OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Do sponge colours effect the rubber?

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Normally, sponges from the same manufacturer that are colored differently also have properties (hardness, density) that differ, so yes, they do affect the overall rubber feeling.
This doesn't mean that sponges from different manufacturers that are of a certain color (e.g., blue) will be similar to each other.

TABLE TENNIS SPONGE FREE OF ARTIFICIAL COLORANTS IS THE BEST
Those "natural" sponges would feature "natural" coloures of (1)light-gray or (2)honey-like.
You can find the light-gray sponge attached on many sandwich rubbers from Japanese factories.

(1)LIGHT GRAY COLORATION
Latex sheet natural air-drying, some forest lawn on Tailand latex plantation.

The raw rubber sheet is made of latex milk by adding some ACETIC acid,
which makes the milk curdle first and then rolled flat to dry.
The light-gray dried sheets is a crude material for many industrial production.

(2)HONEY COLORATION
Smoked crêpes of rubber

The production of smoked rubber sheets.
It is to remove all the remaining moisture from the rubber sheet and prevent the latex rot to grow up.
_______________
Knowledge would make money, and wealth of mind would make money a lot.

Actually it's the other way around. The rubber's properties effect the color.

Iskandar

Geez Igor - nobody makes rubber like this anymore. Smoked rubber sheets???? Back in the 1960s, yes.

Iskandar

https://youtu.be/VS9FMTF-cm4?t=238 The Giant Smoke Chambers, Tailand Rubber Factory as filmed in the modern time thereabout 2010's


If the raw sheets dry in sunlight, their may be a chances of melting of the sheets and more over the inside parts of the sheets wont be dry properly. This type of rubber sheets are very low graded and the time taken to dry will also more. In the smoke chamber the rubber sheets will dry with the smoke coming from the firewoods, for 96 hours.

The inception of Tamasu Butterfly® famous rubbers and sponges.

*sigh*

These days they don't even bother to roll them into sheets anymore. They collect the coagulated lumps straight from the cup. It gets exported either as raw latex or in a form called Heveacrumb. Smokehouses are long gone. Don't believe everything you watch on YouTube. That's all really old technology - even smallholders don't do that any more.

Iskandar

Dear Friend,
You seem doubting your own eyes. Not?

Igor, do you live where there are lots and lots of rubber trees? Do you live in a major rubber exporting country? Have you ever talked to people who grow rubber trees, watch them tap the trees, allow the rubber to coagulate in the cups, and watch the trucks come to collect the "cup lumps"? Have you actually tapped a rubber tree yourself? I doubt it. I do and I have. The smoked sheets thing is what they taught in school textbooks in the 1960s and 70s. You have to collect liquid latex for that, they make the sheets at the plantation and take them to a central smoke house. I remember when a smoke house near the railroad station where I lived burned down one day, you could see the thick black smoke for miles. They don't exist any more. It's old technology.

Besides, all the Japanese rubbers I've seen have brightly colored sponge (like Tenergy). You're making stuff up about the "natural colored" sponge, as usual. Pure latex rubber without colorants is a translucent amber color, like honey, not grey, in any case.



Iskandar

That actually looks kinda yummy

What, the surgical tubing? Tastes bitter, actually.

I used to buy and sell it in large quantities. We used it for pressure fuel bladders in F2D Combat models (look it up on YouTube). The amber stuff isn't the best, it deteriorates more quickly, especially in the sun. My favorite was the fluorescent colored stuff (you see it in exercise equipment). The black was actually better (more proof against UV) but was boring.

Iskandar

[https://www.google.com/search?q=HTB1sy.SaUrrK1RkSne1q6ArVVXaB.jpg



Mishmash of natural rubber blocks (smoked ones is honey, air-dryed is grey).
Those rubber material can make a great Tenergy, would you have got the true formulation of rubber vulcanizates (ingredientes, processing time etc.)

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32963901814.html

/Be happy/