How to know when a rubber is dead?

cdubdub wrote: How do you figure out when a rubber is completely dead? Everywhere I see 80% life, 50 % life left etc. How do you know when it transitions to completely dead? How long does this usually take? What would the difference be from a 50% rubber to a 30% rubber, etc. Thanks!

Good reason to have a backup blade, to do comparisons between old & new rubbers, and comparisons
between different rubbers. Rubber degradation occurs over time and is subjective, so it is hard to tell
unless you can compare setups.  Also good idea to use old setup for practice and fresh rubbers for tournament play.

When it keels and falls over and stops breathing and you cannot revive it and electric shocks don't work and it won't respond when you call its name...its dead! :P

jinlai wrote: Hi, You do not need to know when your rubber will be completely dead!. After playing for a period (assuming you played twice a week 2 to 3 hours) in 2 to 3 months time you will find that you could hardly produce any more strong spin, your serves are not spinny any more and you also find that you could receive some serves that you could not do so from the same opponents.. these are evidence of the rubber is dying.

I think your estimates are wayy off. The range you describe is only 16-36 hours of play.
If you're only getting 16-36 hours of play out of a sheet of modern rubber, I wonder how and if you maintain them.

At my level, I find that the newer gen tensors and even Neos Provincial H3's will last almost 100 hours before the drop in performance between an old and new sheet is significant.

For the last 18 months, I have replaced both FH/BH every 6 months (80-100 hrs) and have done the side by side with the old compared to new (by moving the old to my backup blade).

I did this without tuner, without regluing, simply attach and play until it was time for new rubbers.

After that much use the Neo Provincial H3's lack the original factory tune and are not as fast or as crisp. The Acuda S3's actually feel closer to new, (because they weren't dependent on a "factory tune" for enhanced performance). In both cases the topsheet's feel similar to new (due to maintainence) but the sponge softens/breaks down a little.

In any event, I gave the first sheets a 2nd home and they still look good/play decently after 200 hours. Not as fast or as spinny when new, but still able to outperform many other rubbers that are new...

Note:
People who hit and drive a lot more than me could probably kill the sponge faster.