OK, how about the most comprehensive mesh review ever performed in my kitchen? I think that’s a whole lot easier to swallow and probably slightly more accurate.

Now that we’re back from winter break, I wanted to start 2012 off with a bang. Those plans fell through, so I figured the next best thing was to get back in the 24 Seven Lax testing labs and get to the bottom of these weather-proof mesh claims. You know the ones I speak of, right? There are a number of companies out there making mesh and almost as many claim that their products out-perform others when they get wet. Here are a few examples…

“the perfect coating for mesh that allows the pocket to break in quickly, while preventing “Bag-Out” in the rain”

“Mesh butter makes mesh 4x more resistant to water. The key is preventing bag-out”

“Waterproof – Water beads right off the mesh and it won’t bag in rain”

“fairly easy to break yet will hold its pocket in poor weather”

“unparalleled water resistance while minimizing the flakiness typically associated with waxy meshes”

“offers better hold and feel than soft mesh, a better release than hard mesh, and ultimate water protection”

“clear latex coated for improved water resistance”

Waterproof, unparalleled, ultimate water protection, preventing bag-out! That sounds like a challenge. I scoured the internetz for about 3 minutes and couldn’t find any reviews of the scientific nature comparing and contrasting the water-resistant properties of lacrosse mesh. I immediately determined that I would rectify this oversight and spent an additional 3 minutes developing a game plan. My girlfriend spent far less time determining that I had no life. Never mind her, let’s get to the testing.

I decided on 8 types of mesh to test based on their popularity and claims of some sort of water-resistant qualities. The line up included; 1 Lacrosse Ready Mesh, East Coast Mesh, Jimalax Hard, JimaWAX, 15mm Marc Mesh, Ninja Heavy, Ninja Standard, and Stringer’s Shack Semi-Hard.

Meet the contenders

First Impressions

• 1 Lacrosse Ready Mesh – Semi-hard to Semi-soft feel to it. No noticeable coating of any kind. Resembles ruby mesh.
• East Coast Mesh – Semi-soft and waxy feel to it. Easy to work with. Not much flaking at all when stretched.
• Jimalax Hard – Hard, no question about it. Not as easy to stretch. Had to really push myself to get it stretched out.
• JimaWAX – Semi-soft at best. Probably 2nd softest of the bunch. Easy to work with. Lots of flaking when stretched.
• 15mm March Mesh – The softest of the group. Easy to work with. Very little flaking when stretched.
• Ninja Standard – Very tacky to the touch, like pine tar on a baseball bat. Semi-soft feel and easy to stretch. No flaking.
• Ninja Heavy – A slightly beefier version of the aforementioned Ninja Standard.
• Stringer’s Shack Semi-Hard – Previously my go-to mesh. Might as well be hard mesh. Slightly softer than Jimalax Hard but with a coating. No flaking of any sort.

Head and Shoulders, stat! 1. JimaWAX 2. East Coast Mesh 3. Marc Mesh

The Test

If you’ve stuck with us through 2011, you know that I love testing. It might be the flying colors that I received at the free clinic that’s got me feeling cocky about testing because it couldn’t have been my college level business statistics courses. Whatever the case, I take testing lax products seriously and try to approach the subjects from a different angle. After all, who here wants to hear my opinion on which product has the best hold, dopest pocket, incredible channel, etc? That’s why I took the subjectivity out of the equation here and came up with a simple test to see which mesh would truly perform the best when wet, and by perform I mean not bag-out.

I lined up my beakers, graduated cylinders, and Bunson burner and prepared to get down to the business at hand. 5 minutes later, I realized that I had no clue what to do with these things and swapped them out for a Biggest Loser food scale, a Berkley fish scale, and a 24 Seven Lax exclusive stick template. I braved the Catonsville, MD Wal-Mart to assemble the stick template myself. It took me a good hour and a half to get it put together. A real man probably could have done it in 30 minutes, but I digress. My plan of attack was twofold. First, I would weigh each piece of mesh dry. After that, I would stretch it over my template and pull with 10 pounds of pressure and measure the distance between 2 predetermined points an the top and bottom of each piece of mesh. These steps would provide my baseline. Why 10 lbs.? That seemed to be the point at which the meshes stopped easily stretching.

24 Seven Lax essential testing tools

The next steps were slightly more involved, but still not rocket science. I would repeat the steps mentioned above after soaking each piece for 2 minutes in room temperature distilled tap water. The tricky part was shedding the excess water without wringing out the mesh prior to the weighing and stretching. I decided that 1 minute hanging directly in front of a fan was fair, even if not sensible. So that was the process for the second part of this exercise; a two minute dip, 1 minute drying in front of the fan, straight to the scale, and finally the stretch. I knew how uncontrolled this whole idea was and the results surprised me, so I actually repeated this 3 times over the course of 2 weeks and averaged my findings. The one finding I knew to be true is that Heather was right, I don’t have a life.

Certainly not being used for portion control

10 lbs. of force dry and then wet

The Shocking Results

The good news is that my results were pretty consistent in the 3 rounds of testing. The dry weights, as you might expect, were identical all 3 times for all mesh pieces. The wet weights had a bit more variance but were without exception within a gram or two. To my surprise, the stretching was even more consistent both dry and wet than the weights. I made a conscious effort to remove my marks after each round and start fresh. That effort was hardly necessary. The results were surprising, but even more surprising was the fact that I work in software and had no clue how to create a chart in Excel.

The raw data. Less is better.

Under the same weight, how much did they stretch?

To keep things in perspective, I should point out to our less astute readers that the margin between first and last was less than that guaranteed by the box of Extenze hidden in your closet. Be that as it may, there had to be a winner and that product was East Coast Mesh. With the least bagging of any of the other products tested, East Coast Mesh takes home the title. Both Ninja meshes were right on the heels of East Coast, but consistently came up just a bit short. I was surprised to see that there wasn’t a direct correlation between water retention (weight gain) and lots of nagging and complaining stretching, but I’m just a caveman and these numbers frighten and confuse me.

There you have it folks. Like I said, it’s not rocket science and I wouldn’t put any more stock in these findings than you do the opinions of those in the know and I certainly don’t include myself in that company. Happy New Year and be sure to like our Facebook page. Check back as we do some durability reviews. Here’s a sneak peak.