It's kind of hard to "review" rubber, right?

To maximize the waste of my company's resources, we rigged up our industrial high-speed camera to capture the bounce-i-ness of it.

A gate was lifted to allow the ball to roll towards the rubber on a 6 degree slope.

We used a gate to make sure we were not putting a spin on the ball by launching it by hand.

Even with the gate, the ball had a random bounce pattern, so we took the arc of the highest bounce as our frame grab.

Each ball was launched 10 times so a single bad bounce would not kill it's score.

Each rubber was gently stretched and then installed with the tension even on both sides of the posts.

https://www.titanpinball.com/products_detail.php?ProductID=640

So as our baseline, we used a 2.5" Happ rubber.

Happ is the "standard" that most operators use here in the East.

This rubber was fresh, bought a month ago by James, the King of Cranes.

This pic shows the high point of the ball's arc - the highest arc of 10 tries.

022-HAPP-RUBBER.jpg

Here is a 2.5" colored rubber from IPB.

It came from one of those giant $15 bags of Gene's purple rubbers. The bag was still sealed and was purchased in 2014, so it was still very fresh.

You can see that the rubber is less bouncy than our baseline Happ rubber.

044-IBP-RUBBER.jpg

Finally, here is a 2.5" Titan's Competition Silicone rubber.

It is almost exactly the same bounce as our baseline Happ.

022-TITAN-RUBBER.jpg

You know Odin knows how to set 'em up.....lol

Here I've stretched a section of these rubbers WAY farther than anyone should.

Each section got stretched hard, 10 times.

You can see that the IPB rubber turns white and chalky, and the Titan looks completely normal.

022-STRETCH-TEST.jpg

Here you can see the Color Saturation of the Titan.

This was taken with a white balance card, so they really are that saturated.

The reds are super red, not pinkish. The whites are bright white. The blacks are deep, glossy black.

Very impressive color on these rings.

022-Satura.jpg

Pinside created some Jpeg artifacts in that picture that make the red post ring look rough - ignore that, it did not look at all like that in person. Nor does the original Jpeg.

Each test was repeated 10 times.

I was discussing with my engineers how to do a fair wear test.

The only practical thing we could come up with was maybe rigging 2 slingshots facing each other.

A counter would count how many actuations until a rubber broke and the ball escaped (ending the test).

It still needs more brainstorming.

I hate when rings don't have the sizes molded into them.

You find an old stretched out, unmarked ring, and it does not seem to match any particular size on the chart...LOL.

The Titan rings have the sizes right on them, no confusion in the future (or for beginners who don't know how to read a rubber sizing chart).

SIZES.jpg

None of us had any fresh black rubber.

I brought a bag of a dozen 2.5" black that I thought was new, but when I took them out, I could see that they had been installed at some point. I don't keep used rubbers, so I don't know how they got into my toolbox, maybe someone sold me a bag of crap, or I found them in a game and assumed they were new....whatever happened, we were not properly prepared.

The only clear they sent were post sleeves, so I won't know until I get some clear rings to test.

The white, black and purple silicone all were identical.

https://www.titanpinball.com/products_detail.php?ProductID=640

Added it to first post too.

We converted a Sexy Girl, that is deployed in a strip bar, into all purple Titan rubbers.

With the fog machine, stinky "urinal cake" perfume, people smoking (why is smoking illegal in bars, but all strip bars are full of frigging smokers?), and 14 hours a day possible play, we will soon find out.

You guys are all very welcome!

A durometer measures the hardness of a material on a scale from 0 to 100. 100 being the hardest.

It says on Titan's web site that the Titan Silicone rubber has a durometer reading of 45.

White Happ rubber ring has a durometer rating of 45.

Black Happ rubber ring has a durometer rating of 50.

A standard rubber band has a durometer rating of 25.

I'm trying to get the guys at work to do the black rubber sometime this week (if the boss is away long enough).

James sent me an email with some pics of Sexy Girl - 632 plays latter.

He said he just wiped the dust off with a damp rag and all the silicone looked like new again.

No sign of any wear, or broken rubbers so far.....

titan-sexy-girl1.jpg

I have a few black sample pieces, but not enough to do an entire game with.

The Titans don't feel oily or crumbly like some black rubber does.

James did not mention any trails, but remember that that Sexy Girl is newer than new. New clearcoat, new plastics, new flippers, new lamp sockets, new switches, new mechs, even a new cab. It is cleaner than any NIB game.

I'll have to get a set of black Titans and test them out, but I suspect they will be much cleaner than black rubber.

I got 2 emails asking why the newly built game would be anything different as far as ball trails.

Every time a coil fires, it creates that black dust of powdered metal that you see everywhere under the playfield and inside the slingshot pens.

A shopped game will still have a good amount of that abrasive black dust hidden all over (in the wire harnesses, under the flipper mech plates....) . But a newly re-manufactured game is good for awhile before you start to see it.

So all other things being equal, the new game will stay cleaner longer than a freshly shopped game.

Exactly.

Sometimes I look and the subways are completely opaque.

Still no broken rubbers as of Weds.