help raise the internal temperature of the air in tbe room, and/or shine directly on the floorboards, encouraging the terpenes in the wood to gass off through raising the wood's temperature. If the sunlight was shining directly on the blade that might have affected its ability to absorb VOCs as the outside of the rubber would harden and become crusty as its own VOCs escaped from its surface. But as you like tacky rubbers I guessed you'd know to keep them out of the sun. Plus it also means you robably wouldn't have set your blade down in a mound of dust. The dust would have reduced the surface area of the rubber, and prevented it from absorbing quite as many VOCs from the surrounding wood.

If the room was hugely humid that would have also prevented some of the terpines from leaving the wood, as moist air doesnt draw so many VOCs out of the timber as dry air would.

Additionally, the presense of the towel (EDIT: shirt sorry) may have had an effect too, as it might have soaked up some if the terpines itself and acted as a bit of a reservoir for them.

The shirt would have a much larger surface area than the rubber which aids absorbing-- plus If it was a cotton shirt then that also fits, as cotton is pure cellulose fibers - it's hugely absorbent stuff and has a predisposition towards sucking up VOCs as well as water.

Did the shirt (or the room itself) have any lingering, piney, timber-like smell to it when you went to collect the blade? If so then its almost a certainty your rubber either absorbed some of the terpines in the air which started dissolving the rubber, or else it became coated with precipitated spruce rosin, which itself is hugely sticky. 😎😎

Only reason I know all this is because as I make my blades from aussie timbers, I have to be very mindful of their terpene content, which can sometimes be quite high.

If i wasnt mindfull of this sort of stuff, a player could conceivably be chucked out of an ITTF tournament for having too many VOCs being emitted from their rubber or blade, through no fault of their own. 😁😁

 

[Tyce]

Bingo -- that would definitely do it. 😁😁

If the house was built in 1928 and has lots of exposed spruce timber, then the house would quite posdibly be made of old-growth, forrest grown spruce (if so then also -- niiiiice! 🥰🥰)

Old growth timber has old wood grain -- it's denser, stronger and would have tighter growth rings than you see with the younger plantation grown stuff. This means that yhe terpine count would naturally be a lot higher than with you g plantation wood.

Also, there are some timbers that continue to produce terpines as they age -- IIRC spruce I think is one of them. So that also tracks.

Being built in a snow-prone country means a steep roof pitch to shed snow. This means a narrow tight roof space, which would helps concentrate gaseous volate extractives in the air to higher than normal levels.

The presense of the window just means that UV radiation can enter the room, and help raise the internal temperature of the air in tbe roo.. this also encourages the wood in the atic to start releasing its natural VOCs into the surrounding air. If the sunlight was shining directly on the blade that might have affected its ability to absorb VOCs as the outside of the rubber would harden and beco e crusty as its own VOCs escaped from its surface.

If the room was hugely humid that would have also prevented some of the terpines from leaving the wood.

Additionally, the presense of the towel may have had an effect, as it might have soaked up some if the terpines itself and acted as a bit of a reservoir for the terpines, as it would have a much larger surface area than the rubber. If it was a cotton towel then that also could ts, as cotton is hugely absorbent stuff.

Did the towel (or the room itself) have a lingering, piney timber-like smell to it when you went to collect the blade? If so then its almost a certainty your rubber either absorbed some of the terpines in the air which started dissolving the rubber, or else it became coated with precipitated spruce rosin, which itself is hugely sticky. 😎😎

This stuff is absolutely gold

 

[Wakkibatty]

This stuff is absolutely gold

Thank you. Nice to know my hopeless timber obsession comes in handy at times for things other than blademaking. 😁😁😁😁