Some pictures and info which some might find useful.
Squirmish may leave now...
This is a picture of an eviscerated Volkl handle, the one that says "Sensor Tour System", and has a yellow rectangle and a red line. That yellow rectangle, by the way, is just a decal.
The actual racquet, once opened up, does not look as neat and pretty.
I was changing a grip today, and decided to remove the buttcap to check if there are any opportunities for customization. The good news -- YES!
The handle is hollow. You can fill it with whatever is your fancy: cotton balls, liquid silicon, or molten lead. I happen to like rubber bands, and this is what you see.
The only other racquet that I've seen with such twin tube design is Vantage. Plus, Vantage buttcaps have a trapdoor and open up. But ... the handles (and I suspect the entire frames) are filled. Some foam, lightweight and airy, and very uniform in consistency.
Back to Volkl. Even though the cavities appear empty, and I can poke a wooden chopstick almost its entire length, I was not quite so successful with jamming my rubber bands inside. They caught on something about 2 inches deep, and I could not push them any further. Luckily, I did not need to go crazy here. That DNX 10 here is heavy enough as it is. 2 inches of empty space is plenty for me.
The negative is that the buttcap does not have a door. So customization inside the handle can only be made once, pretty much ... or until the new grip wears out.
Volkl racquets use the pallet system. I saw them sold in a few places. One might think that they can buy them and replace them at home. I do not think so. The problem is in that yellow wrapper. I doubt it is just a sticky tape. From what I've read, it is some sort of a foam to insulate vibrations. That material is soft. It will get damaged or destroyed when you try to pry the pallets off, and I have not seen it being sold anywhere.
The pallets are made of a very strong solid plastic. There is no danger of breaking them while prying them off (unlike Head). No fear of damage from frequent stapling either. On the negative side, the material is so hard, a hand-operated stapler could not penetrate those pallets at all. The material beheath them is even harder. Probably the graphite core of the frame itself.
After 2 attemps to use a stapler, I had to give up. The original staples were 5mm wide. I took regular staples, re-bent them to be 5 mm wide, and then pushed them carefully into the original holes. It helps a lot that the Volkl's buttcap is made of soft rubber, and staples sink into it and do not protrude at all. I like that.
Formerly, I used to attach buttcaps with a double-sided tape, and it worked well ... too well. The grip was incredible. And while the cap was perfectly secure, removing it, when you want to, was a major-major hassle. It is far easier to use staples. They come in and out.
Dimensions
The other drawing shows the dimensions. The handle was L3 (4 3/8 ). As you can see it is rather oval: 32x28mm. I never understood the benefits of this design.
The other reason for the big disassembly today was to correct that -- to a more evenly proportioned handle.
Hope this answers some questions, which I know people have about Volkl handles. Hey, I had a bunch myself, which I could not find an answer to, until today.
-- Nick
Squirmish may leave now...
This is a picture of an eviscerated Volkl handle, the one that says "Sensor Tour System", and has a yellow rectangle and a red line. That yellow rectangle, by the way, is just a decal.
The actual racquet, once opened up, does not look as neat and pretty.
I was changing a grip today, and decided to remove the buttcap to check if there are any opportunities for customization. The good news -- YES!
The handle is hollow. You can fill it with whatever is your fancy: cotton balls, liquid silicon, or molten lead. I happen to like rubber bands, and this is what you see.
The only other racquet that I've seen with such twin tube design is Vantage. Plus, Vantage buttcaps have a trapdoor and open up. But ... the handles (and I suspect the entire frames) are filled. Some foam, lightweight and airy, and very uniform in consistency.
Back to Volkl. Even though the cavities appear empty, and I can poke a wooden chopstick almost its entire length, I was not quite so successful with jamming my rubber bands inside. They caught on something about 2 inches deep, and I could not push them any further. Luckily, I did not need to go crazy here. That DNX 10 here is heavy enough as it is. 2 inches of empty space is plenty for me.
The negative is that the buttcap does not have a door. So customization inside the handle can only be made once, pretty much ... or until the new grip wears out.
Volkl racquets use the pallet system. I saw them sold in a few places. One might think that they can buy them and replace them at home. I do not think so. The problem is in that yellow wrapper. I doubt it is just a sticky tape. From what I've read, it is some sort of a foam to insulate vibrations. That material is soft. It will get damaged or destroyed when you try to pry the pallets off, and I have not seen it being sold anywhere.
The pallets are made of a very strong solid plastic. There is no danger of breaking them while prying them off (unlike Head). No fear of damage from frequent stapling either. On the negative side, the material is so hard, a hand-operated stapler could not penetrate those pallets at all. The material beheath them is even harder. Probably the graphite core of the frame itself.
After 2 attemps to use a stapler, I had to give up. The original staples were 5mm wide. I took regular staples, re-bent them to be 5 mm wide, and then pushed them carefully into the original holes. It helps a lot that the Volkl's buttcap is made of soft rubber, and staples sink into it and do not protrude at all. I like that.
Formerly, I used to attach buttcaps with a double-sided tape, and it worked well ... too well. The grip was incredible. And while the cap was perfectly secure, removing it, when you want to, was a major-major hassle. It is far easier to use staples. They come in and out.
Dimensions
The other drawing shows the dimensions. The handle was L3 (4 3/8 ). As you can see it is rather oval: 32x28mm. I never understood the benefits of this design.
The other reason for the big disassembly today was to correct that -- to a more evenly proportioned handle.
Hope this answers some questions, which I know people have about Volkl handles. Hey, I had a bunch myself, which I could not find an answer to, until today.
-- Nick
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