Customer review for XIOM Vega Europe

External Review for XIOM Vega Europe on November 1, 2013

I really like this rubber. I put it on the forehand side of my Kreanga Carbon to replace some Butterfly Cermet rubber. Speed/Spin is comparable to Cermet but I think the control was better and the sound/feel was better. My admittedly crappy looping skills have only improved with this and I'll note that blocking is fairly easy with this.

I will say that it is highly susceptible to dust and will turn into anti-spin rather quickly compared to a sticky chinese rubber when not cleaned regularly. I'd say it needs cleaning about once per 45 minutes unless you're playing with clean balls that have already been broken in.

Also, I've noticed that if your sweat gets on it (such as if you try to wipe it with your hand/arm in a pinch), it will turn rather slick for about 10 minutes while the skin oils absorb into it. That is a bad thing and so I try to avoid touching it except with a sponge and distilled water. That is rather effective at cleaning it.

As advertised, it's really not sticky at all and kitchen plastic wrap only barely sticks to it.

I'm not sure if it's inherent to this rubber/sponge or if I stretched it too much during application but the edges are starting to puff up and I will have to re-glue it soon. I can already tell there will be about a 2% shrinkage of the rubber when I do this and it won't reach to the rim of the paddle anymore. If you're using a strong glue on a normal paddle this may not be a problem for you but I was using butterfly free chack on a Kreanga Carbon blade which has a VERY slick surface. I will have to be very careful in the future to select rubbers for this blade that are unlikely to shrink. The Yin He Venus 2 rubber on my backhand has not shrunk at all and is holding tight with the same glue and application process.

This was also my first Xiom product. I was fairly impressed and I think I will be buying from them more in the future. I will just be more careful with the gluing and use a different blade for it.

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