Is this competition legal?

WingTT said:

The voc should be long gone from the old glue and depending on the tournament, no one really cares.

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I'm just wondering... But why have a rule which realistically I can't imagine them enforcing - are they going to rip the rubber off to inspect every game? Also, why have a rule which is in place that no one cares about?

I'm wondering how / why did they even have this rule in the first place? What was the actual reasoning behind it?

I mean, I'm a sucker for rules since I'm a lawyer in my day job. If I'm the only one in a game / tourney not speedgluing, am I going to be at a disadvantage? What is that disadvantage?

Sorry, I'm newly back to playing TT after around 10 to 15 years away from regular playing, so apologies for the dumb questions.

t.t.s.t.a.r said:

The reason they banned voc speed glues is because of their toxicity
there was an unconfirmed health accident in japan a while back

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UpSideDownCarl said:

This was the excuse. Not the reason. The reason was, they wanted to slow the game down. The excuse was that it was dangerous.

You can see the same method with the switch from celluloid to Poly balls. They said there was a worldwide ban on celluloid because of how dangerous it is because of how flammable it is. There was no worldwide ban on celluloid. And while celluloid is flammable, it had been used to make TT balls for more than half a century.

BTW: in the 1990s ITTF tried to ban speed glue also. But the players rose up and fought against the ban. So, they let it slide for another decade before they tried again.

Some of the issue for the changes may also have been, the TT companies (and therefore the ITTF) benefitted financially from everyone having to change equipment.

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Some of the better speedglues smelled like paint thinner. I remember I once bought a liter of Yasaka speed glue and it smelled unbearable. It worked super well though. Anyways speed glue was surely toxic and dangerous, I would not debate this.

I totally agree that there was commercial interest from the manufacturers as well, and I also remember that they tried to slow down the game, and the first step for that was the 38 to 40mm ball. (I kinda recall something that they also said it's better for broadcastability too)

Zwill said:

Some of the better speedglues smelled like paint thinner. I remember I once bought a liter of Yasaka speed glue and it smelled unbearable. It worked super well though. Anyways speed glue was surely toxic and dangerous, I would not debate this.

I totally agree that there was commercial interest from the manufacturers as well, and I also remember that they tried to slow down the game, and the first step for that was the 38 to 40mm ball. (I kinda recall something that they also said it's better for broadcastability too)

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UpSideDownCarl said:

This video is entertaining. It is comedy. But most of the history is fairly accurate:

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LOL. I watched this video and now I get it. Basically, I get screwed over with my pants on because I follow rules. Wow... I mean, I get this is sarcastic, but when you have an unenforceable rule, it basically is that in reality, isn't it? Hahaha.

Guess I'm the sucker for still wanting to stick by the rules regardless then... =(

sampletext said:

Hello, I have an old short pips rubber sheet that I used voc glue on for fun. Now I am thinking about using it again but with water glue only. The problem is I can't get rid of the old voc glue layer. If I just glue over the old layer and use it, would it be tournament legal? and is there a way to get rid of voc glue layers?

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Guess @sampletext got their answer... should be legal as voc should be long gone, but if not, then it's not enforceable anyway LOL.