I'm revisiting this topic because I had to prime a new pad recently. I gave mine away at the end of the show we attended in Sandy, Utah. As I always do, I was prepared to prime a new one with 50 whacks after putting in the chalk and another 50 after adding more chalk. I don't think I got to 50 whacks when it was ready to go. I thought to myself, "Why? what changed?" Then I remembered that we had changed a component in the pad out of necessity because we could no longer find a supplier for the original material. I think this switch has made priming pads easier! I know this probably doesn't apply to a lot of you. Your pads have most likely been primed for some time, but I wanted to mention it anyway. There may be some it applies to, and if you ever add a new pounce pad to your collection, you will notice the priming process is different. I'm happy about it because priming was a struggle for some people.