Spinmax homemade replacement

tabl10s wrote: Too much SM will prevent the ball from leaving the racket quickly if you're a hitter.

I have tried a product called 'Sticky Stuff Remover', made by a company called 'Mykal' and it had 2 interesting properties.

It makes the rubber sticky. In the UK it is available from a catalogue company. You can search it on google.

Spinmax is probably a solution of trichlorethylene ( the active component ) in n-heptane , the linear and cheapest isomer of heptane (the diluent ). Try 5%-10%-15% of trichl. under safe condictions.
Spinmax is NOT a tt rubber cleaner. Spinmax acts by dissolving few microns of the top sheet surface, leaving a very thin layer of polyisoprene – polybutadiene emulsion that stays for a while. This emulsion increases the static spin of top sheet , leaving unchanged its dinamic spin , a value related mainly to the Young’s modulus ( tensile or elastic modulus) of the rubber. The Young’s modulus is increased by solvents of glue, so Spinmax, properly used, is NOT a tensor for rubbers.
I suggest to try trichl. because it is the best solvent of rubbers. Actually , the Hildebrand Solubility
Parameter of trichl. , and its three ortogonal components , the Hensen parameters, have values near to HS Parameters of elastomeric matrix in the top sheet. (Solubility parameters are simply excellent
indicators of the compatibility of a particular solvent with a particular substance .)
In our case the particular substance is generally a blend of polyisoprene ( natural or synt) and polybutadiene (100 -0 % , 70 -30 % or 50 -50%) fibers enbedded in a filler of calcium carbonate ( Silicon? Were is it ? ) . The filler and the elastomer(s) don’t joint freely , but they are bonded by an anphoteric coupling factor , generally a silane. These are the main compounds of a tt top sheet , technically a composite : its average Hildebrand Parameter is near to 19.5 and the Hild. Par. of trichloroethylene is 18.7-19.0 .
The Parameter of heptane is 15.3 , so it isn’t as good solvent as trichl. for the top sheet and it can’t be the active component of spinmax .
The problem of Solubility Parametrs of rubber solvents is much more intricate and I thankfully stop here.
More interesting are the long-term effects of spinmax , ie after 20 applications or so.
The top sheet loses gradually the grip and becomes dead : my Mendo MP ,whose tops are designed with spin-elastic technology, became antitop . Funny and fast , speed glued antitop rubbers !!!!
Why ? For a simple reason:
Heptane does form an azeotropic mixture with any of the main rubber solvents. Let me do an ex. : cyclohexane and ethyl acetate are a well known azeotropic binary used in speed glues Their vapor pressure at standard Temp. is 11.17 Kilopascal and 10.87 KPa respectively, so cyclx. would evaporate more fast than ethylact. from the mixture, changing the relative molar volumes either in the liquid phase or in the gas phase of the blend. Azeotropism of this mix prevents it happens , and the speed glue effect of this binary ( really not so good effect ) stays constant throughout.
In spinmax , heptane , ( 7 KPa ) , would evaporates more slowly than our supposed trichlorethylene component ( 9 Kpa : the difference seems small , but it is great ) and ,after 1-2 seconds , we would brush our rubber surface with pure solvent with no effect . Being spinmax an azeotropic blend , it deosn’t happen and the two (?) organics evaporate “together “.
The inventor of Spinmax is a good chemist who wants his VOC blend stays constant till the last drop .
But he seems, ( only seems !!!!!), to be unaware of the fact that heptane , and other VOCs , are strong solvents of rubber tackyfiers and plasticizers, two classes of minor compounds of tt top sheets from which the coefficient of friction and the static grip of rubber depends ( static spin ). Even isopropylic alcool , the mildest cleaner of tops , after water , does it , and so the mildest non ionic detergent !!
So we can add spinmax to our list of short and long term aging agents of rubbers as oxygen ,
ozone , fatty acids , glues, mech. stress , home made mixtures………..
There is in the forum a true tt rubber engineer who explain us something about the 10000 chemicals
used by NR industry ? Are you guy ?
Abracos.
PS: the next time do an abstract , nicko !

I think what he is actually saying is 'look at me, look how clever I am, look what I know', it doesn't smell like it has 'trichlorethylene' (I assume he means trichloroethylene) in it. If it did, it would already be banned. The best way to find out the effect it has on rubbers is to ask someone who actually plays with it, rather than listen to some half baked scientific blurb which begins by telling you what it probably might contain and then goes into great detail as to how it works if this if this is what it contains.

Spinmax certainly softens the topsheet as well.

From personal experience of spinmax, I find the opposite, over the last 2 years of using the stuff. My rubbers are consistently more spinny throughout their lifetime when using spinmax and I would say that the spin builds up. If we are saying the surface deteriorates, then maybe it is down to the softening of the rubber which creates the extra spin. In any case, I would much rather play with a month old rubber that I have repeatedly used spinmax on than a new sheet.

I agree spinmax increase the static spin of tops when in use ; it is a fact . But when you stop , the sheet comes out dead for the reasons I tried to expl.
Its formula was never disclosed by its Australian inventor, of course , but for sure it was never submitted to ITTF approval and never banned as a consequence . And how could ITTF approve a stuff that changes the mechanical specifications of rubber surface ? So I can only say probably, probably……, but on my experience in the field of elastemers .
Who know published researches on generic chemical composition of tt rubbers, he steps forwards !
I know only one short report of 1999, and I referenced it.
For sure spinmax produces spin in a different way from the mechanism proposed by wfwfitz in a nutshell. Tests on accelerated aging of condoms ( aimed to set their expiration date , a bit more crucial thing than expir. date of our rubbers ) , can be used as a good theorical model for aging of any thin rubber sheet . I would never suspected our top sheets were a sort of thick condom vulcanized on a sponge ( sic! ), but it is so from a chemical point of view . Please, don’t try it with fresh glued sponge .
Well, as soon as packing was not sufficently airtight anymore , the thin walled rubber of a condom was aged witheen weeks. Moreover , condoms , that are filled of antioxidants as tt-tops are, aren’t exposed to light . Therefore , wfwfitz , the new topsheet surface revealed by spinmax is as oxidized as the old one and , as the former , not spinny .
It is well proved that colored rubber stuff surfaces ( no carbon black filled ) are ageing for a depth equal to about 0.3 mm witheen one - two monthes ; from that time on , the aging goes slow ( years ) .
The mechanism of action for spinmax I proposed is really a softening of the outer surface of top sheet as……………..
Please, feed coins into the machine.

As you know,specific job of the genius is to provide ideas to idiots twenty years later .

You prefer :


The genius lives in the madness ,in the sense that he keeps himself afloat where the fool drowns.

Do you really think I'm teasing someone aside from me ?
But for you I will stretch the rules.

Nicko: don�t pay attention to forehand. He said in another post that he�s a 13 y.o. spamming to "became a silver user" (what for????)

wow! this is certainly important info from nickorulez.

I wonder if Ksix could do a H NMR, 13C NMR, GC, IR etc on spinmax were we (aka not me) to send a sample to his/her lab. The presence of a chlorinated alkene would be immediately detectable, though for a mixture like spinmax some separation of components would be likely needed to know the precise makeup.

I think running any specs wouldn't violate copyrights/patent and it would tell whether non-kosher stuff was being used.

isnt spinmax going to get banned along with the speed glue? and wouldn't using a homemade replacement get you into the same trouble?

depends on how big your tin is

This is at least a partial list of ingredients for Spinmax straight from Joola: