New BW II (red sponge)

Last week I tried a sheet of BW2 Red Sponge medium for the first time. First impressions are positive the rubber feels like a hybrid between a japanese and chinese rubber. When counterhitting and blocking the rubber has a chinese deadish feel to it including the crack sound. When looping the rubber becomes faster and livelier and spin and kick are amazing. I like the rubber it feels a bit like my Tenergy 25 that I used before. It's a bit sensitive to incoming spin though I have to get used to that more.

coming from thor's what hardness should i get this blue whale red sponge at?

Originally posted by jonyer1980 I don´t think that layer on the sponge it´s a factory tune, just a thin coat of latter adhesive to stick it easily on the blade. So you only need to apply glue on the blade, not on the sponge.

Yeah, messed it up.  Will be an excuse to try something different! :-)

There are a lot of strange chemicals knocking around in rubbers these days.  Just opening the packet of a new Chinese rubber is an adventure into an unknown land of stink.

Originally posted by bluebucket If you want to know an unrelated but odd story, last night I left a blade with new sheet of Mercury 2 under a blade with Hexer on it, both rubbers facing each other and in the morning the Hexer top sheet had expanded so much that the part that was outside the Mercury 2 was visibly much lower than the rest of the rubber!. VOC madness!, hopefully it goes flat again soon. The Moral of the story is those Galaxy rubbers must be juiced up with something and don't try and pass a VOC test with one

Mercury 2 plays really friggin fast the first couple hours after gluing, gotta have some voc in there.

bwII red or black sponge is pretty similar to h3 neo.
if you like h3 neo on bh you could like it, otherwise I doubt it.

Originally posted by mswishe4 Would this Blue Whale Red Sponge be suitable on the backhand that consists of loops and topspin play?

Originally posted by mswishe4 Originally posted by sa01 bwII red or black sponge is pretty similar to h3 neo. if you like h3 neo on bh you could like it, otherwise I doubt it. Originally posted by mswishe4 Would this Blue Whale Red Sponge be suitable on the backhand that consists of loops and topspin play?   I have not played with H3 neo. I ordered the Shark Speed II RS, but they sent me the BW II RS instead. I was thinking about using it on the backhand if it would be suitable. Anything like the Shark Speed?

they are different.
bwII rs is typical chinese rubber.
a little faster and livelier but still chinese style rubber.
shark is more european style.

Originally posted by mswishe4 Would this Blue Whale Red Sponge be suitable on the backhand that consists of loops and topspin play?

@sa01- Thank you for the info. 

thor's = tensor (think of acuda, hexer)
bwII red sponge = chinese (think of h3neo)

At last i could try it a spare black sheet of  BW RS and compare it with my current GripS europe.  Many people claimed GRIPS Europe was just a relabelled version of BW RS but in fact, it´s NOT THE SAME.

Edited by jonyer1980 - 09/16/2012 at 9:00am

Can't quite agree with Delgado, although we might be comparing apples and oranges to a degree.

I've used all of the Hurricane and Skyline-series quite extensively (NEO, non-boosted though) before switching to a 37 degree BW2 a couple of months ago (the national version, this obviously could also affect the comparison).

I find it considerably faster than the DHS-rubbers. It's not as tacky, so you do loose a little spin and bite in the short game, I agree with that. However, I find it is less sensitive to incoming spin, which I feel makes up for it.

For me, I'd sum it up with the BW2 being better away from the table, while not quite as good in the attacking game very close to the table. For my game this works well, I can still hold my own up close but can press my opponent harder at mid-long distance rallies.

It's all subjective to your game of course and will depend on your blade as well.

Oh, one thing I find horribly annoying: The tuning/glue layer will come off if you remove the rubber from the blade, so forget about regluing to another blade with the same performance. I've tried it with 2 rubbers with different water based glues, and it's just impossible to keep it attached to the rubber.