thanks for that Carl
Does that mean even if a rubber just sits inside its packaging, its bound to lose some of its performance over time?
Cause I just realise there is a fresh sheet of Fastarc G-1 sitting in the drawer for at least 12-15 months.
Ther are a couple of holes on the plactic packaging, so its in no way vacuum sealed.
Yep.
So, I will give you a brief story. One time, I got a set of Tenergy (T05 on FH and T05fx on BH) from a friend who was sponsored. I knew he ordered them from Butterfly and they were shipped to him from Japan. A training partner had a set of the same rubbers sitting at home and he was waiting to put them on. My rubbers arrived and I put them on right after I got them. My training partner decided he would put his on when I told him I was putting my new set of rubbers on.
He wanted to feel my racket with the new rubbers since, all of a sudden we had the same rubbers on our respective rackets. He wanted to feel how my blade felt in comparison to his.
Well, when I tried his racket while he was testing mine, all I could think of was, his rubbers felt lifeless. Now, if I had not had the comparison of the rubbers on my racket, I would have thought his rubbers felt pretty good. But my rubbers felt sooooooooo much better, so much more alive, the difference was pretty stark.
If someone had told me I got the pro model and my friend got the commercial model, I would have believed them. But that would not have been true. What I think had happened, was, my rubbers came straight from Japan and the factory, and my friend's rubbers had been sitting on a shelf at location of the online vendor he got them for for months, before he ordered them. And then, he left them on his shelf for months. And so, they just were not quite as alive as a result of sitting on a shelf for however long they had been sitting on a shelf.
And Tenergy does not really have the kind of performance degradation that an ESN rubber usually has. Like, with most ESN rubbers, which come "pre-tuned", after approximately 3 weeks of play, the performance level drops off dramatically. Why don't those rubbers come in a vacuum sealed package? I have no idea. But, clearly they don't.
I like MXP. I actually like MXP better after the tuning effect has worn off. It plays nicely without the tuning effect. One time I bought 2 sheets of MXP and 2 Sheets of FXP (MXP FH, FXP BH). I used the first set and left the second set for when I was done with the first. I have no question that when I put the second set of Evolution rubbers on my blade, there was no longer any hint of a pre-tuning effect on the rubbers.
Does it matter? If you don't realize it is not there, I would not worry about it. The rubbers will still play okay. But that is just the way it is. And this is also why I just don't understand people buying used rubbers that have already been cut and used.
One last detail. If you have ever had a rubber-band this should help you understand the process of how the actual rubber molecules break down over time.
If you had a rubber-band sitting on a shelf for a year, it would work fine. Maybe not as elastic as when it was first made. But it would still do its job. But if you have ever left a rubber band stretched around something for years and years and come upon the rubber band, having broken, or, left a rubber band on a shelf for years and then went to stretch it and it did not really stretch anymore but snapped instead, that is the result of the rubber molecules oxidizing. Over time, when they oxidize, the rubber loses its elasticity.
So, with a 5 year old rubber, it will be more noticeable than with a 1 or 2 year old rubber. You can still play with the 5 year old rubber. A 10 year old rubber, you probably won't want to play with that.
But some people just won't notice these things and will still play with them. But, given enough time, most rubbers will eventually resemble anti-spin.
