Falco Tempo Booster Review

Falco Tempo Booster offers a safer and VOC-free alternative to speed glue. As the VOC speed glue ban comes into the effect in 2008, Berenger International has come up with great new alternative, which is completely VOC free and is compliant with the new ITTF regulations on glue

The Booster is not actually a glue, but a sponge treatment liquid, which offer a speed glue effect for around 3 weeks. After this period another smaller application will reactive the booster and offer another 3 weeks, and so on...

The original Booster (WSL II) contained fat and was very oily, but this new version (WSL III, very likely the final version) is hardly oily and is therefore much easier to stick on with glue.

The Falco Tempo Booster come in a 150ml tin with a brush attached to the lid, making the application very easy.

Warning: This booster (and all other speed glues and alternatives) stretch the rubber, increasing the tension on the topsheet. Some high tension rubbers or Tensors are not designed to be used with speed glue or alternatives as it put too much tension on the topsheet. Some rubber are glued together better than others, so using speed glue or alternatives, there is always a risk of damage to the rubber.

NOTE: Below are my own personal instructions and review, and may not be optimum you.

Instructions:
1. Put the rubber with the sponge up onto a flat surface. If the rubber has a plastic protection sheet on the topsheet, remove this first. This allows the topsheet to stretch with the sponge as it expands, reducing the strain on the topsheet and the bond to the sponge.

2. Apply a layer of Falco Tempo Booster onto the sponge covering the complete surface evenly. Try not to get any on the edges as this may leak onto the topsheet.

3. Wait for it to soak in and for the sponge surface to feel dry. The picture (left) shows a rubber about 2 hours after application of the booster. As the sponge has expanded by a huge amount already (but the topsheet has not) you can see the huge 'dome', this is normal.

4. At this point you may add another layer for greater effect, and repeat for a 3rd layer for even greater effect. As the doming becomes greater, you may have to push down the rubber sheet to stop it from 'scrolling up', as this may get some of the liquid onto the topsheet.

WARNING: The 'doming' effect as the sponge is expanding puts strain on the topsheet and the bond between the topsheet and sponge. There is a limit on how much strain a rubber can handle, depending on the type and quality of the rubber. The majority of quality rubbers should be able to handle 2-3 layers, but more is not recommended.

5. After the final layer, leave the rubber to dry until the dome starts coming down. Pictured (right) is the dome after 2 layers.

It is highly recommended to leave the rubber until the dome is well down, as it may be very hard to get it to stick to the blade if you don't. I recommend leaving it for about 48h, ONLY the first time you use the booster. The next time can be done in 24h. Note that the effect of the dome coming down is not an indication of the effect wearing off, but merely the topsheet stretching further, allowing the rubber to flatten out.

6. When the rubber is ready to be attached to the blade, check if there is any residue or dirt on the sponge (not likely), wipe it off with a tissue or dry cloth... It is recommended to use a water based glue, such as Falco Water Glue, to attach the rubber to the blade. The water based glue is very easy to remove before the next application (after the effect wears off).

7. After gluing and clamping the rubber to the blade, it's ready to use for play. The effect should last for about 3 weeks, and should be quite consistent during this period.

8. When the effect starts to wear off, remove the rubber from the blade. As is usually good practice with any speed gluing procedure, leave the rubber off the blade for at least 24h, to allow it to shrink a little since it's been under high tension for such a long time.

9. Remove the layer of glue from the rubber. This allows better penetration of the Booster to the sponge. As there will still be significant booster present in the sponge, less booster is required to get the same effect (exactly how much less may take a little experimenting as this depends on the initial application, the duration it was used for and the rubber type).

Note: From further experiments, using half the amount of the initial boost is a good guide.

10. Repeat from step 3., remembering that less booster will be required to give the same effect for another 3 weeks.

For Maximum Speed glue effect:
As suggested by the manufacturer, for maximum and huge speed glue effect, prepare the rubber with the booster (as per procedure above), and use the Falco Tempo Unlimited every 8-10 days. The chemical structure of these 2 products is made to create maximum speed glue effect together!

I used the Falco Tempo booster on a Tulpe 007 Japanese sponge (40-43 deg), on a Galaxy ALL+ blade.

I followed the procedure above, applying 2 medium thick layers of the Booster. As you can see from the picture above, the final dome was huge and I did not want to add a 3rd layer! Obviously this will vary from rubber to rubbers with difference sponges and hardness's.

After the 2 layers I left the rubber to dry for about 36hrs. By this time the dome was still quite large, but had started to come down a little. Next time I'll most likely leave it a little longer again, making the gluing to the blade a lot easier.

Since I have a durometer (specifically for measuring sponge hardness), I measured the sponge hardness before and after the rubber treatment. Although the absolute readings are yet to be worked out, I would estimate the sponge hardness dropped by about 4 degrees! This is very impressive for a VOC free alternative!

Well the results were not disappointing, the speed glue effect was massive! There was a huge increase in speed and spin, and the rubber felt significantly softer too. The sounds was not quite as loud as with some VOC glues I've used, but the effect and feel was virtually the same!

I compared the Falco Booster with the highly regarded Tibhar Clean Tuning Extra, on identical rubbers and identical blades. I used 5 layers of the Tibhar CTE and 2 layers of the booster.

The Booster won the battle this time with the Booster softening the sponge 1-2 degrees more, and with a little more speed and feel (as a guess 5% more speed). I let another regular speed glue player try the 2 bats, without telling him which is which, and he came to the same conclusion.

Of course this may be different on different rubbers, and more layers of Tibhar CTE would likely offer more effect. I also still have to test how long the effect lasts and how consistent they are, and how well the 2nd application works... However both products are the best I've seen so far and very impressive, and certainly genuine alternative to VOC speed glues.

This has also encourages me to try some further test on the Falco Tempo Unlimited, as I don't feel my previous test, although still fairly successful, do it justice. I've now learned that longer waiting times, more initial applications and the cumulative effect will almost certainly improve the performance of this glue as well!

There is further discussion on using this glue in our online table tennis forum

FALCO TEMPO BOOSTER - Table tennis rubber booster