Gluing With Rubber Cement

[thekleifheit13]

I glue my rubbers onto my racquet with rubber cement and notice a pretty strong difference in performance between freshly glued and 2 month old rubbers. Last night, I glued up a 999T on factory 44-45 degree sponge, a Blutenkirche 868 on 42 degree sponge, and a Corbor on 40 degree sponge. I typically use 1 heavy layer or 2 light layers and noticed that the Blutenkirche and Corbor both looked heavily boosted (domed) after the RC dried, while the 999T barely had any dome. I actually had to let the Corbor and 868 flatten out before applying to the blade. Can anyone speak to the amount of boosting effect rubber cement has, as well as how long it lasts? I just want to know what exactly I am doing to the rubber by gluing this way. Thanks!

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Rubber cement has VOCs in it like what made speed glue speed glue. But speed glue has more solvent in it. The solvent is what causes the rubber to expand and gives the speed glue effect.

The effect should not actually last more than 48 hours. The solvents in rubber cement or speed glue fully evaporate much faster than the oils used for boosting. Maybe evaporate is the wrong word for booster oils. They dry out rather than a straight evaporation. Where as the solvents that are in rubber cement or speed glue really evaporate leaving much less residue.

As long as you don't mind that the rubbers will probably shrink as the glue effect wears off and they will probably be a little too small for your blade after they do, then there is no real issue. But they will play much differently once the glue effect fully wears off.

This is also why when a few members saw the photo of Der_Echte gluing an MX-P rubber onto an Amazon blade with Rubber Cement, they made some comments.

But if you are not playing an ITTF event and you don't mind the rubber shrinking a millimeter or three after you cut it, then it should not do anything too bad to your rubbers in the long run.


Sent from the Subterranean Workshop by Telepathy

 

[suds79]

+1 to carl.

Yeah I've found the shrinking is pretty minimal. I don't even notice it much.

I like how clean the rubbers & blade are when you pull them off. Both the blade & rubbers are perfectly good to go for the next gluing.

Recently I've found the grip is so good with the rubber cement, I've gone to applying it to just my blade only and sticking it on. Probably just makes for an overall thinner layer. Rubber adheres just as well from what I've seen.