Reviewed by Connor Morris
Hello everyone, as I am sure some of you fellow users have heard, there is a new wax mesh product from Mississauga, Ontario called Beaver Mesh. Beaver Mesh is produced by Brendan Chong and is a product that will prove to be a competitor against East Coast Mesh, Marc Mesh, and especially hard and soft mesh.
As an FYI, I am a Marc Mesh fanatic and live by the stuff, so I can assure you that after reading the result of this review, my analysis is honest and trustworthy.
I will begin by explaining the qualities of the mesh. After first pulling the mesh out of its package, I noticed it had a VERY tacky feel to it. It was a little more difficult to stretch out when comparing to East Coast Mesh and Marc Mesh, and it also had a “harder” feel to it.
When stretching out the mesh, there was MINIMAL flaking. When I say minimal, I mean less flaking than Marc Mesh and slightly more than East Coast Mesh. The flaking did in fact stop after being stretched out and strung into a head.
How’s it string? How well does it hold a pocket? Well I must say that I was extremely impressed with how easy it was to string this mesh. After the very minor difficulty with stretching it out, stringing the slice of mesh was a breeze especially because it holds a pocket so well. The mesh was easy to manipulate when trying different knots but it was also easy to pull down and keep tight without much effort or discomfort to the hands. After some tweaking to the pattern I tightened stringing. I could not be more impressed with how it turned out.
Now for the moment I am sure most have been waiting for, the water resistance. I have to say that this mesh truly is more water resistant than both East Coast Mesh and Marc Mesh. After dunking the stick in a pool, the water beaded off the mesh and DID NOT BAG OUT AT ALL. The pocket stayed the same depth even while pounding it after being soaked in water and continued to throw the same as when I first strung the stick. As we all know, East Coast Mesh and Marc Mesh do not have this advantage. These companies both lack in this department after an extended time of use and after the mesh has been 100% broken in. However, when repelling water, Beaver Mesh does just as good of a job after more than a month as it does when you first string it up.
DIRT REPELLENCE… This mesh did a decent job at repelling dirt. In fact, it repels dirt and stays white longer than Marc Mesh and East Coast Mesh as well as other soft and hard mesh pieces. Obviously the dirt does not bead off like the water does, but it does not end up getting ingrained in the actual mesh as much as it does with the other mesh types previously mentioned.
What’s the assessment in the end?
I must say that this mesh blew my mind. It’s tackiness and ability to hold a pocket prove to have superior hold, and its water resistance proves to be very reliable through the elements.
Below is a scale rating of the different aspects of the mesh:
Tackiness/Hold: 4/5
Ability to hold a pocket: 4.5/5
Break in time: 3.5/5
Stringability: 4.5/5
Water Resistance: 4.5/5
Now I know that everything I have said so far had mostly been positives, however there were a couple negatives. i found that this mesh didn’t break in as fast as I would have liked. I find that East Coast Mesh and Marc Mesh both break in basically instantly however this mesh took about a week of wall ball/playing around/shooting to get it to a “broken in” state. However, this wasn’t a huge issue for me because the positive of the water resistance outweighed the negative of the break in time.
I hope that this review gives a little more insight into a new quality product developed in Canada. To learn more visit Beaverlacrosse.com.
