How does booster work, exactly?

There should definitely be a consistent difference between boosted and unboosted rubber. I remember a few years ago before I improved significantly in play, I could tell the distinct difference between boosted and unboosted hurricane. You need to put it through varying 'load' in an actual game situation or in training to be able to notice it. You can't throw balls at it and leave the bat there and expect to feel any significant difference.

If boosted correctly and played correctly, not only should you hear the audible click clack difference but you should also be able to feel that the ball catapults more off the rubber and the rubber is faster by far.

I've tried different sheets of Hurricane: unboosted commercial, unboosted blue, boosted blue, boosted provincial and unboosted neo. There is a fine line between boosted and unboosted. Unboosted is very lackluster to me. I can flick against just about any serve with H3 against a particular training partner that I tested the rubbers with but it is extremely slow in play. I've found with unboosted sheets you can get spin fine but you also have to put in a lot of effort into putting on speed. Unless you have a miraculous stroke with heaps of momentum, your shots will either be moderately paced with moderate spin or very fast but borderline flat... relatively. This is coming from a spin oriented player.

I know the age old argument of you should do athletic drills and whatnot but when you're using your playstyle as a controlled variable and keeping it consistent with the independent variable of bat setup, there is a difference for sure.

Quick question of my own: From my experience, majority of the young players are straying away from spin and are insistent on speed. Is this phenomenon happening around the world where everyone else plays? I'm not sure if it's a lack of training or just a shift in play style. I'm seeing a number of players in my club which has drastically reduced in size picking up fast rubbers such as tenergy or rasant but few of them play with heavy spin let alone much spin alone...


Edited by Johnny.d.p - 12/03/2016 at 10:15pm

dpt wrote: Frankly, I couldn't detect any consistent difference between the boosted and unboosted rubbers.  Can anyone suggest a better way to do the experiment?

Maybe a bad / too soon a glue job?

IMHO, especially within a few days of boosting, one should be able to detect just by the sound: the boosted rubber should sound (upon hitting) like you just fired a gun, if boosted properly.

berndt_mann wrote: Better table tennis through chemistry? I suppose that would depend both on your perspective of the sport and to a lesser extent on how much table tennis you have played and how many changes tt has gone through since you first started playing it.

most players do not boost and they keep their rubbers for a long time, only the top players and the copycats do it, regardless if they are any good at playing

Thanks. That's a great thread on the topic! Many of the pictures have bad links though. Is there any way you can fix?

The part about dwell time is not well understood, especially how it affects spin. It is a complex interaction involving multiple elements, namely friction and elasticity. The general rule follows that as the bounce increases, dwell time decreases, yet the ability to spin is closely dependent on it.

zeio wrote: Well, even the Japanese people suspect Tenergy came boosted at the factory(noting its huge performance lead over the Tensor back when it was first released) and Mizutani used it without being aware. http://hayabusa6.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/pingpong/1456064653/, post 20.

Its known that sponsored players have a tiny metal bottle with booster. And mizutani was carrying that small bottle in a worlds there are boosters from nittaku donic butterfly. A korean women in the us open also had that metal bottle sold one to a coach

Some light reading (actaully, pretty technical!) about speed glue...  LINK

TENERGY IS FAMOUS FOR NOT BEING FACTORY TREATED.


ALL Tenergy sheets are well alike, without oily additived, whether for general market or for national players. Should Tenergy factory put some oil to the sponge, then the rubber gets a greater weigh some 95 grammes unpacked sheet.
It is not the case for Tenergy rubbers, all the rubbers keep within 82 -84 grammes, which is a good argument that rubber oil free.
Another strong proof is Mizutani's and Boll's many public statement they did never get treated rubber from Buterfly factory.

slevin wrote: benfb wrote: We're going to have to agree to disagree on this one. Contrary to popular opinion, there has been no proof that Butterfly does factory tuning to the sponge in Tenergy and the observational data is that they do not. About a year and a half ago, I put 2 brand new sheets of T05 2.1 on my blade. I left 1 of those 2 sheets open for 2 days before gluing onto blade. The 2nd sheet, I glued onto the blade immediately after removing the wrapping. To me, there was a clear difference in performance, especially in the 1st 5 days or so. I'm not saying that it is booster that Asahi applies but there's certainly something there.

I don't think so. Where'd you hear that? People usually say that it's designed to be boosted. I'm not sure if that's true either.

By the way, I'm getting ready to do an experiment. I am making a blade with 2 brand new sheets of H3 Neo Prov, one boosted and one not. I want to compare the rebound of each sheet, to balls served by my robot.

Matt Pimple wrote:   And what do you think BTY puts on the sponge to make Tenergy bouncy?

We're going to have to agree to disagree on this one. Contrary to popular opinion, there has been no proof that Butterfly does factory tuning to the sponge in Tenergy and the observational data is that they do not.

Factory tuned sponges are usually pretty obvious to spot when taken out of the package. Also, they lose that tuning over a period of a couple of months (or quicker), regardless of the amount of play.  Both of these points do no apply to Tenergy.

In response to Igor, I will say that petroleum based oils typically cause degradation of rubber compounds (try applying oil to the rubber brake pads on your bicycle and see what happens).  However, I don't know if that applies to the oils used in boosting.

And I may be over-using the word degradation here.  If you have a rubber whose top sheet is losing it's grip (typically by a combination of wear and tear plus hardening from oxidation from old age), you can put vegetable oil on it to "rejuvenate" it.  The top sheet will regain lost grip and become pliable again.  It will also wear out even faster.

Earlier this year I recycled some of my old sheets of Tenergy.  These were sheets that had 200+ hours of play on them, so that the sponge was dead and the top sheets were worn.  I reglued them with booster and also rejuvenated the top sheet with oil. I found the sheets had become usable again and I was able to get an extra month of play out of them.  I wouldn't recommend this process for serious play, but if you're on a budget (Tenergy being expensive and all), then it might be a way to get more bang for your buck.

igorponger wrote:    OIL IS MUCH A POISON. IT KILLS THE RUBBER.

Read the above patent my friend. And what do you think BTY puts on the sponge to make Tenergy bouncy?

Edited by Matt Pimple - 11/30/2016 at 6:49pm

zeio wrote: Google Patents: https://patents.google.com/patent/JP2008049094A/ja?q=%E5%8D%93%E7%90%83&assignee=%E3%83%A4%E3%82%B5%E3%82%AB WIPO: https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=JP23255090&recNum=3&maxRec=6&office=&prevFilter=&sortOption=Pub+Date+Desc&queryString=ALL%3A%28%E5%8D%93%E7%90%83%E7%94%A8%E3%83%A9%E3%83%90%E3%83%BC%E3%81%AE%E8%86%A8%E6%BD%A4%E5%89%A4%29&tab=NationalBiblio

Thank you sir! Quite interesting...