UpSideDownCarl;338860So, I got impatient about my long, slow plan of first trying MXP on both sides and then trying T05/T64 after. So, today I tried the blade with T05 on one side and MXP on the other. It felt pretty good and now I am getting closer to rubbers I would actually use on the blade. I am debating getting R48 for this blade for both sides or T05/T05fx so I am playing with new rubbers on the blade.
Today, with the MXP and the T05 the blade felt quite comparable to the V+. The V+ still appears to be a little faster. The blade from Nate feels softer and has really nice control. And the slight added speed from my V+ is not something I would miss or care about because, when I supplied the power with the Nate blade, I could make the ball go as fast as it can go, and those shots were't going to come back and the difference in speed made no difference when I added the power.
One thing did come up today that I had not registered before and had previously not been bothered by. Right now in NY it is kind of cold and that causes the air indoors, in a room that has been heated, to be pretty dry. As a result, today, without question, I COULD FEEL THE SEALANT ON THE HANDLE and the handle was way more slippery than I would ever want. Again, it had not bothered me the previous times I played. But today, it was definitely something I did not want. And, for direct comparison, the V+ handle which has no sealant was not slippery at all today just as usual.
After I was done playing, I actually took some nail polish remover on a folded piece of paper towel and did some sealant removal from the handle. When I was finished doing this I could feel the handle felt better and less slippery. I am not sure I got all the sealant off. But, all I care about with that is that I am not holding a handle that is slippery. Smooth is fine. But not slippery.
I think, perhaps a lot of people hold their rackets differently, or maybe, tighter, than I do. But I hold with the fingers around the handle very loosely. That and a slippery handle do not go so well together. So, now I know, even though it was fine when the air was more humid, the handle definitely was too slippery with the dry air conditions we had today. So, I can conclusively say, for me, it is not a good thing to use a handle that has been sealed.
From a logic standpoint, the idea never made sense to me in the first place. I want the wood of the handle to be able to absorb some of my sweat when I am sweaty. And a sealed handle should not be able to do that. It would have been good to also test the sealed handle on a day when it was very humid and I was sweating a lot. However, I have feeling those may be worse conditions for the use of a handle that has been sealed. So I am okay not trying that.
Today was enough for me to know that I don't want sealant on my handle even when the job of sealing has been expertly done and the layer is very very thin.
Next time I play with it, I will see how the handle feels now that I removed at least some of the sealant....or, I think I did.
But the sealant on the handle issue did not change the fact that this is a very nice blade with excellent control and I can really get a lot of spin on the ball with it.
Today I did much more of the serve and receive part of my play with the Nate blade and I could easily swtich from my V+ to this blade and the change would be a minor one. The blades are similar in many ways. The main difference is that the Nate blade has a lower, deeper pitch and a softer feel.