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

[NetProphet]

Hey all!

Pretty new player here — I've been playing for about a year or so.

I fell very much in love with the sport, but with kids and work I don't have the possibility to play as much as I'd like. I tend to satisfy my urges by spending way too much time on forums, reading up on equipment, watching videos and ordering shit from the internet 🙃

I also have a robot at home that I practice with.

Anyway, enough about me. Let's get to the point.

The mystery​

According to what I've been reading online, it seems like a lot of Chinese rubbers used to be considerably tackier just a few years ago, and then... something happened?

I've been searching for a really tacky forehand rubber and ordered several rubbers that I had read were supposed to be notoriously tacky.

To my disappointment, none of the ones I've tried have been nearly as tacky as some older reviews and forum posts describe them.

I've still found some very nice rubbers, and I fully understand that a rubber can produce great spin without being extremely tacky. But I was curious about the tackiness itself.

Then something strange happened.

During the summer I accidentally left my blade in the attic, where I have my robot, for about a week.

There is lots of dust up there and the temperature fluctuates quite heavily — things that, according to common sense, should probably be bad for a rubber.

But when I picked up the racket again, the rubber had become insanely tacky.

It wouldn't drop a ball at all when I held the racket upside down.

And when I played with it, it was a beast.

I couldn't let this go.

Something had clearly changed, but I had no idea what.

My best theory was the prolonged exposure to high daytime temperatures followed by lower temperatures at night, perhaps combined with condensation forming and drying repeatedly.

Unfortunately, summer is over here now, so I can't reproduce the exact attic conditions 1:1.

So naturally, instead of forgetting about it like a normal person, I bought more rubber and started experimenting.

The experiment​

I bought two more sheets of the same rubber and two sheets of commercial Hurricane 3, cut them into test pieces and started exposing them to pretty much everything I could think of.

I dug through forums looking for "established" methods people claim can restore or increase tackiness. I also read about rubber as a material in general — how it reacts to different substances, environmental exposure and ageing.

And then I added a few things that I fully expected to have a negative effect, simply because I was curious.

The two rubbers used were:

Rubber 1: Giant Dragon Submarine
Rubber 2: DHS Hurricane 3 Commercial

I limited the experiment to these two because Submarine was the rubber involved in the original attic incident, while H3 gave me a well-known Chinese rubber as a second reference.

A big disclaimer about the testing​

This was never intended to be a scientific experiment.

I originally did this purely to satisfy my own curiosity, so the evaluation method is admittedly sketchy.

I tested tack mainly by pressing a clean ball against each sample and lifting it, as well as pressing and rolling the ball against the surface to get a subjective feel for the tackiness.

In an ideal world I would have used many identical sheets mounted on blades, controlled pressure and proper timed ball-lift tests.

I didn't.

So treat small differences — especially anything marked with (?) — as subjective observations rather than hard measurements.

Basic procedure​

For the substance tests I generally used the following procedure:

Apply substance → let sit/dry for 2–3 hours → initial tack test → gently wash with a water-soaked towel → let dry → second tack test

The post-wash result was the part I was most interested in, since simply leaving an oily or sticky substance on the surface obviously doesn't necessarily mean the rubber itself has changed.

---

Substance exposure​

Glycerin ☹️​

Rubber 1 — Submarine

• Noticeable softening of the rubber itself.
• No tack at all before washing.
• After washing: slightly less tacky than the untreated rubber.

Rubber 2 — H3

• Minor softening.
• No tack before washing.
• After washing: slightly less tacky than untreated.

Result: No tack-enhancing effect. If anything, slightly negative.

---

Olive oil 😌​

Rubber 1

• Increased tack before washing.
• After washing: approximately back to original tack.

Rubber 2

• Increased tack before washing.
• After washing: possibly slightly tackier than original (?).

Result: Temporary increase, but little convincing evidence of a lasting effect.

---

Sunflower oil 😌​

Rubber 1

• Essentially the same result as olive oil.

Rubber 2

• Similar to olive oil before washing.
• No noticeable increase after washing (?).

Result: Mostly temporary surface tack.

---

Lemon oil 😖​

Rubber 1

• Slippery before washing.
• Still slippery after washing.

Rubber 2

• Slippery before washing.
• Still slippery after washing.

Result: Bad.

---

Linseed oil 😌​

Rubber 1

• Did not really dry.
• Possible minor increase in tack after washing (?).

Rubber 2

• Did not dry.
• No noticeable increase after washing.

Result: Inconclusive and messy.

---

Linseed oil soap 🙂​

Rubber 1

• Slippery before washing.
• Noticeable increase in tack after washing.

Rubber 2

• Slippery before washing.
• Minor increase in tack after washing.

Result: Surprisingly interesting, particularly on Submarine.

---

Hand soap 😞​

Rubber 1

• Possibly a very small decrease in tack after washing (?).

Rubber 2

• Possibly a very small decrease in tack after washing (?).

Result: Basically nothing useful.

---

Dishwashing liquid 🙃​

Rubber 1

• No noticeable difference after washing.

Rubber 2

• No noticeable difference after washing.

Result: No effect.

---

Hand disinfectant 😫​

Rubber 1

• Rubber ruined.

Rubber 2

• Rubber ruined.

Result: Well... don't do that.

---

Nail polish remover 😫​

Rubber 1

• Rubber ruined.

Rubber 2

• Rubber ruined.

Result: Also don't do that.

---

Bleach 😫​

Rubber 1

• Rubber became slightly stiffer.
• No improvement in tack.
• Might have longer-term effects, and I doubt they are positive.

Rubber 2

• No obvious change in stiffness.
• Possible minor decrease in tack (?).
• Again, possible longer-term effects.

Result: Nothing good happened.

---

Regular Stiga rubber cleaner 🙃​

Rubber 1

• No noticeable difference after one cleaning.

Rubber 2

• No noticeable difference after one cleaning.

This says nothing about the effects of repeated long-term use.

---

Revolution No. 3 Bio Cleaner & Rejuvenator 🙃​

Rubber 1

• No noticeable difference after one treatment.

Rubber 2

• No noticeable difference after one treatment.

---

Water 🙃​

Rubber 1

• No difference after one wash/exposure.

Rubber 2

• No difference after one wash/exposure.

---

And then there was sweat... 🙂​

This one surprised me.

Rubber 1 — Submarine

• Increased tack before washing.
• Retained increased tack after gentle wash.

Rubber 2 — H3

• Smaller effect than on Submarine.
• Minor increase in tack both before and after washing.

I reproduced this several times, and it actually seems to work.

Even more interestingly, the effect seems to become stronger when the process is repeated.

Submarine responds faster and more strongly than H3.

However, the effect does not appear to long term permanent. If I stop doing it and simply clean the rubber with water over the following sessions, the tack gradually returns to normal.

So far, this has been the most interesting and reproducible result of the experiment.

I don't know why it happens, and I'm not claiming that "sweat rejuvenates Chinese rubber". There are several possible factors involved in sweat, and my testing method isn't good enough to isolate them.

But the effect itself has been repeatable enough that I don't think I'm imagining it.

---

Environmental exposure​

I also tried several non-chemical/environmental treatments.

Heat — 50°C oven for 24 hours​

Result: No noticeable effect (!)

This surprised me considering the original attic incident.

Steam/mist from boiling water​

Result: No noticeable effect.

Refrigerator — approximately 5–6°C​

Result: No noticeable effect.

Freezer — below 0°C​

Result: Rubber became hard while cold. Obviously.

Once it returned to room temperature, I couldn't detect any short-term change in tack.

Dust — one week​

Before washing: Huge decrease in tack.

After washing: Back to approximately the original level.

Result: Dust itself doesn't seem to explain the attic rubber.

Sunlight — one week​

Result: Decreased tack on both rubbers.

---

So... what did I actually learn?​

First of all, I still haven't reproduced the insane tackiness of the original attic rubber.

That mystery remains unsolved.

Simple prolonged heat didn't reproduce it. Cooling didn't reproduce it. Dust didn't reproduce it. Steam didn't reproduce it. Sunlight actually made things worse.

Most of the substances people might intuitively expect to "condition" the rubber either did very little, produced only temporary surface tack, or actively damaged it.

There were, however, two interesting surprises: linseed oil soap and sweat.

Linseed oil soap — the small surprise 🙂​

Linseed oil soap was interesting because I didn't really expect much from it.

Immediately after application it actually made both rubbers slippery, which didn't look promising at all. But after washing it off, the result changed.

Submarine showed a noticeable increase in tack, while H3 showed a smaller increase.

The effect wasn't dramatic enough for me to draw any strong conclusions, and unlike the sweat test I haven't reproduced it enough times to feel confident about it. Still, among all the random substances I tried, this was one of the very few that appeared to leave the rubber more tacky after the substance itself had been washed away.

So I think it deserves an honourable mention — and probably some further testing.

Sweat — the big surprise 🙂​

For whatever reason, repeated sweat exposure produced a noticeable and reproducible increase in tackiness, especially on Giant Dragon Submarine.

The effect remained after gentle washing but gradually decreased after normal water cleaning over subsequent sessions.

Even more interestingly, repeated treatments seemed to intensify the effect. Submarine responded faster and more strongly than H3, but I could observe the same general behaviour on both rubbers.

Again, I don't know why this happens.

I'm very curious about what component of the sweat is responsible — salts, skin oils, moisture, pH, some combination of them, or something else entirely.

And then there is still the original attic incident.

Maybe temperature cycling matters more than temperature alone. Maybe humidity/condensation was involved. Maybe several factors acted together. Or maybe there was something completely different going on that I haven't thought of.

So at this point my completely unscientific ranking of interesting results would probably be:

1. The attic incident — by far the largest increase in tack, but still unexplained and not reproduced.

2. Sweat — the most interesting result because the increase in tack was noticeable, repeatable and seemed to intensify with repeated exposure.

3. Linseed oil soap — a smaller surprise, but interesting because tack appeared to increase after the soap had been washed away.

Everything else ranged from "basically nothing happened" to "congratulations, you have ruined a perfectly good piece of rubber."

Either way, I've now spent an unreasonable amount of time rubbing random substances onto pieces of Chinese table-tennis rubber.

In the name of questionable hobby science. 🫡🏓

That is a looooonng post!

What was the thing that accidentally made the Chinese rubber insanely tacky???

​

 

[barusu]

You fried rubbers on a pan?????

 

[belllfador]

You fried rubbers on a pan?????

Yes I did, don't remember from where I take the idea

 

[suds79]

I don't know how tacky you want the rubber to be, but I've been able to continuously maintain and increase the rubber's tackiness over time by just cleaning it with water and putting plastic film on it. My current Skyline 3 TG Neo (it wasn't like this from the beginning):
View attachment 43517

My previous Neo Hurricane 2 and DHS g888 got similarly tacky over time.
Maybe I've been lucky with the rubbers in the first place, but they all got tackier with time.

That's pretty darn tacky.

I think that's the tricky thing about this. There's no one right answer and rubbers vary even among the same rubbers.

I, and I imagine many, have cleaned their rubbers with water & use covers. They don't do this.

I know I've had some H3s in the past that were tacky but over time lost their tack. I also know i have an old sheet of H3 somewhere in my collection that must be by now at least 4 years old. It's still just as tacky or more tack than many other rubbers I have. There's something about that particular sheet or cut that was just more tacky than normal I figure.

 

[AmanooMan]

That's pretty darn tacky.

I think that's the tricky thing about this. There's no one right answer and rubbers vary even among the same rubbers.

I, and I imagine many, have cleaned their rubbers with water & use covers. They don't do this.

I know I've had some H3s in the past that were tacky but over time lost their tack. I also know i have an old sheet of H3 somewhere in my collection that must be by now at least 4 years old. It's still just as tacky or more tack than many other rubbers I have. There's something about that particular sheet or cut that was just more tacky than normal I figure.

The thing is, I got similar results with my previous rubbers as well. One thing that I do every time is that I make sure there are no air bubbles between the plastic film and the rubber; I put the plastic film slowly from one side to the other, and get rid of any air bubbles along the way.
I've done the same protocol for my current Fastarc G-1, and it hasn't lost its grip a single bit for a long time.
By the way, I let the topsheet dry completely before I put the plastic film on; I've seen a few players say they want a few drops of water between the topsheet and the protective film, but I don't do that.

 

[Egon]

Small update here. I tried adding glycerin to my long pips (Spinlord Dornenglanz) just for fun and that rubber got very tacky and a bit softer. I can pick up a ball a fraction of a second with it. So, very different reaction to different rubbers it seems. Sadly i will have to buy a new long pips rubber now though .

By the way, I once tried silicone lubricant, and it turns ordinary rubber into "anti-spin" rubber. The surface becomes slippery and shiny. And the interesting thing is, there’s no turning back. I tried everything to regain traction, but nothing helped. I think treating pips with silicone would create an interesting effect for fans of that "glassy" bounce.
Maybe you could give it a try and let us know, since you have pips to throw in the trash anyway.

 

[lyz]

The Chinese lady who sold me my first assembled racket back then told me to clean the H3 with sweat after each use. So, I guess I pose to you the question that I wish I had asked her:

How does one consistently sweat enough to clean 2 pieces of rubber?

And while we are being scientifically experimental, is there a difference in results between sweat collected from the torso, hair, arms, face, or --for those of us who are gifted in such domain-- armpit?

For me and my friends, we usually blow out the air from our mouth to make the H3 rubber wet and then clean its surface by our palms as soon as possible, we do hate to stick sweat onto the rubber, because if doing so, the rubber would lost its stickness, just like the common rubbers that used for BH from butterfly, for example dynanics05. I guess it is because you can not easily control the amount of the sweat used fot cleaning, if there is so much sweat at once, things will get in trouble.
Maybe you can try this

 

[Tyce]

I don't know how tacky you want the rubber to be, but I've been able to continuously maintain and increase the rubber's tackiness over time by just cleaning it with water and putting plastic film on it. My current Skyline 3 TG Neo (it wasn't like this from the beginning):
View attachment 43517

My previous Neo Hurricane 2 and DHS g888 got similarly tacky over time.
Maybe I've been lucky with the rubbers in the first place, but they all got tackier with time.

I'm no expert on plastics, but I do feel there are different results for different plastic sheets. I like to just cut a sheet from the packaging of the rubber, the thick, pliable, softish feeling plastic used to seal H3N works pretty well, but I had more tack returns with the packaging of Ak47.
I clean the dirt off with sweat, and usually breath after that. Put the sheet on after all traces look evaporated or absorbed. My topsheets held up much better than the ones I stored lightly moist and cleaned with water.
What I like to do is use the edge of a table to act as a squeegee. I put the sheet on airtight on one end of the rubber, turn it around face down and just slide it. The straight edge of the table makes it very easy.

 

[AmanooMan]

I'm no expert on plastics, but I do feel there are different results for different plastic sheets. I like to just cut a sheet from the packaging of the rubber, the thick, pliable, softish feeling plastic used to seal H3N works pretty well, but I had more tack returns with the packaging of Ak47.
I clean the dirt off with sweat, and usually breath after that. Put the sheet on after all traces look evaporated or absorbed. My topsheets held up much better than the ones I stored lightly moist and cleaned with water.
What I like to do is use the edge of a table to act as a squeegee. I put the sheet on airtight on one end of the rubber, turn it around face down and just slide it. The straight edge of the table makes it very easy.

I've been using flexible acetate sheets (I think this is the right term for it, but not fully sure) and water for a long time, and the results have always been great.

 

[ajtatosmano2]

I've been using flexible acetate sheets (I think this is the right term for it, but not fully sure) and water for a long time, and the results have always been great.

My provincial could never in it's life could hold a ball for a second and pretty much nothing changes it. The commenrcial was sticky to begin with and it's stickyness increased over time, just as you've shown. I don't even need a plastic film for it, it just got stickier as I left it in the drawer.
I am pretty sure at this point that it depends on what batch we get.

 

[lodro]

I don't even need a plastic film for it, it just got stickier as I left it in the drawer.
I am pretty sure at this point that it depends on what batch we get.

And / or also what you got in the drawer 😆