This post is a response to a comment on our last post ("Although I agree with your comments, I don't think it's fair to compare a speed glue with a glue that is only designed to attach a rubber to the blade." by alex- thank you for your comment!). I apologize for not elaborating on this more, but along with the new water glues come expanders and new kinds of rubbers (see images below). If you use water glue with your old rubbers, it would feel as if you're playing with a piece of cloth; there is absolutely no trajectory on the ball and it goes straight into the net. As a remedy, companies have developed expanders or optimizers. They have the properties of speed glue, so basically, instead of having the chemicals that create the speed glue effect in your glue itself, they are simply called something else in a different bottle. What you do is spread the optimizer, which makes the sponge of your rubber expand, and after that dries, you apply the water glue. The feeling of the two of them together is almost like speed glue, but not quite. However, there are rumors that optimizers will be made illegal, so companies are starting to develop new kinds of rubber. The new rubbers are revolutionary because they eliminate the need for optimizers. The "speediness" of speed glue is already in the sponge (called "tensor technology" or "speed effect"), so all you need to apply to your rubber is water glue. This way, there are absolutely no harmful chemicals and no odors. These rubbers are definitely the rubbers of the future, because they last long and are extremely low maintenance; I've glued my rubbers once, and that was about a month ago. China's table tennis magazine, "Table Tennis World" (乒乓世界), has given Tibhar's Nimbus, Joola's Mambo GP, and Donic's Coppa rave reviews (especially Coppa as a forehand rubber) and highly recommends them. Another rubber that is excellent, but, unfortunately, not sold in the USA is Palio's Macro. The Chinese have been experimenting and trying out all sorts of rubbers for months now, and they agree that the previously mentioned rubbers are the way to go, and they also recommend that people not use Butterfly's rubbers.
Butterfly optimizer
Butterfly water glue
Tibhar's Nimbus
Joola's Mambo GP
Donic's Coppa
Palio's Macro
AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE TO ANYONE WHO USES HURRICANE II, III, OR ANY OTHER HARD SPONGES:
(Hurricane III)
I promise you that you will have to invest time and money to search for a replacement rubber; I used Double Happiness' (红双喜) Hurricane III (狂飙3)for around five years and I loved it. The problem is that Hurricane and other Chinese-made rubbers are designed for use with speed glue, so there is no conceivable way that they can work well with water glue (believe me, I tried, and was very frustrated and distressed when I realized I would no longer be able to use my Hurricane). If you haven't experienced Chinese rubber with water glue yet, take my word for it that it's unbearable. You could rear up and swing as hard as you can and your shots will still be slow, soft, and just bad. Even if you use a softer sponge (I normally play with a hardness of 40 and tried out a 37), the results will be exactly the same. So, until Double Happiness develops a new model of Hurricane that is effective with water glue, look into new rubbers with "tensor technology".
I apologize again for not being clearer on this point in the last post, and encourage everyone to
assume that optimizers will become illegal and look into rubbers with tensor technology. Again, water glue will take a bit of getting used to, but rubbers like Nimbus and Coppa almost feel like normal, Japanese-made rubbers. Everyone, please comment/email us at pongwithme@gmail.com and share any experiences or questions about the new water glues! This is new for everyone, so everyone will benefit from others' input. Thanks!
Friday, August 1, 2008
new glue means new rubber -steph
Posted by Steph at 4:01 PM
Labels: Brands and Equipment, Tips and Rules
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2 comments:
there is tuttle's beijing 1 & 2 and haifu's whale 2 as substitute for speed glued h3,bejing is close to a glued h3,beijing being the more controlled, and bejing 2 faster w more spin,
whale 2 is not really a sub for glued h3 and not very spinny,
h3 w/out glue plays fine for me,if u have chinese style of play then i think it works fine as most of the better players where i play use unglued h3's, not sure thier point levels but they easily knock out the 2000+ pointers that show up from other clubs (thats a chinatown community center for ya)
what i did was just glued an h3 topsheet on top of a 42degree dawei quattro sponge,yes it feels glued, no really it does,i did stretch the topsheet over the sponge tho when i rolled it on so there is some tension, u should try it, it is a cheap alternative to salvage a speed glued h3, u won't be disappointed
also, the palio macro era is a 4.5 gen tensor (i think) like the coppa platin, i dont like the coppa platin very much,its feels ok tho, but the macro era just imo outshines the copa platin in every aspect,feel, speed, touch spin, loop, push, near table smash and block, the coppa has the typical not so good close to the table game, i use it for my RPB on a w6 with ma lin globe 999 on quattro sponge fh, its an ok rpb rubber and does give my rpb the off++ power to whack the ball froma few meters back,but on fh it was just ok,long trajectory tho
i know palio is not widely known in the west, it is one of the best kept secrets of chinese products, yinhe has been making waves in the last few years in western markets, exceptional companies that are huge overseas are sanwei and xi enting both holding vast array of patents for table tennis products,are also not so known in the west as they probably dont care for the western market,(given the blinding speed of thier stuff, it may not suit the western style of play), epoch bomb is also another outstanding chinese company
palios rubber have been for years incorprating both japanese and european technologies,
the macro era is a true esn tensor (the coppa paltin and macro era will look the same next to each other but do play very differently)
palios ak47 is like playing with srivers minus the lack of oomph that i feel the srivers series suffers from, (way faster and spinnier still w outstanding control, great feel)
not sure why people always look down on chinese products, imo they have the best players, the best products, the best players because of thier products (and technique etc),
i guess its kind of like how someone always try to get some one to convert to shakehand and quit playing pen,
i feel that simply put, "typical" chinese rubber is meant to be played with power, some just simply dont have the stamina to maintain that for extended periods of time or through matches or tournaments, adopting a control method seems more common
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