Permanent Tuning

I've asked around to many people who would be very likely to know. As far as I can ascertain, permanent tuning is a myth. You can prime a rubber with speed glue and, assuming you give it a few days to "air out", it will pass an ENEZ. (I know firsthand of someone who had his/her blade pass inspection after being primed.) But priming gives a minimal glue effect (though still nice, IMO) and you have to redo it every 3-4 weeks.

Boosting/tuning requires to repeat applications every 1-2 weeks. From what I understand and have experienced, boosting/tuning adds quite a bit of speed but minimal amounts of spin.

My suggestion: Prime your rubber with some speed glue and work on technique to cover the rest.

(... Or, you could wait until a few of us MYTT members have tried a new booster that's supposed to be awesome and start using that, if it works... In any case, nothing is permanent. Prepare yourself for repeat applications.)

how fast are you hitting the ball? i can blaze a path with my loops by using my YEO. with a TBS you should be blazing smoke and fire behind your shots.

add some chalk, it'll give you a nice effect =p

... has good feel though 

Same, I can also hit pretty hard.

I CAN hit hard on TBS, because I do have a large arm-swing. However, that doesn't justify it being slow. I would rather it a bit faster and preserve energy.

Anyway ohhgourami, would you care to ask your coach how he perm tuned yours? or at least retained the tuning effect, according to Anton?

Anton Chigurh wrote: ...If it's still not fast enough then, no offense, but the fault lies in your technique and not your setup. I don't say this to be mean; I'm just being honest/direct. We can all use some improvement in our technique.

Non taken... . I have no idea about the level I'm at, but probably at around the level of Case 1. I'll see about the priming of the rubbers, but just asking: how long will my Hurricane last this way? And would any speed glue work or would the Haifu Speed Glue have special properties?


Edited by glanden.zheng - 08/26/2010 at 11:31pm

chris.b40 wrote: I do not think there is anything called permanent tuning

It's a pretty well-know term, even Alex Li uses it, and thus I would assume that it exists. You can also check out the Haifu Blue Whale 2 factory tuned permanent tension in the MyTT shop, where the rubbers would have a reverse dome...

Chris.B40 is correct, there is no such thing as permanent tuning, but there is permanent tension.  Tuning refers to the addition of a substance, which there is no known material that stays forever.  Tension refers to the stretching of the sponge or top sheet, then glueing together - thus permanent mechanically.

icontek wrote: Permanent tension and permanent tuning are different. Haifu's "permanent tension" simply means that some of the elasticity created during the manufacturing (then tension between topsheet and sponge?) will stay in the rubber during it's normal lifetime. If you are simply stretching a sheet of rubber with speedglue and then attaching it and leaving it on the blade you are not tuning a rubber, your are tensioning a rubber. Some rubbers benefit from this "super priming method". Others just get too squirrelly. YMMV.

Nice post... Thanks for clarifying, icontek. But doesn't the permanent tuning AND tension has the final effect of the reverse dome? I remember reading somewhere that this guy accidently permanent tuned this rubber and caused it have a reverse dome...

Call me skeptical, but I just don't see it.

I can alter a rubbers playing properties through priming and tuning, but invariably, it loses the "speed glue feeling" (the sound, dwell and control) within a week or two.

It may keep the additional speed, but certainly none of the other superlatives that one associates with a fresh glue job.

So maybe some of the chemical engineers/material science guys can help here.

If I understand correctly, classic speedglue works in several different ways:

1) stretches sponge and topsheet
2) softens sponge and feel


Number 1 increases the catapult effect, makes the rubber less linear, and capable of producing more spin and speed

Number 2 increases the control by allowing more dwell and time to produce the stroke (allowing slower, more controlled stroke to be used).

The net effect is that you can use safer, smaller strokes to produce shots that have as big or bigger speed and spin than the rubber could produce in an untuned state.
These would appear to be "mechanical" effects.

If they were just produced from the initial stretching of the rubber, one could assume that speed glue effects would be permanent.

But anyone who's played with a speedglued setup fresh, and then a few days later without regluing knows that performance and control degrades significantly.

Is that because there are also chemical effects happening during those first 3 hours or so?

With VOC speed glue, was the solvent acting on the glue reside (and the sponge? and the topsheet?) and if so, in what way?

What part of these effects causes the topsheet to be "pulled into" the sponge (the effect that causes the pips to show through the topsheet and creates little concave hollows that no doubt effect grip/friction)?

The best net result I've had is tuning a soft sponge chinese rubber (999 on a 35-37 degree sponge) to get the speed up. After the tune wears off, it maintains some of the speed (from stretching) and still has fairly good control and spin (due to sponge softness). But it's still a far cry from a 38-39 degree sponge that has a fresh glue job.

Did anyone try this to tune?

People use rubber rejuvenator for boosting ?

its okay ohh-G, we know what's up :)

bravefest wrote: ohhgourami wrote: bravefest wrote: this almost sounds like, 'i want to cheat, so can you tell me how i can get away with it' as far as i'm concerned, if you use smooth on both sides, you should just use tenergy on both and glue with something that doesn't enhance it such as rubber cement or free chack. if you're trying to enhance your rubber, then you are just a cheat and you need to grow up. Don't even bring this topic up on this thread.  People who love using Chinese rubbers all know that Tenergy just isn't the same.  We don't care if it's about the same as speed glued rubber in terms of spin, the playing properties isn't the same as Chinese rubber. What you are telling me is like telling me to chop off my perfectly good arm, then replace it by buying a mechanical arm (which is shouldn't have to pay for and is inferior to a real arm), then pretend like nothing has happened after. If you want be talk about whats cheating and not being mature, you should tell that to the ITTF.  They cheated us for arbitrarily banning a very well loved part of the game and wasn't mature enough to give us a valid reason.  That's what I call bullsh!t! Call it what you want, but it's still cheating.  You're only lying to yourself and you're pathetic if you can't admit to what you're doing. Adapt to a new setup or admit that you're cheating.  There's no third option.

No offense, but that's pure "black and white" thinking, which is a mode of thought saved only for the rigid, fundamentalist ideologues. One group's "terrorist" is another group's "freedom fighter". One group's "cheater" is another group's "justified rebel".