OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Come to think of it.. last I played (before starting up again 3 years or so ago), around 1998-2001, NO ONE EVER worried about blades shedding layers, or having to varnish blades. At least, no one ever mentioned it on Usenet. I think the problem is the water-based glues we use these days. I don't think we're using woods today that were not being used back then, a lot of the blades we use today were available back then, too.

Iskandar

Well, I actually had to repair blades about 35 years ago. More than once.

And because the top veneer splintered or even lost larger chunks entirely when changing rubbers. My Stellan Bengtsson Offensive Wood at some point went beyond repair.

No WBG then. It might have been a bit more resilient, even so, had I known about sealing. Or not; maybe these blades really were that fragile and shortlived.

An older thread I know, but my 2 cents worth which might halp anyone else reading - I seal my blades with minwax polyurethane. Put it on with a rag and rub it in, and let it dry overnight. I too found that the donic water based glues that I use (vario clean and blue contact) would invariably take splinters off the two blades that I use most of the time, Applegren Allplays,not sure if they are particularly soft and prone to splinters. Sealing the blade has so far prevented it. One thing I did find, for me at least, is that the rubbers did not stick very well after blade sealing. The blade surface was very slick and if an edge of the rubber came away (as can happen easily if you hit the table when pushing) it wouldnt take long before I had a loose rubber flapping around. The solution was to lightly sand the blade with 220 grit sand paper. Now they stick really well.

The other thing I have started doing fairly recently is using rubber cement on the blade only. I find that rubber cement does not generally cause splintering, even on unsealed blades. So, I put on a generous layer of best test rubber cement (it's quick thick straight from the bottle) on the blade. On the rubber I use water based glue, maybe a couple of layers. Sticks nice and good. Not that it matters for me, but I would think it would not violate the VOC levels for competitions as all the solvent in the rubber cement would have evaporated in the drying process on the blade (as opposed to sinking into the sponge and remaining there for a day or two). I have done this several times on an unsealed blade that I was using to play around with cheap chinese rubbers. No splintering so far! When the rubber is peeled off all the glue tends to remain on the sponge, not the blade. Re gluing simply involves more cement on the blade as the rubbers have enough dried glue on them already. If you really want to you can add another layer of wbg to the sponge. Next time I put a tensor/ESN rubber on a blade I will do the same thing. I don't really want to deal with expanding and shrinking tensors!

I don't think it's even worth putting water based glue on the rubber. The small amount of solvent in rubber cement's not going to produce any sort of glue effect. Back when we were speed gluing you poured a huge puddle of very thin speed glue on the rubber, this would cause the sponge to swell and the rubber to dome up. AND THE EFFECT WOULD BE GONE IN 2-3 HOURS. Whatever anyone's worried about with rubber cement, the effect will be gone in 15 minutes, probably, and the VOC tester would probably give a negative result in a week. Water based glues are a major pain in the neck, blade damage or no blade damage. They're a pain to apply, you have to wait a long time for them to dry (people use hair driers and such to speed it up), if you so much as touch it with a fingertip while it's drying it'll come off and you have to redo the whole thing, and at the end of the day I doubt ANY of us on this forum will ever have to get his/her bat tested for VOCs anyway.

Yeah, I know rubber cement causes OX pips to curl up, so don't use it for OX pips. For inverted? No worries. By the way, Tensors will shrink no matter what glue you use on them. They're boosted at the factory, and the booster wears off.

Iskandar

By the way... one of the more annoying things that happen is this. You buy a can of clear oil or water based polyurethane varnish. You seal one blade. Then six months later, you buy another blade and want to seal it.. and then you find a) you can't get the lid off the can, or b) there's a solid layer that formed on top of your polyurethane varnish and the stuff underneath looks like very dark, very thick molasses. This is ten times more annoying if you had bought a quart or half gallon can, and especially if it's late Sunday and the Ace Hardware is closed for the evening. Polyurethane isn't just a solvent-based lacquer - it reacts with air and polymerizes. To avoid this - get two pointy screws. Sheet metal screws or drywall screws work very well for this. Drill a couple of holes into the sides of the can, on opposite sides, up near the lid. Or maybe in the lid itself. Screw in the screws. Tilt the can so that some of the liquid seeps into the screw threads. Then put the can on the shelf. Whenever you need to seal a blade, remove the screws, pour maybe 5-10 ml of polyurethane into a paper cup (and use that to varnish your blade). Then screw the screws back in, tilt the can again to get varnish into the threads and then put it away on the shelf. I have some that's going on two years now and it's still good.

Iskandar

This here is the problem... You’re not supposed to wait that long to buy another blade... =)

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