Rakza 7 New Years Eve Bubbles

lol that sounds like a good trick/demonstration I'd hear at the Killerspin trade stand. Does your gluing method involved soaking the Rakza 7 in paint thinner all day before you apply the finezip?. I'm quite convinced every single one of your posts is part of a grand and large scale missinformation campaign against all competitors of killerspin, I'm just not sure if it's personally or commercially motivated 

Edited by bluebucket - 01/03/2012 at 8:59pm

Sorry Duplicate.

Edited by richrf - 01/03/2012 at 10:19pm

I did a search on this forum and apparently this has happened on other occasions. The guess was either old rubber or poor quality control. It is unlikely it is the glue. I'll have to reorder. I'll probably use PaddlePalace in the future and probably buy and blade along with the rubber just to eliminate the possibilities of this happening again. It is an expensive solution but so is two sheets of bad rubber (in this case one was much worse than the other). 

Edited by richrf - 01/03/2012 at 11:06pm

Awesome - he who complains about equipment dominating the sport plays with one of Yasaka's top-end rubbers.

I've used Rakza for a long time both soft and regular versions. Never a problem glueing. If you did not remove the glue off the blade or did a poor job removing it, then you could have caused bumps.

Before addressing the quality ( and I got mine from many various online stores ), I recommend that you review your gluing method.

i was an EJ for five years and loved rubber cement.


I've assembled hundreds of paddles.

but it took me about ten sheets of rubber with there different water based glues to be able to consistently get perfect glue jobs, uniformity, adhesion, etc.

I've ruined a few of them water gluing and experienced a myriad of problems while learning.

The best trick I learned was priming the rubber with 2-3 thin layers and using a hair dryer between layers. I put one fairly thick layer on blade and use tweezers to remove any glue chunks.

The gluing advise that's being offered here in this thread is pretty good, especially making sure that the seal on your blade is even. On one blade I had, the sealer created puddles of glue on the face and it was impossible to get an even application.

That being said, I go through the 10ml Donic Formula First glues pretty quickly now. Looking at getting an alternative.

Snakefish wrote: I've glued my Rakza7 sheets many times & had no problems. Could be: 1)  your 2 sheets are lemons 2)  change your glue Try re-glue the sheets again to get the bubbles out. Was it just 1 or 2 bubbles OR too many many ? My Rakza7 sheets were made in Germany

Edited by richrf - 01/04/2012 at 1:00am

richrf wrote: Snakefish wrote: I've glued my Rakza7 sheets many times & had no problems. Could be: 1)  your 2 sheets are lemons 2)  change your glue Try re-glue the sheets again to get the bubbles out. Was it just 1 or 2 bubbles OR too many many ? My Rakza7 sheets were made in Germany Yes, I rechecked the packaged and it states that it is made in Germany.    The Red 1.8 sheet was definitely worse than the Black sheet. I think the Black sheet is barely usable. The sheets were heavily discounted and may just be old inventory that was being unloaded. I don't know. I cannot know unless Yasaka requests them for examination. I did try regluing the Red sheet. It seems like the whole middle section has separated. The other perimeter is in much better shape.  I am not condemning Yasaka or Rakza. However, if tensors have a shelf life then the only way to address this is to have them dated for manufacturing and expiration. In this way it will be easier to track down the cause.  Thanks for your suggestions. Appreciate the advice.

roundrobin wrote:     Sounds like a possible botched glue job.  Maybe it's you instead of the rubber.

richrf wrote: roundrobin wrote:     Sounds like a possible botched glue job.  Maybe it's you instead of the rubber. Of course that is a possibility. But then my conclusion is that it is much, much easier to glue Fortissimo since those two sheets went on without any problem whatsoever. My girlfriend was with me throughout the process and she was the one to first notice the bubbles on the Rakza.

Edited by roundrobin - 01/04/2012 at 1:34am

roundrobin wrote: richrf wrote: roundrobin wrote:     Sounds like a possible botched glue job.  Maybe it's you instead of the rubber. Of course that is a possibility. But then my conclusion is that it is much, much easier to glue Fortissimo since those two sheets went on without any problem whatsoever. My girlfriend was with me throughout the process and she was the one to first notice the bubbles on the Rakza.    Tensor rubbers tend to curl up more easily due to built-in topsheet and sponge tension.  You should check if your blade was treated with wood finish from the manufacturer.  If so, you should lightly sand your blade first with a 200-grit sandpaper before applying table tennis glue.  It makes all the difference.

The Shakehander wrote: Did you try contacting tabletennis11 instead as they're the original seller to you, i'm not familiar with that seller and not sure about their policy on sale items but you should try contacting them with photos as proof. nvrmd just read the post following mine :p

When people talk about bubbles in rubbers they mean the topsheet separating from the sponge, this looks entirely different from a dodgy glue job and imho it's next to impossible or very very verrrrrrry rare to have a ESN tensor bubble without very strong VOC speed glue or some serious hitting, more probably only from rubber abuse. 

bluebucket wrote: When people talk about bubbles in rubbers they mean the topsheet separating from the sponge, this looks entirely different from a dodgy glue job and imho it's next to impossible or very very verrrrrrry rare to have a ESN tensor bubble without very strong VOC speed glue or some serious hitting, more probably only from rubber abuse.  Those ESN rubbers are glued together with some fairly high tech glue, so strong they are next to impossible to separate from the sponge with boiling water where 99% of rubbers simply fall in half anywhere near boiling.  I do not believe it's possible you have a Rakza 7 (if you even have a rakza 7) with genuine topsheet to sponge failure before it's even been hit let alone two of them and I believe you either need to show some pictures with evidence or stop making your Killerspin advertisements, I know I'm making some claims about your lack of integrity myself but I'm willing to make an apology if I'm wrong about you and what you are trying to do here

Edited by richrf - 01/04/2012 at 2:39am

Update:

Edited by richrf - 01/04/2012 at 2:46am