Why Mark V is still so popular ?

Does anyone remember a glue called "Vulcofux"? It was a voc glue used by cyclist to repair tires. It also happened to be the bomb for speed gluing back in the day. It was a secret weapon but the down side was it smelled horrible and the user needed a biohazard suit lol. :)

frogger wrote: Does anyone remember a glue called "Vulcofux"? It was a voc glue used by cyclist to repair tires. It also happened to be the bomb for speed gluing back in the day. It was a secret weapon but the down side was it smelled horrible and the user needed a biohazard suit lol. :)

We have digressed over the last 10 posts or so. The main question here in the OP is why Mark V is STILL popular.

Is it?

Should it be?

Anybody tried boosting mark v with falco?

adishorul wrote: frogger wrote: The fact remains the top sheet of Mark V is very consistent sheet to sheet. Yes it was best in the speed glued era however get a max thickness sheet, glue it 3-4 times with the latex based glue and it's performance for beginners to intermediate level players is nothing to sneeze at. I have played with a bazillion rubbers and still use max on my BH. It's not the fastest or spiniest but you get exactly what you put into the stroke. I still see way to many developing players trying to play with equipment that they are not ready for. With the proper strokes a player can still loop the hell out of the ball, counter with nice speed, receive service with control, and play a game with variation. If you are above 2000 level Mark V may fall a bit short but for the vast majority of us Mark V is perfectly fine even if it's a non-tensor. You know your not going to the Olympics peeps so play with something you can feel comfortable with according to your style of play and level. Classic rubbers still are viable in this new era of the sport....ribbit. If I would start again as a beginner as I did 7 years ago I wouldn't use something like sriver or Mark v because these rubbers are very forgiving and you can be tricked that your shots are ok but they aren't and you can develope bad habits so IMHO the best way is to use a very thin rubber for maximum feeling but very unforgiven to know exactly when your shot is good or not. I guess some version of tenergy fx 1.7 mm would be perfect for this purpose. A thin layer of speed glue also is welcomed.

I occasionally hit with 2 players who are about 1000-1100 level.

One plays Viscaria with H3/T80, the other with some kind of ZJK blade with 2 T05. Changing to 1.7 Tenergy fx will have no effect at all on them.

Both have non existent strokes. They simply use the rubber to rebound the ball back. When doing simple FH-FH or BH-BH drills, if I feed them the ball perfectly in time then they can rebound the ball back to me ok. If the ball is at a different timing or position, they spray the ball all over the place. They do not play the ball, the ball plays them.

They have lousy strokes because their setups are way too fast for their ability level.

They would improve their games immensely if they switched to Mark V and actually learned how to do proper strokes.

A third player was doing the same thing as the two above and hired a private coach. The coach switched the player from a very fast setup to a DEF blade and improved quickly.

Mark V was my first Japanese rubber, and then Sriver came the 2nd. They were so popular and relatively expensive at that time.

Baal wrote: Yep. But like APW46 said, totally illegal by ITTF rules (meaning you couldn't sell Pep Boys glue as TT glue after 1995 or there abouts). I suspect It had dichloroethane in It. It is ironic that Haifu makes a really good booster given that their speed glue was so bad.

Indeed.  When the Hungarians secretly discovered speed glue, it was in fact vulcanizing glue that they discovered.  And APW46 is right, ordinary stuff sold for specialty sports in new containers usually has the priced jacked up five-fold.  In my other sport, road cycling, they sell stuff you can rub onto your delicate private parts to avoid chaffing and irritation in your....  well the parts of the body in contact with the seat.  They sell it at bike shops for a fortune.  You can buy the identical material at a grocery store in the facial cleanser section for 1/5 the price.  Noxema, basically.  And so it was for TT glues until ITTF made some new rules (unenforceable for players) about what stuff could be in speed glues that were sold by companies with an ITTf approval.   

How many rating points did speed glue add?