EJ's, How do you decide when to change your rubber?

[TensorBackhand]

For those of you who have many rubbers, how do you decide when to change your rubber? Do you have a system or pattern?

This is my system:
1. I put a new rubber on my blade.
2. I test out the rubber unboosted
3. I move to a different blade if I don't quite feel comfortable
4. I test the rubber with booster
5. I keep a spreadsheet of my rubbers and give the rubber setup a rating out of 10 for how well it performs for me
6. After 3 or 4 weeks, I am used to the rubber and generally know all its properties and how it will play and I am looking to retire it into storage
7. I look to play 1 final clean game with the setup, executing on it's strengths
8. Once I am satisfied the rubber performed honorably, I take the rubber off and put it into a ziplock bag for storage

 

[Gozo Aruna]

1. When I receive my next paycheck.
2. When there is a sale at Lazada / Shopee.
3. When I lose to Bob / Johnny / Sam etc.
4. When I win Bob / Johnny / Sam etc.

 

[JJ Ng]

How do I EJ?

I keep my blade the same. Forehand I always always put Hurricane.

Backhand I go by ESN hardness. Rakza 7 soft and C-1 are my favorites. But recently I have been fooling around with Xiom Vega Asia, Xiom Vega Japan, Donic BlueFire M2 (because it comes in blue), Rozena, FX-D, etc.

If a rubber is too hard (such as Xiom Vega Pro, Xiom Vega X, MX-S), then I transfer it to 5-ply wood blade so I can enjoy it better. So far that has been working out I really like MX-S on the BH of a wood blade right now but I hated it on the BH of three different carbon blades I tried.

I don't have an excel sheet. I pretty much memorize the feeling I have about each sheet of rubber. That's pretty much it.

I will not EJ too far out (for example, I would not buy Stiga Mantra Pro XH) because I want to enjoy the process.

When to change the rubber? Whenever there is a sales going on. For example, TT11 has a sales on Rakza X soft. I remember that Rakza 7 soft and Rakza X soft are pretty much the same, except X is a bit faster and maybe lower arc. I also have a sheet of Donic Acuda S2 in pink lying around because it was on sales a few weeks ago on TT11 and I do not have a pink rubber. I like BlueFire M2 enough and the hardness is just about right, so I decided to buy Donic Acuda S2 in pink.

I tend to leave the purchases alone, not touched, until it is time to assemble a new blade.

 

[lodro]

1. When I receive my next paycheck.
2. When there is a sale at Lazada / Shopee.
3. When I lose to Bob / Johnny / Sam etc.
4. When I win Bob / Johnny / Sam etc.

😂😂😂 Very similar system here, I used to have a system not unlike TensorB but then came to the point where i said : ""F#%^ - it.
I load 3-4 units into my bag and go. I choose the blade to play with depending if it is singles or doubles, top players or bunnies etc.
I change rubbers mostly because I want to try out a new rubber . When playing with half a dozen different setups one does not wear the rubbers out so quickly. I also shift rubbers that feel too fast on one blade to a slower blade or vis a versa.
It has no rule as long as it is fun.

 

[ben1229]

Change when you want to.

 

[Jslick89]

I am by no means an EJ, but I do have a “system” for my rubber rotation. I have two blades, same rubbers on each. One blade is my practice blade (which I use for my robot training sessions, approx 3 hours a week + serve practice). The other blade I use for the club, and round robins.

The practice blade naturally will wear down faster due to hitting thousands of balls during each of my individual robot sessions. Once that happens, I replace the rubbers on the blade for brand new ones.

Then my old match blade becomes my practice blade, and my blade with new rubbers becomes the blade I use on club days.

However, since I just switched rubbers, and only one blade has the boosted dhs blade, I’ve been using it for practice and club. But I’m going to use the practice blade soon so I can boost it in a couple weeks