Finally tried boosting

[Michael Zhuang]

Also I haven't tried boosting a completely new rubber. Would the result be even better on a brand new sheet with no previous baby oil?

Or did the baby oil mixed with booster create a special secret boost?

 

[lodro]

Also I haven't tried boosting a completely new rubber. Would the result be even better on a brand new sheet with no previous baby oil?

Or did the baby oil mixed with booster create a special secret boost?

you will not be able to "guess" this.
You will have to find out by ideally having an unboosted rubber on one side of your blade and a boosted one on the other side.

I now only ever use one layer of boosting on my rubbers.
Both my Hurricanes and my Rxton5 are hard sponges and i just soften them up a little but principally i actually do better with hard rubbers than with soft ones.
Even NEOs are a bit too soft for me.

 

[Tango K]

It has stronger effect on new rubber since the sponge is new.

My backhand ESN rubbers used to to go dead after 2 months or 3. Now they last only a month since I hit hrder and more with the backhand. And I reboost H3 every month. Boosting Chinese rubbers is still a bit of a hassle but not as much as people think if you play regularly. Since otherwise you’ll have to cut a new piece of rubber at around the same time.

i think the problem is people tend to overdo it way too carefully, such as putting a layer of glue before hand, 2 or 3 thin layers how many and spread them every 24hs etc. Perhaps you’ll find an optimal point but you’ll realise that it’s not much different, at least at club level playing.
(the rubber can only go that far, so there is a diminishing return)

if an unboosted rubber performance changes so drastically after 1 month, I wouldn’t expect myself to to boost a rubber to churn out more consistent performance. If you set the bar reasonable, it’ll be a little easier.

 

[Michael Zhuang]

It has stronger effect on new rubber since the sponge is new.

My backhand ESN rubbers used to to go dead after 2 months or 3. Now they last only a month since I hit hrder and more with the backhand. And I reboost H3 every month. Boosting Chinese rubbers is still a bit of a hassle but not as much as people think if you play regularly. Since otherwise you’ll have to cut a new piece of rubber at around the same time.

i think the problem is people tend to overdo it way too carefully, such as putting a layer of glue before hand, 2 or 3 thin layers how many and spread them every 24hs etc. Perhaps you’ll find an optimal point but you’ll realise that it’s not much different, at least at club level playing.
(the rubber can only go that far, so there is a diminishing return)

if an unboosted rubber performance changes so drastically after 1 month, I wouldn’t expect myself to to boost a rubber to churn out more consistent performance. If you set the bar reasonable, it’ll be a little easier.

How would the effect be on "factory boosted" rubber, such as Big Dipper? Would that experience diminishing returns since it has already been boosted in the factory?

 

[Michael Zhuang]

I was just thinking, when you boost a rubber, maybe it would be a better idea to just boost the center of the rubber?

Because you really only play the ball on the center of the rubber. And if you avoid boosting the edges of the rubber, maybe it won't curl up so much and make it easier to glue the rubber.

Anybody tried this method?

 

[Tango K]

How would the effect be on "factory boosted" rubber, such as Big Dipper? Would that experience diminishing returns since it has already been boosted in the factory?

It depends on specific rubbers. H3 neo for example is very slightly boosted in factory so you’ll see a significant difference. Some ESN rubbers are so heavily boosted in factory that some people say they get mushy very easily if you boost. When I talk about diminishing return, I’m talking about fine tuning the boosting process to edge out maybe 5% more performance/consistency/longevity. If you boost a rubber too much, it’ll be damaged (mushy, too soft and losing bounciness, curling too much, detaching top sheet etc.).

 

[Michael Zhuang]

I added 1 more layer of booster, and now the rubber is even faster. Almost too fast, it took me a while to adjust to the bounciness.