How do you properly boost your rubbers?

[Topspinslinger]

I'd buy both🙈, also just buy water based glue and booster and boost the heck out of your rubber.
Assembling your own racket is easiest in the long term.
When I started out I bought everything I needed from Aliexpress for less then €20 to do so.

My EJ has passed, now I buy a lot of bty innerforce alc's, rakza 7 hard and Dignics 09c untill I'm atleast playing the highest level of my country.

 

[Lula]

I think you need to boost China rubbers to get them softer. But boost them to much and boost tensor rubber I think is overkill for the majority here. Maybe more fun but do not think it is a winning concept.

 

[lightspin]

I used to play during the speed glue days and boosting the rubber doesn't seem to make that much of a difference to me. It also seems hit or miss how you do it. If you do it wrong, as I learned first hand, you can also destroy your sponge and cause it to fall apart. I just glue the rubber (H3N) on the racket and play.

 

[Kopp]

Uh they do their stuff i do mine, if i'm not as skilled as pros atleast its neat 😊

@Lazer said the pros' rackets are even worse

taken from some1's post
it looks very irritating

This is so much better. Not irritating at all

Does Ma Long's racket look irritating to you?

 

[ber]

@Lazer said the pros' rackets are even worse



This is so much better. Not irritating at all

View attachment 41917

Does Ma Long's racket look irritating to you?

yep, caused by booster right

 

[Lazer]

yep, caused by booster right

No, caused by cutting, after gluing the sheet shrinks...
The only thing is too much overhang is illegal, and also too much "underhang"...

Cheers
L-zr

 

[ber]

I used to play during the speed glue days and boosting the rubber doesn't seem to make that much of a difference to me. It also seems hit or miss how you do it. If you do it wrong, as I learned first hand, you can also destroy your sponge and cause it to fall apart. I just glue the rubber (H3N) on the racket and play.

Uh.. how did you do it the first time? i want to know how you fail so i can prevent it

 

[lightspin]

I used h3n on the forehand and h8 on the backhand. These were brand new sheets. I applied 1 layer of of haifu seamoon booster. I let it dry for 12 hours. Applied another layer of booster, let it dry for another 12 hours. Then I applied 2 layers of DHS water based glue, letting the first layer completely dry before I applied the second. I let that dry and applied the rubber to my racket. When I played things felt weird, especially the backhand which felt horrible. When I removed the rubbers, I didn't see anything too wrong with the h3n but the h8 sponge had cracks all over. It looked like glass does if you hit it hard but don't break it with cracks all over the place.

The only mistake I can see making is that I didn't lay the rubbers on something so they bend when drying, I just left them on a flat surface. In the Zhang Jike video he recommends putting the rubber on a bottle to dry so it bends back.

 

[MrGeorge]

I used h3n on the forehand and h8 on the backhand. These were brand new sheets. I applied 1 layer of of haifu seamoon booster. I let it dry for 12 hours. Applied another layer of booster, let it dry for another 12 hours. Then I applied 2 layers of DHS water based glue, letting the first layer completely dry before I applied the second. I let that dry and applied the rubber to my racket. When I played things felt weird, especially the backhand which felt horrible. When I removed the rubbers, I didn't see anything too wrong with the h3n but the h8 sponge had cracks all over. It looked like glass does if you hit it hard but don't break it with cracks all over the place.

The only mistake I can see making is that I didn't lay the rubbers on something so they bend when drying, I just left them on a flat surface. In the Zhang Jike video he recommends putting the rubber on a bottle to dry so it bends back.

Do u have photo of H8 with cracks. I recently put H8 on my BH too, with 2 thin layers of HF Black. First 2 sessions was rly slow, but after that rubber speed up and now its playable. I am curious about those cracks. U meant that sponge has crack or it is just visual problem ?

 

[Conehead]

The only mistake I can see making is that I didn't lay the rubbers on something so they bend when drying, I just left them on a flat surface.

I don't think that is a mistake. It must have been something else.

 

[lightspin]

There were a ton of large cracks in the sponge when I took it off. It looked like someone took a knife to the sponge and made long cuts in it without cutting the topsheet. I have no idea what else it could have been. Now I just glue on the rubber and play. If boosting made a dramatic difference like old school speed glue, I might use it. Maybe it does if used properly. However, to me, I just find it to be too problematic and not worth the effort.

Also this happened maybe 1 year ago, so I don't have any pictures.

 

[Conehead]

I've boosted really a lot and never put the rubbers on a bottle or anything else. It always worked out very nicely.

 

[Sedis]

I can't really see how balancing the rubber on a bottle to dry is going to help

 

[Tyce]

I can't really see how balancing the rubber on a bottle to dry is going to help

Yes, it is pseudoscience, there are no studies showing the differences between methods. Still, there's a chance it helps.

The idea behind it is to make minimal resistance for the expansion of the sponge. If you lay the topsheet flat on a surface, it needs to overcome friction between the topsheet and that surface in order to facilitate expansion.
Same goes for removing the topsheet cover when boosting.
In theory, facilitating better (sideways) expansion could have the benefit of creating more topsheet tensioning. If the expansion can't go sideways, it could expand more in the direction of added thickness to the sponge. I honestly don't know if that's bad in terms of playability, but for pro players like ZJK it will be important to not break that 4mm limit. So optimizing the facilitation of sideways expansion *could* make sense.

I don't think we'll see a scientific approach to testing this anytime soon. The variation between sheets of H3 alone mean that you will need to test multiple sheets per method in order to say anything useful. For most people that would be quite a waste of money.

 

[Sedis]

The topsheet cover clearly reduces expansion, but even before they became less tacky I can't see the topsheet preventing expansion unless really pressed down hard on a grippy surface