First forum post and it's about me inventing topsheet boosting...
Recently I bought a used racket that came with a fairly worn Hurricane 3 commercial. It was not tacky at all, couldn't pick up a ball even 1cm and when trying to loop backspin it felt like it was not gripping 100%. I've had this problem before with H3 of every kind where it loses its grip over 1-3 months. A few weeks ago I was boosting a sheet of Battle 3 Purple and accidentally got a bit of booster on the topsheet. Where the oil got on the topsheet it expanded and deformed it, it became unusable in those areas and I had to trim it off, but the rubber actually felt grippier in those places. Fast forward to last week and I was getting fed up with the ball slipping on this new racket, so I decided to test various things to revive it.
I'll only talk about the final test here which had by far the strongest effect, which is putting haifu seamoon on the H3 topsheet (yes the topsheet). I put just enough for it to spread evenly, and kept wiping it around to make sure every region got the same amount. It absorbed everything in like 10 seconds, and afterwards I couldn't wipe my palm across it properly anymore because it became too grippy.
Here's a short video I filmed that shows it holding a ball on the racket indefinitely
This is more tacky than brand new sheets of H3 these days. I also tried it for half a session at the club and it plays basically like new or even better, absolutely zero grip issues and the spin was excellent.
If you have a worn sheet of H3, give this a go if you have a chance, I'm curious if it works in all situations. Maybe what we call "oxidation" of the H3 topsheet is really just it drying out over time. I told a few friends about this and so far one of them has tried it themselves, and they report the same positive effects. Also my seamoon was really thin compared to others, maybe that works better than thick boosters like haifu national black.
Recently I bought a used racket that came with a fairly worn Hurricane 3 commercial. It was not tacky at all, couldn't pick up a ball even 1cm and when trying to loop backspin it felt like it was not gripping 100%. I've had this problem before with H3 of every kind where it loses its grip over 1-3 months. A few weeks ago I was boosting a sheet of Battle 3 Purple and accidentally got a bit of booster on the topsheet. Where the oil got on the topsheet it expanded and deformed it, it became unusable in those areas and I had to trim it off, but the rubber actually felt grippier in those places. Fast forward to last week and I was getting fed up with the ball slipping on this new racket, so I decided to test various things to revive it.
I'll only talk about the final test here which had by far the strongest effect, which is putting haifu seamoon on the H3 topsheet (yes the topsheet). I put just enough for it to spread evenly, and kept wiping it around to make sure every region got the same amount. It absorbed everything in like 10 seconds, and afterwards I couldn't wipe my palm across it properly anymore because it became too grippy.
Here's a short video I filmed that shows it holding a ball on the racket indefinitely
This is more tacky than brand new sheets of H3 these days. I also tried it for half a session at the club and it plays basically like new or even better, absolutely zero grip issues and the spin was excellent.
If you have a worn sheet of H3, give this a go if you have a chance, I'm curious if it works in all situations. Maybe what we call "oxidation" of the H3 topsheet is really just it drying out over time. I told a few friends about this and so far one of them has tried it themselves, and they report the same positive effects. Also my seamoon was really thin compared to others, maybe that works better than thick boosters like haifu national black.
