Open throat racquet anatomy

Hi everyone,

I am a fan of both tennis and woodworking and I would like to try to make an open throat wooden racquet. The only problem is that I don´t know the way that these racquets were laminated. There are some pictures on the Internet showing how a closed throat wooden racquet is laminated, but absolutely nothing on open throats.

From pictures of pieces like Head Vilas it seems that the orientation of the wood layers around the throat is different from the orientation around the head and it is not really obvious where and how the orientation changes.

Does anyone know? Could anyone point me to some pictures or drawings of how this was done? Or perhaps a picture of a damaged racquet showing the guts?

Thanks!

Take a look at some of the patents for early wooden open throat rackets. As a start, here is the patent for the Andreef Speedshaft one of the early split shaft open throat rackets.

Andreef Speedshaft Patent

^^^ Nice find. I gather that the Spalding Speedshaft (a 70's wood/fiberglass overlay racquet) was based on this patent? Also was thinking that Snauwart had a similar frame at some point in time?

MAX PLY said:

^^^ Nice find. I gather that the Spalding Speedshaft (a 70's wood/fiberglass overlay racquet) was based on this patent? Also was thinking that Snauwart had a similar frame at some point in time?

Click to expand...

So many Spalding and Snauwaert frames had model overlaps, owing in part to their shared manufacturing facilities. The Snauwaert Fibre Comp, with its classy matte finish, was a more 'refined' version of the basic Speedshaft

For those who weren't around in the Dark Ages, the Snauwaert marque was much more a 'pro shop' line while the Spalding name was inextricably linked to team sports like baseball and basketball.

Radim Belohrad said:

Hi everyone,

I am a fan of both tennis and woodworking and I would like to try to make an open throat wooden racquet. The only problem is that I don´t know the way that these racquets were laminated. There are some pictures on the Internet showing how a closed throat wooden racquet is laminated, but absolutely nothing on open throats.

From pictures of pieces like Head Vilas it seems that the orientation of the wood layers around the throat is different from the orientation around the head and it is not really obvious where and how the orientation changes.

Does anyone know? Could anyone point me to some pictures or drawings of how this was done? Or perhaps a picture of a damaged racquet showing the guts?

Thanks!

Click to expand...

Interesting observation and mystery all in one. The earlier models with an open throat used a "hairpin" design with a throat bridge added in many cases, I believe. The 1970s Speedshaft had all sorts of problems with the throat bridge pulling away from the frame. I'm not sure if any of the outer hoop laminations continued through the bridge area; but it was a problem to avoid cracking of the heavy paint job in the junction between the hoop and throat shafts.

That's going to be the weak link, IMO...how to stabilize the throat and hoop "connection" .

The bridge is not only a separate piece on the older wooden frames, but also a separate piece on the vast majority of metal frames and many composite frames. The shaft/bridge joint is definitely a potential weak spot, and the focus of much engineering effort during the R&D phase of a racquet's life cycle.

The OP is specifically curious as to why the plies are oriented differently "around the throat" relative to those "around the head" on frames like the Vilas. I think he is referring to the fact that if you look inside the throat, the plies appear oriented parallel to the face of the racquet; whereas when you look outside the racquet, the visible ply is oriented perpendicular to the face.

This is my best guess: Unlike the earlier open-throat wooden frame designs, these 'modern' ones were made in one piece - by cutting the shape out of a stack of plywood using a scroll saw (hence the parallel orientation of the plies). After that, one or more strips of wood is/are glued to the exterior and interior of the hoop, creating an illusion that the plies are oriented perpendicular to the face in the head (like on traditional designs), both to produce a cleaner-looking finish, and possibly to add some strength to the string-bearing surface around the hoop. It is a rather wasteful way of making a racquet, but that waste was probably offset by much lower labor costs, as it is significantly easier and faster to mass produce a racquet this way than by using the traditional method of steaming and bending wood strips around a form. Another clue that these racquets are made this way is that I've seen them warp, but I've never seen them become lopsided, unlike on traditional wooden frames.

Surely there are some smashed Prince Woodies or PK Golden Aces out there that can easily verify this for us?

Thanks everyone for their helpful comments. Sanglier: Your description is exactly what I had in mind. I am not a native English speaker and I lack the adequate vocabulary to describe it as you do, but that´s exactly it. Here´s a nice picture illustrating the issue:

I would really love to see what behind the paint where the loop meets the bridge. That is the big mystery.

I think we all understood what you meant; it's my "best guess" that's off by a mile, because I was too lazy to look at a "Vilas" before I wrote it.

The exposed upper hoop shows that In fact the "Vilas" was made in a totally conventional/traditional way (much more so than Andreef's futuristic design): Steam-bent plies of wood and other materials were formed into a hoop, extending down to form the shaft and handle, with some of the internal plies split from the main bundle to meet at the bottom of the hoop to close it. Then a plywood wedge is fitted in the middle of the throat to reinforce the area, exactly like on closed-throat frames from ancient times, only here it has a cutout in the center, because the throat is much wider than on a close-throat frame (represented in red in my sketch). The only question is: Does the outline of the wedge follow the gold "Head" trim line or the red "Vilas" trim line on the racquet facing? Or somewhere in between? For that you will have to cut one open to find out, or at least to sand off the facing in select spots.

There are many different possibilities for "open throat" wood racket designs. I'll post some examples.

























The MacGregor has a metal throat but it's still mostly wood.

Sanglier said:

I think we all understood what you meant; it's my "best guess" that's off by a mile, because I was too lazy to look at a "Vilas" before I wrote it.

The exposed upper hoop shows that In fact the "Vilas" was made in a totally conventional/traditional way (much more so than Andreef's futuristic design): Steam-bent plies of wood and other materials were formed into a hoop, extending down to form the shaft and handle, with some of the internal plies split from the main bundle to meet at the bottom of the hoop to close it. Then a plywood wedge is fitted in the middle of the throat to reinforce the area, exactly like on closed-throat frames from ancient times, only here it has a cutout in the center, because the throat is much wider than on a close-throat frame (represented in red in my sketch). The only question is: Does the outline of the wedge follow the gold "Head" trim line or the red "Vilas" trim line on the racquet facing? Or somewhere in between? For that you will have to cut one open to find out, or at least to sand off the facing in select spots.

Click to expand...

This one helps a lot. Thanks. This will probably be my first try.

Pretty cool rackets.