Racket storage – soft case vs. aluminum case

[returnee]

Hi everyone,

I’d like to share a strange experience with my racket and hear your opinions.

Over the past two months, while I was training a bit more intensively (around 15 practice sessions at our club), I noticed some unusual behavior. My blade is Viscaria, and I use MX-P on both sides. The rubbers are about two months old, and I’ve been playing with this setup for several seasons, so I know them very well.

They were bought new during one of those well-known 3=4 promotional sales from reputable table tennis online shops. I glued them with DHS No. 15 (I’ve been gluing my own rubbers for decades): 1 layer on the blade, 2 layers on the rubber.

During the first several training sessions (first 10–15 days), everything was perfect — nice bounce, correct speed, excellent spin, great sound, very good feedback and control.

After that, I had a short break of about 7–8 days. At the next training session, everything suddenly felt different. The rubbers were less bouncy, I needed much more power for any attack, the ball rebound was weaker, and overall control was worse. The sound of the racket also changed. There was much more of a “bounce” sound than usual for my blade. That nice ‘click’ sound disappeared, and there was more of a ‘bounce’ sound instead. The overall rebound synergy and the feel when tapping the ball on the racket in my hand just weren’t the same anymore.

I’ve glued new MX-P on this blade many times before, so I know exactly how it should sound when you bounce the ball lightly on the racket in your hand.

I started thinking about possible reasons. I suspected the rubbers (maybe the factory booster effect had faded, maybe the 3=4 promotions mean the rubbers had been stored longer in warehouses, maybe I made a mistake while gluing, etc.).

Here’s the interesting part: I’ve always stored my racket in a regular Butterfly fabric case and never used one of those modern aluminum hard cases. When I ordered the new MX-P sheets, I also ordered one of those aluminum hard cases for two rackets. It looks nice and protects the racket better in a backpack, so for the first time I started storing my racket in such a case.

After this strange experience, I decided to go back to my old storage method. First, I left the racket out for one day on a shelf above my desk. Then I put it back in my old fabric case and into my training backpack.

And here’s the strange part: after less than 48 hours, the bounce improved significantly, and the sound also returned closer to normal. At the next training session, everything was perfect again — excellent bounce, great sound, speed, response, everything.

So tell me — am I just imagining things? 🙂 Or has anyone experienced something similar?

I’m aware that hall conditions (like in most clubs) can sometimes be poor — high humidity when it’s rainy outside, etc. But in this case, I don’t think that was the reason.

So what do you think — is it the rubbers themselves, or could it actually be related to the way the racket is stored: regular fabric case vs. aluminum hard case?

 

[Wakkibatty]

Wow - that's a new one. 🤔

Only thing I can think of is air circulation.

I'm totally guessing here, but your aluminium case was probably far more airtight than the fabric case. As a result the climatic conditions inside your case differend greatly from those outside it.

The technique you described of airing the bat out is similar to the equalisation necessary when working with timber.

Whenever you get timber flooring delivered to a new location for installation in a house, it's important you leave it rest for at least a week first indoors, so that the wood's moisture content can equalise with the surrounding humidity.

If you don't do this and install the flooring immediately, there's a good chance the wood will either swell or shrink after installation, causing the wood to warp or buckle and not sit straight on the floor.

The symptoms you describe however don't quite match with changes in wood humidity. So if I had to guess, it was probably also a result of your rubbers gassing off the factory booster inside your case, to the point the wood in your blade started absorbing it.

MXP's are pretty famous for shrinking & losing their boosted feel pretty quickly. That is caused by the VOCs in the rubber slowly gassing off over time. Rubbers don't just lose bulk or mass overnight, it takes time for people to notice any change in a rubber's performance and size.

In the case of your MXPs, they were fitted to a blade brand new then put into an airtight container. So you had high concentration of factory booster in the rubbers, and a low concentration of the same volatile compounds in the wood.

Additionally, if there's a lot of volatile terpenes in the booster (which is almost guaranteed frankly), then 100% it's conceivable the wood absorbed some of them, to the point it affected the bounce.

There's countless species of wood out there that release natural VOCs as they dry -- Turpentine wood being the obvious example. There's so many terpenes in the wood, people literally once used it to make turpentine, hence the name. Most pines are also hugely rich in terpenes, which is why they can make rosin out of it's sap.

Best way to test this theory is to continue storing the blade in your fabric case, until the rubbers are completely dead again and have lost all their normal zing. Then put them back in the aluminium case for a week and see what happens.

I'll bet you dollars to donuts the bat will feel virtually the same afterwards (or at least the difference won't be quite as profound), as all the readily available VOCs from the MXP's would have already been gassed off.

 

[returnee]

Very interesting and logical reasoning. I’ll follow your advice and give it a try. Thanks