Removing 40 year old Table Tennis Rubbers

Hi,

Posted a while back after returning to TT and thanks to all for the helpful advice. Have decided to also use my original Stiga blade from the 80s as well as newer blade if it is feasible to remove the 40 year plus rubbers. Any advice on removal gratefully received.

Think I will put the same Razka 7 rubbers on but tempted to try 7 soft on FH as I still tend to over shoot the table a bit. It’s obviously poor technic but maybe a little more control?

thanks all

I've restored an old blade recently - 30+ years. The rubbers had vulcanized entirely, becoming hard and brittle. And of course they were glued on with rubber cement, that also hardened out over the years.

I used my hands, even so, to get as much of the rubber off as possible. It tore, and left lots of sponge - and of course the old glue layers. I dabbed the remaining residue with turpentine, and as they softened gently scraped with a (wide) putty knife. I repeated this a few times, up to the point that there were just a few islands of residual glue. Turpentine and cloth (and patience) helped to mop up these last pockets of resistance. I let it air for a while, and in a week or so it had no discernable turpentine smell anymore.

This worked well, and introduced no new damage. The blade had a few dings, which I fixed using wood filler. I gently polished it with very fine-grained sandpaper - the handle also. Finally, I rubbed a bit of tung oil on it, very lightly on the blade and a bit more on the handle. That improved its looks.

Hi, thanks for the really helpful reply. Mike