Lead tape placement qns

[xFullCourtTenniSx]

Originally Posted by Alain

Hi "Doctor Lead"

Thanks again for your amazing threads .

Just a last question .When a manufacturer make a racquet , how many grams from the total mass is used for the mass repartition to make the racquet polarised or depolarised ? In other words , when you add 15g ( 3and 9h plus 7 inches from the buttcap) do you transform a polarised racquet in depolarised racquet or do you just decrease the polarisation ?

Second last question ... when you add 5or 6 g in all (at 3and 9h ) isn't the surgrip (5g at 10 cm from the buttcap) suffisant to counter balance ? Or is it for polarisation you should add 5g at 7 inches from the buttcap and the surgrip is an other problem ?

Thanks again

I learn a lot with your posts

1) Depends on the racket... You should worry more about the performance and feel than it's actual polarization. It's just guidelines to help you know what types of setups will generate results towards what a player might be looking for.

2) An overgrip is enough to counterbalance. But counterbalancing is to obtain the headlight balance you want. An overgrip can be part of the weight used to obtain that balance, but sometimes it won't be enough.

[esm]

hi X (aka Dr. Lead Tape)

as mentioned before, i have finally got my other FXP Prestige MP back and i have done a few measurements for you to give me advice on how to match them (as closely as possible... please)

so here they are:

FXP Prestige MP 1 (main racquet):
Weight - 356g
Head balance - 31.5cm
Current Lead tape - 4 x 4" of 1/2" width tapes at 3 and 9 oclock (my previous attempt before #2 arrived, outside the CAP)
String - Babolat Attraction Power 16 @ 60lb (eventually this will have Bab Addition 17 on it)
Grip - leather & tourna grip (matched)
Dampener - Wilson smilie

FXP Prestige MP 2 (newly acquired USED ):
Weight - 360g
Head balance - 32.75cm
Current Lead tape - 2 x 6" of 1/2" width tapes at 12 oclock (under the CAP, came with the racquet)
String - Babolat Addition 17 @ 60lb (they dont have 16 in the UK)
Grip - leather & tourna grip (matched)
Dampener - Wilson smilie

now, the tricky bits is - i much prefer the #2 setup, it just feels more solid and has a better plow through for me and enjoyed playing with it much more.

so..... i hope there is sufficient info. can you please advise me on how to match these 2 racquets as closely as possible, thanks very much




PS - is head balance 32.75cm more head heavey than 31.5cm? because #2 is more head heavy than #1

[esm]

ttt...

hope X isnt on holdiays.....

[eman resu]

I play with an Ozone Tour, and I'm thinking about adding like 5g on the upper half of the handle (where the left hand holds it), no more and nowhere else. What effects should it produce? Is it enough to improve stability, power or anything? Will it just spoil my strokes? Or is it too little weight to make any difference?

[tennis005]

I have a pretty stupid newbie question. Does the glue on lead tape dry and permanently stick to the racket?

[levy1]

Originally Posted by tennis005

I have a pretty stupid newbie question. Does the glue on lead tape dry and permanently stick to the racket?

No, no problems removing it.

[EKnee08]

Originally Posted by xFullCourtTenniSx

Weight in the buttcap doesn't improve performance. Weight higher up adds more power. Weight at the top of the handle adds a little bit of power without you noticing much, if any, drop in maneuverability. If anything, some people feel it helps maneuverability.



Well, with the extra weight up top, it's harder to control the racket head, increasing the chance of an off center hit, which creates more unstable contact situations.

If you can't control the weight, then you can't control the racket. Perhaps stable wasn't the best choice of words, but the fact is that you won't like how you contact the ball and the inconsistent contact will result in a few wild shots that needs weight at 3&9 to repair. But with the inconsistent contact will create more of an unstable feeling. Of course, if you can handle it perfectly then you won't notice it.

Xfull:

As a follow-up to your responses, I am a 4.0-4.5 all courter. Years ago I was a 5.0 aggressive baseline. I switched to the youtek rad mp w/ babolat tonic 16 strung at 56 in mid september from the aerogel 300. I was playing fine with it and felt it had better touch/feel but had trouble against players at my level or above who hit a heavy ball. I particularly have had issues with the return of serve but was serving well with it.

As a result, I experimented with lead and settled on 3 grams of lead at 3 and 9 and another 3 under the top of the handle. However, I was not entirely happy with it. Resulting in total weight of 11.7 ounces.

On Thursday night, I was the only guy at my drill and play lesson so I hit with the pro one on one. I was a little slow getting around on the ball with my leaded up Radical against him and still got pushed around a bit. The pro was demoing the Youtek Prestige MP.
He let me hit with the Youtek and I was much more consistent on my groundies against him. My balls didn't land short and I was able to maintain sustained rallies although I had to work a bit harder to generate pace. It felt more natural.

My volleys were also very consistent, still had putaway power and I reacted faster at net. It also felt more natural.

On serves, I did not generate as much pop but again was more consistent.

Overheads were easier to get in position and were also more consistent but din't have the same oomph.

I asked him to give me some very soft balls because that is where I sometimes have trouble and I couldn't hit them out but had enough pace.

The pro's comments to me were that it was by far the most consistent and best I had ever hit. He felt that the stick was more suited to me than the RAD because I was extremely consistent and he felt the loss of power was negligible although I had to work hard to generate pace and keep up with him. Of course, I was using cheap demo synthetic string. The pro said that I should keep in mind that the difference in string is why the stick felt stiffer and the Prestige would have more pop and be much easier on my arm if I was using my Tonic.
He stated that although I am in my late 40s, I have a long swing and so the Prestige MP would still be better for me.

I should point out when I went back to hitting w/ the Rad during the same session, although I generated more pop, I felt less in control and it was less stable.

The Radical with lead was almost the same weight as the Prestige.
What are your thoughts regarding making the switch?

[esm]

Dr Lead Tape!!!!

WHERE ARE YOU MATE?!?

need your help... please!

Is there a way to measure HL or HH balance of a racket without buying something? thanks.

Originally Posted by eman resu

I play with an Ozone Tour, and I'm thinking about adding like 5g on the upper half of the handle (where the left hand holds it), no more and nowhere else. What effects should it produce? Is it enough to improve stability, power or anything? Will it just spoil my strokes? Or is it too little weight to make any difference?

I don't think it will do much but add mass and make it a tiny bit more head light. lead at 3 and 9 improves stability and power.

[HitItHarder]

Originally Posted by decades

Is there a way to measure HL or HH balance of a racket without buying something? thanks.

An easy way to check how HH or HL a racquet is find your racquet's balance point. Just lay it off the edge of a table and find the point where it starts to tip. Or take a small wooden dowel or even a pencil and find the point where it balances. Make a small mark - this is your balance point.

Next find the midpoint of your racquet. For a normal 27 inch racquet it would be at 13 1/2 inches. Make a mark.

For every 1/8th of an inch the balance point is from the midpoint of the racquet, it equals 1 point HH (if the balance point is closer to the head) or HL (if the balance point is closer to the handle).

For example - if your balance point is at 13 inches on the handle side (and on a standard 27 inch racquet), it would be considered 4 points head light as the balance point is 1/2 inch or (4/8 inch) from the midpoint.

[thebuffman]

i recently discovered this post and want to give a hearty thank you to the lead doctor for all the time and effort spent educating the populace. i've been using lead for quite some time but doing so ignorantly. this changes everything.

its time to revisit all of the configurations on my racquets.

Originally Posted by HitItHarder

An easy way to check how HH or HL a racquet is find your racquet's balance point. Just lay it off the edge of a table and find the point where it starts to tip. Or take a small wooden dowel or even a pencil and find the point where it balances. Make a small mark - this is your balance point.

Next find the midpoint of your racquet. For a normal 27 inch racquet it would be at 13 1/2 inches. Make a mark.

For every 1/8th of an inch the balance point is from the midpoint of the racquet, it equals 1 point HH (if the balance point is closer to the head) or HL (if the balance point is closer to the handle).

For example - if your balance point is at 13 inches on the handle side (and on a standard 27 inch racquet), it would be considered 4 points head light as the balance point is 1/2 inch or (4/8 inch) from the midpoint.

i use one of those three sided rulers....balances on a very narrow point.

[comeback]

i am a 5.0 age group 55's tournament player. serve and volley, lob,slice old school placement with moderate arm problems.i recently stared using Titan Natural Gut 50lbs mains and stiff multi 52lbs in crosses which has helped..i just started trying to customize after reading this thread..i use a WILSON 5.3 Mid Plus Hammer 95 hyper carbon ..i wrapped horizontally14g lead tape spread 4 inches starting at bottom base of grip (under) and another 3 g in rubber bands 7 inches above grip and it pretty much balanced this head heavy Hammer..It played pretty good after that.. But today i added 5g at 3 and 5g at 9..i went to hit against the wall and it felt heavy but i was still hitting my serve harder which is a huge part of my game..I will hit for real tomorrow and report back..I would aprreciate any advice on anywhere else i can make improvements..here are my specs
Technical Specifications
Length 27.5 inches 70 centimeters
Head Size 95 square inches 613 square centimeters
Weight 10 ounces 284 grams
Balance Point 14.25 inches
36 centimeters 4 pts Head Heavy
Shaft Width 23mm Head / 23 mm Shaft
Composition Graphite & Hyper Carbon
Babolat RDC Ratings
Score Grade
Flex Rating 75 Range: 0-100
Swing Weight 326 Range: 200-400
Manueverability 75 A

[comeback]

Originally Posted by comeback

i am a 5.0 age group 55's tournament player. serve and volley, lob,slice old school placement with moderate arm problems.i recently stared using Titan Natural Gut 50lbs mains and stiff multi 52lbs in crosses which has helped..i just started trying to customize after reading this thread..i use a WILSON 5.3 Mid Plus Hammer 95 hyper carbon ..i wrapped horizontally14g lead tape spread 4 inches starting at bottom base of grip (under) and another 3 g in rubber bands 7 inches above grip and it pretty much balanced this head heavy Hammer..It played pretty good after that.. But today i added 5g at 3 and 5g at 9..i went to hit against the wall and it felt heavy but i was still hitting my serve harder which is a huge part of my game..I will hit for real tomorrow and report back..I would aprreciate any advice on anywhere else i can make improvements..here are my specs
Technical Specifications
Length 27.5 inches 70 centimeters
Head Size 95 square inches 613 square centimeters
Weight 10 ounces 284 grams
Balance Point 14.25 inches
36 centimeters 4 pts Head Heavy
Shaft Width 23mm Head / 23 mm Shaft
Composition Graphite & Hyper Carbon
Babolat RDC Ratings
Score Grade
Flex Rating 75 Range: 0-100
Swing Weight 326 Range: 200-400
Manueverability 75 A

i hit hard today for about 15-20 min (no serves)..it felt heavy but my 16 year old 3.5 level partner said my ball was harder..i'll see how my arm feels tomorrow and plan to hit with a top ranked 5.5 junior who usually knocks my racket sideways..will try to take some serves and play tiebreakers tomorrow..just wondering if i have too much (lead) or too little anywhere

[comeback]

Originally Posted by comeback

i hit hard today for about 15-20 min (no serves)..it felt heavy but my 16 year old 3.5 level partner said my ball was harder..i'll see how my arm feels tomorrow and plan to hit with a top ranked 5.5 junior who usually knocks my racket sideways..will try to take some serves and play tiebreakers tomorrow..just wondering if i have too much (lead) or too little anywhere

i hit hard for 30min today with the 5.5 junior and i did have more stable racket control but no serves (my shoulder hurt) my arm feels ok..i need to play a match with this setup..ps Im on approx 15 hours onThe Titan Natural Gut 15g in the mains and it's holding up good

[thebuffman]

comeback, the problem with your setup, and according to what lead doctor noted, is that head heavy racquets are very difficult to customize. here is why. customization of the racquet generally is to increase the swing weight of the racquet significantly from a sw1 category to a sw2 category. also increasing stability on off center hits can be another reason for mods. these are popular reasons to mod. in order then to increase swingweight, power & plow through, the only significant placement of lead will be in the hoop of the racquet. adding the lead to the throat will have marginal gains, at best, to the desired attribute gains of a customized racquet.

for those reasons, the ideal racquet specs for a customization candidate is an extremely head light one. with a head heavy racquet, you are more or less sort of stuck with the swingweight the racquet was manufactured at. adding anymore lead to the hoop will probably destroy the would be carrier's arm. alternatively, adding weight to the handle will only achieve two things: increased overall racquet weight & shift toward more head lightness. adding weight to the handle will not add any noticeable increase in swingweight, plow through, or power at the contact spot.

if i were you, i would probably go more more maneuverability than trying to increase swing weight. this would mean adding weight to the butt cap area. this way you wouldn't have to use as much lead as you are using now in order to make the racquet a little more head light.

as an example go to this link and plug in these numbers:
length - 27in
weight - 11oz
balance - 12.25in (10pts HL)
swing weight - 330

you should see approx power of 41 and plow thru of 27

now lets mod it. down at the lower portion input:
length - 21 in
weight - 15g

we see that adding 15 total grams at 3&9 position increase the swingweight 8.5% increases power 7% and the plow 16.4%. HOWEVER the once 10pt HL balance is now dropped significantly to below 7pts HL.

this though is not the point of my example. here is what i am getting to and thanks for bearing with me. now in order to regain our preferred balance, we add weight into the handle. one of the best places to do it for this depolarized setup is to add it at 7in from the buttcap. adding here allows us to significantly affect balance while also adding active weight which will still make small increases to our concentric power zone. if we added lead really low on the handle and further away from the power zone (place where we contact the ball - the only place on the racquet that really matters) we no longer add active weight or weight that will impute any energy to the ball.

so on the 2nd customization line lets add:
length - 7in
weight - 10gm

notice the changes? the only significant changes that took place after adding a whopping 10gm to the handle was reflected in the overall weight of the racquet and the balance. swingweight changed minimally from 8.5% to 8.7%, a change of 0.2%. plow thru and power at the point of ball contact saw an affect of nil.

so a racquet that is already significantly head heavy is a tough customer to customize if your objective is to add swingweight or to depolarize it.

polarizing the racquet might be a better way to go, i am not sure. but here you would place small amounts of lead at both ends of the stick. a polarized racquet though does not give the same stability as a depolarized setup. it does however help to increase attributes of the racquet without altering its weight too significantly.

[Roger No.1]

Originally Posted by Meaghan

It adds stability. If you think of the vibration or shock from the ball on thie strings resonating down the racket then weight at the top of the handle should reduce the shock and vibration of the frame before meeting the hand.

Im sure i couldve explained that better ha!

This is something that I recently experienced.. I added 4 g of lead just above the buttcap to counterbalance with 4 grams @ 12, which made perfect sense at first. After playing couple of times I started to have elbow pain (which I didn't have for 15 years). At first I thought it's from the strings - I just strung with a Luxilon Alu Power Fluoro (it suppose to be more comfortable than Alu Power). So now I'm thinking the elbow pain could be from having lead right under my hand, since lead suppose to absorb the shock. I moved the lead up to the top of the handle and haven't had a chance to try it yet. Anybody noticed any pain from having lead right above the buttcap?

[Centryx]

wow this is a great thread lots to read and learn! thanks guys

[15_ounce]

Yeah, great thread! Thanks for posting!