Just sharing a method that worked great for building an L2 grip up to L3 without using a shrink sleeve that dulls the bevels. Cut some .020" (0.5mm) modeling styrene plastic sheet into strips and superglued them onto the square bevels. Used a plain single edge razor blade as a scraper, leveled the edges, and then glued strips to the 45 deg. bevels and re-leveled w/ razor blade. It's harder to accurately control a sanding block without taking off too much material in one spot, but the razor blade works great and creates no sanding dust. Just hold the blade perpendicular to the surface and scrape it down. Produces a very smooth accurate surface. No need to burnish a burr on the blade like with a card scraper.
Building up Grip Size
- Thread starter eric42
- Start date
Mark-Touch
G.O.A.T.
Just a cutting mat and x-acto knife. I cut each strip about 1/32" oversize in width to minimize the amount of material to level off. Used medium superglue, any brand will work.
CosmosMpower
Hall of Fame
Doesn’t sound too reversible unlike a shrink wrap. Nice that it doesn’t add a ton of weight though
Mark-Touch
G.O.A.T.
Just a quick question.
I'm thinking of ordering some of these sheets.
Are they really firm/solid or are they compressible?
I would hope they can't be compressed when holding the grip (as with a normal racket)?
They are very firm. I pressed my calipers on the edge of a 0.5mm sheet with significant pressure and the dial moved maybe 0.0005" (half a thousandth). I do not believe they will compress with use over time.
And just to be clear, this is the order I glued/leveled each bevel. Turned out great with a little patience and a good desk light. Obviously only really worth the effort for hard to find racquets.
Mark-Touch
G.O.A.T.
Did another racquet this weekend and found that a cabinet scraper really works well to remove material quickly before refining the last bit with a razor blade scraper. And it does help to roll a burr on the razor blade. If you don't have a burnisher, just use the shaft of a screwdriver, hold it at about a 45 deg. angle or so to the blade and make a couple passes along the blade. Doesn't take a lot of pressure. Mark with a pen which side of the blade to use for drawing along the material since the other side will not cut well after putting a burr on it. If you're unfamiliar with how this works, see video below. Nail file works well to transition the angles at the top of the handle.
Mark-Touch
G.O.A.T.
Cool Eric thanks for your update.
I have some styrene sheets on order and should be arriving soon (week or so).
I have a few questions that you may have some ideas for.
In my case I would be rebuilding grips that were actually too big a few years ago!
I bought a couple of used L4 rackets in pristine condition just on a hunch (never played with them before).
My grip size is L3 so I thought it would be simple to file down the grip size.
Well I did file down the grips but didn't do it in an organized/thoughtful way.
Next thing you know both of my rackets have grips that are not only less than L3 now,
but they also have slight dips towards the center of the grip!
So when my styrene arrives I first need to build up my grip so that it is completely flat,
so that it will accept the styrene bevels.
Do you have suggestions how I can do this successfully?
My level is about a foot long so I couldn't use it on my racket grip.
Maybe use some other shorter straight edge?
And once I have that, how would you level the grips so they are perfectly flat along all 8 sides?
Aw man....I see. Yeah carving/sanding down a handle with accuracy is much harder than building it up. I can only suggest using thick enough sheet so that you can fill the dips plus add whatever additional thickness needed on top of that. It only takes 0.5mm around the handle to go up or down a grip size. You could use a sanding block and carefully sand it level again. Put a bunch of sharpie marks on the whole piece so that you can more easily monitor the accuracy of the surface as you sand it back level. It's gonna require some careful work!
Mark-Touch
G.O.A.T.
Thanks for the suggestions.
So you would recommend putting the sheets on top first and sanding them down where necessary to get a flat surface, rather than
doing the sanding first on the bare handle?
That's where I was doing all my sanding from the start.
Hard to say, though the styrene sands more easily than that urethane foam used to mold the handle. You could also try balsa wood strips which would be even easier to shape and correct/reshape if you messed up a spot. I wouldn't normally use balsa to build up a handle since it's so soft, but once finished and shaped properly you could harden and seal it either by brushing on a thin coat of epoxy, or dropping some water thin super glue onto it.
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AmericanTwist
Hall of Fame
Good handiwork OP. Thanks for sharing! I just use a few layers of duct tape though next I would have tried the sleeves. Duct tape for me seems to be a decent remedy.
Mark-Touch
G.O.A.T.
You had an unfair advantage. You started with a normal grip and built up from there.
I just totally butchered my try at it.
I was starting from a messed up grip. I had tried to sand it down (it was L4 going to L3) and messed that up.
The result was I now had a grip that had a dip in the center on all bevels, and different widths along the grip!
Here is my butchered result.
https://ibb.co/GQpb3QR
https://ibb.co/RyQkctW
https://ibb.co/jJtTz1V
https://ibb.co/sCWrz7f
Dang, yeah that was gonna be a tough project! If you shaved off all the foam, do you know if Dunlop hairpins fit Head palettes? Some other brands seem to. Might be the easiest thing to do.You had an unfair advantage. You started with a normal grip and built up from there.
I just totally butchered my try at it.
I was starting from a messed up grip. I had tried to sand it down (it was L4 going to L3) and messed that up.
The result was I now had a grip that had a dip in the center on all bevels, and different widths along the grip!
Here is my butchered result.
https://ibb.co/GQpb3QR
https://ibb.co/RyQkctW
https://ibb.co/jJtTz1V
https://ibb.co/sCWrz7f
Mark-Touch
G.O.A.T.
Not sure about that. I've never looked into palettes before.
But I'm sort of in no-man's land right now because I still have most of the foam on,
it's just really messed up, uneven all over the place.
I fear that if I try to shave off the foam I'll start shaving off the black plastic under it.
Man here's what I'd do if I really wanted to save this racquet.... I'd go to the bay and buy a Head TK82S (round) not TK82 (rectangular) palette (and buttcap) in the grip size you want since Dunlop handles are more square than rectangular. I pulled the buttcap off an old Dunlop M-Fil and measured the hairpin to be 23mm x 16mm. See the pic here. Probably the same as yours, but easy to confirm after you pull the buttcap. Found an old post here where someone measured a Head palette to be 26mm x 18mm, so you'd just need to shape it down to that size, which is short of the carbon fiber itself. But buy the palette first, and then shave the handle down to fit it.Not sure about that. I've never looked into palettes before.
But I'm sort of in no-man's land right now because I still have most of the foam on,
it's just really messed up, uneven all over the place.
I fear that if I try to shave off the foam I'll start shaving off the black plastic under it.
I'd just hog the bulk of the foam off with a wood rasp or something and then fine tune the dimensions with a sanding block. You could just rough round off the sharp corners of the handle. They don't have to fit the rounded inside corners of the palette too precisely. The palette is just held in place with double sided tape. After you've re-stapled the buttcap back in place and re-gripped, the palettes don't go anywhere.
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Mark-Touch
G.O.A.T.
Thanks very much Eric I appreciate it.
I am going to put on the brakes now and go slow.
The good news is that I have a few other rackets that I use so it's not critical to get this
one fixed quickly.
One of my other rackets is actually identical to this one!
I bought two a few years ago in mint condition. But it too has the same general problem with the grip.
I sanded down both of the grips to bring them closer to L3 from L4.
But I messed up the sanding job on that one too, so now when I put on my grip/overgrips I end
up with rounded edges instead of sharp edges.
I am going to try out your suggestion above as I'd really like to get sharp edges on the racket.
Why do you recommend the round vs. the rectangular palette?
One more question, since I'm totally new to this racket palette world.
I'm trying to figure out which palette size I should get.
I'd like the finished size to be L3.
Do all rackets start with a fixed carbon fibre size and then they add the correct palette size for the various grips?
Or does the carbon fibre vary along with the palette size according to grip size?
I've already taken down a fair chunk of the existing palette (wash more difficult to sand it at the two ends).
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So it'll feel like your Dunlop handle. TK82 is more rectangular like old Heads and Technifibre racquets. You want a Head TK82S palette.
The bare carbon fiber handles (hairpins) are all the same size regardless of the palette grip size. The inside dimensions of all Head palettes are the same, they are just outwardly thicker depending on the grip size. You just need to buy a palette in whatever grip size you play with and measure the inside dimensions it's designed to fit around, and shave down your handle to match. I think this will be the best way to get a decent feeling grip at this point without really killing yourself with crazy effort trying to hand shape all the bevels accurately.
Head hairpin before adding the palette -
Mark-Touch
G.O.A.T.
OK thanks again Eric.
Wow that Head really is rectangular!
Mark-Touch
G.O.A.T.
Thanks Eric that will be really helpful.
I didn't realize it would be fairly simple to achieve.
I didn't know the palettes come split in half. That makes it a lot easier!
One question. I don't have that fancy air compressor for the staples.
Is there another way to secure the butt cap?
People seem to have hit and miss luck with manual staple guns, but you can also use nails. Just get some 19GA (1mm) 1/2" long flat head nails. Home Depot will have. Pneumatic stapling is ideal, but nails will also secure the buttcap pretty well.
19 x 1/2" Steel Wire Flat Head Nails
Box of 1585.A nail is a pin-shaped fastener used in engineering, woodworking and construction.
fastenerline.com
jered
Rookie
I just did this and it worked awesome. Thanks for sharing!
Mark-Touch
G.O.A.T.
People seem to have hit and miss luck with manual staple guns, but you can also use nails. Just get some 19GA (1mm) 1/2" long flat head nails. Home Depot will have. Pneumatic stapling is ideal, but nails will also secure the buttcap pretty well.
19 x 1/2" Steel Wire Flat Head Nails
Box of 1585.A nail is a pin-shaped fastener used in engineering, woodworking and construction.
Hey Eric.
Well the palette arrived yesterday and today I started the replacement.
I wish I could say it's going smoothly but such is not the case.
I am using a YT video as a guide.
Of course everything works smoothly in his video.
He used a heat gun to take off his palettes and they came off without a hitch; two clean palettes that could actually be re-used.
Of course when I tried to take off my palettes with a heat gun the palettes broke up into hundreds of pieces!
It was a pain trying to scrape everything off.
I just took the new palettes and did a test fitting on the hairpin grip.
No go. The palettes are too small.
Recall I bought L3 (3/8) that's my preferred grip size and you recommended I buy that size.
The racket is an L4 that I sanded down (palette) unevenly.
Any tips on how to proceed?
I am giving links to photos so you can see my situation.
Old palette pieces ... (no that's not corn chips! And that's only about 3/4 of the palette).
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Mark-Touch
G.O.A.T.
People seem to have hit and miss luck with manual staple guns, but you can also use nails. Just get some 19GA (1mm) 1/2" long flat head nails. Home Depot will have. Pneumatic stapling is ideal, but nails will also secure the buttcap pretty well.
19 x 1/2" Steel Wire Flat Head Nails
Box of 1585.A nail is a pin-shaped fastener used in engineering, woodworking and construction.
One other thing.
Since I don't have the original palette anymore, I don't know what length the new one should be?
It comes extra long in case someone wants an extended racket length.
What length should I cut the palette to?
I assume it's less than 27" as the butt cap would give extra length?
Mark-Touch
G.O.A.T.
I didn't quite understand this part but didn't pursue it at the time.
When you said shave down your handle to match, are you meaning shave down the hairpin or the palette?
Right now as you can see from the above photos, the hairpin is too big for the palette.
The two pieces of palette won't close together. The only way to possibly get around this is to shave down
the hairpin.
I started working on it, but ran into a roadblock. Do all hairpins have a metal rod in them, or possibly just Dunlops?
One side the metal rod is already pushing out from the rest of the hairpin.
The other side the rod is a little more flush with the hairpin. But in both cases it is preventing me from doing any more
sanding of the hairpin.
Do you know the function of the metal rods? Is it structural or perhaps to add weight to the handle?
Not sure what to do next...
Here are two photos of the metal rods.
Are you sure the inside size of all palettes are the same size, they just differ in thickness on the outside?
If that were the case then the palette should have been able to close around the hairpin.
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"Palette" really refers to the two-piece plastic shell that's installed onto the bare carbon fiber hairpin. Head, Technifibre, and Volkl use a palette system. Everyone else uses that molded urethane foam stuff you chipped off. That's just a molded handle system rather than a palette system, and that stuff isn't really designed to come off. My recommendation was to try to sand/shave down the handle foam to a rectangular shape to fit the new Head palette. Any racquet maker using a molded handle isn't really going to be designed to fit a palette from another brand. Though I understand Technifibre bare hairpins fit Head palettes. That's about it I believe.
I'm no customization expert, but I didn't know you'd find a metal rod in the handle. Not sure what it's for. Looks like that's what's keeping your palette from closing fully and that the rod might come out fairly easily? At this point I think you should do whatever it takes to get that new palette to fit reasonably securely even if you have to glue it on with epoxy to fill any bad gaps between the handle and the palette.
You can finish this up, git 'er done.
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Mark-Touch
G.O.A.T.
Thanks agan Eric for your help."Palette" really refers to the two-piece plastic shell that's installed onto the bare carbon fiber hairpin. Head, Technifibre, and Volkl use a palette system. Everyone else uses that molded urethane foam stuff you chipped off. That's just a molded handle system rather than a palette system, and that stuff isn't really designed to come off. My ...
You can finish this up, git 'er done.
Well my sordid saga continues.
I thought I might have been able to squeak by yesterday with the job finished, but such was not the case.
Here's where I stand at the moment (continuing today).
After my last post, I decided to see how I could best fix the problem of the palettes not fitting together.
(BTW I understood the difference between the palettes and hairpin, I just mis-named the photo as 'palette' but knew it was the hairpin).
Since I couldn't file down the hairpin anymore because of those two metal bars starting to jut out, I began to have a go at filing down the
inside of the palettes instead. I thought about taking out the metal bars but hesitated because a) they are in very tightly and I could have broken the hairpin
trying to remove them b) I didn't know their function c) it would have drastically changed the weight of the racket.
All was going well with the sanding. The gap between the two palette halves had already been cut in half. I continued but not carefully enough.
The palette is made in such a way that its thickness as the flat wide side turns into its walls, it's at its thinnest.
Sure enough as I was sanding, I split open one wall from the flat side (at the butt cap end)
The length of the split was more than an inch. I tried to crazy glue it together but that failed.
I stopped sanding (obviously) and put the palettes together as best I could.
There is a strange piece that Dunlop uses that wraps around the palette a few inches from the butt cap.
It is made of a very hard plastic/rubber. When I was sanding down the palettes (both rackets) soon after I bought them (used)
I couldn't even sand these plastic/rubber pieces down, so they protruded above my palettes.
Well I have a hunch now I know why they were put on my foam. They're probably used to hold the foam halves together.
So when I put the two halves together I used electrical tape in three spots to hold the palettes together.
Last up was installing the butt cap. I was nervous because a) I didn't have the pins/pin gun to staple the cap on b)
I couldn't find 1/2" nails at any of the hardware stores in my area, but after years discovered my staple gun has some!
But I was still not sure if they would work. c) was afraid the butt cap would break or the palette would crack further.
I managed to get three 1/2" nails into the butt cap and didn't want to press my luck so I stopped.
I put on a leather grip and over grip.
Now was the big moment! I went to my basement and started hitting some balls into my practice net.
Bummer! I could hear the dreaded rattle.
It was either the butt cap not being secure enough or thebroken palette vibrating. I could never play with the racket like that. Too annoying.
So that's where I currently stand.
Last night I ordered two more palettes (the second one for my second racket).
Today I will start by trying to add a few more staples/nails to the butt cap to see if that makes any difference.
Mark-Touch
G.O.A.T.
Well now I'm totally perplexed and miffed!
I decided to go at the rattle one step at a time, to pinpoint the source.
First I took off the grips. Next I took off the butt cap.
Tested, and the rattle (more of a buzz really) was still there.
Next I took off the palette. Buzz still there!
Then I figured, what the heck, there isn't much more so I took out the metal bars.
They were fitting in snugly (previously the foam held them in tighter).
One side had a long one and a short one. The other side had just a long one.
In total they weighed a whopping 31 g. !!!
Buzz was still there!
So everything is off now and there's that buzz.
Any ideas what could be causing it?
I just tested its brother, an identical racket that I was going
to also change its palette/foam.
No buzz with it.
I decided to go at the rattle one step at a time, to pinpoint the source.
First I took off the grips. Next I took off the butt cap.
Tested, and the rattle (more of a buzz really) was still there.
Next I took off the palette. Buzz still there!
Then I figured, what the heck, there isn't much more so I took out the metal bars.
They were fitting in snugly (previously the foam held them in tighter).
One side had a long one and a short one. The other side had just a long one.
In total they weighed a whopping 31 g. !!!
Buzz was still there!
So everything is off now and there's that buzz.
Any ideas what could be causing it?
I just tested its brother, an identical racket that I was going
to also change its palette/foam.
No buzz with it.
Wish I knew. You might have to start isolating things if you want to get to the bottom of it. Try hitting with the buttcap off to see if there's still a buzz. Then it would probably be the palette unless those metal rods are loose. Might be close to time to break out the epoxy.
Mark-Touch
G.O.A.T.
Thanks eric. I guess you didn't read my last post closely enough.
I removed pretty much everything from the racket:
Grips, butt cap, palettes, metal bars.
There is nothing there now except for the hairpin and racket hoop/strings.
Curtennis
Hall of Fame
Just got a new Dunlop cx 200 os. Biggest grip it’s sold in is L3 and I really want L4 and I would use that with additional overgrip. So to build up with just overgrips I’d need like 3 of them…. Guess I can try a heat shrink sleeve unless something else would work better without adding 16 grams!
Try the shrink sleeve first. It's easily removable if you don't like it. Some people feel these sleeves noticeably dull the feel of the bevels, others think they feel fine. Don't know what they weigh. This method I shared here is quite a bit more work, but the bevels feel sharp and it adds 8g of weight.
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Mark-Touch
G.O.A.T.
I don't want to get overly optimistic but I may have made a breakthrough with my buzz problem.
I did a search on buzzes with tennis rackets and this post came up.
The solution found for OP's problem was to place a rubber band at the base of the strings
to act as a dampener.
I tried it and it worked!
I don't really understand it, because the buzz was never there before I started my palette adventure.
I assembled everything again; metal bars (minus the extra small one), palettes (tape holding them together) butt cap, grips
and rubber band.
This time I just used sticky tape to hold on the butt cap.
The buzz was gone.
The only thing was the rubber band was moving to the side at the base.
I need to find a way to keep it in place, use a regular string dampener possibly, or a rubber band made for this purpose.
I did a search on buzzes with tennis rackets and this post came up.
The solution found for OP's problem was to place a rubber band at the base of the strings
to act as a dampener.
I tried it and it worked!
I don't really understand it, because the buzz was never there before I started my palette adventure.
I assembled everything again; metal bars (minus the extra small one), palettes (tape holding them together) butt cap, grips
and rubber band.
This time I just used sticky tape to hold on the butt cap.
The buzz was gone.
The only thing was the rubber band was moving to the side at the base.
I need to find a way to keep it in place, use a regular string dampener possibly, or a rubber band made for this purpose.
Shroud
Talk Tennis Guru
Actually in most cases the common wisdom is just wrong that an overgrip adds 1/16" Depending on the grip and the way its wrapped, its often one full size. Get a tailors tape and measure the grip, I bet you will be surprised. Also if you have a replacement grip you can cut strips of it and put it on the bevels to retain them and wrap with an overgrip. I can send a vid of the concept if you message me.
D
Deleted member 793875
Guest
What are peoples thoughts on playing with a size 3 with 2 overgrips, versus a size 4 with 1 overgrip? I feel like with a size 3 with 2 overgrips you just don't get the same connection to the racket with that extra layer of barrier, but it gives you the flexibility to go down to a size 3 with 1 overgrip if needed.
Mark-Touch
G.O.A.T.
If you're going into over grips you need to be very careful.
Especially if you want to use two or more over the main grip.
Each layer of over grip will soften the bevel sharpness.
So be prepared to experiment with different over grip thicknesses.
Shroud
Talk Tennis Guru
You can probably get your cake and eat it too with a thicker replacement grip than stock and a thick overwrap, like @Mark-Touch mentions. Here is a thread and post 5 has grip thickness. Get a thicker replacement grip than the existing one, and same for the overgrip and I bet you can get the connection and size increase and still be able to go back to L3 if you want.
Let's Gather All Grip Specs (Weight & Thickness) Into One Thread
Hi All, 1. We have grip specs scattered all over the board in roughly 70-80 threads, dated all the way back to 2004. Seems like somebody is always asking what is the lightest, heaviest, or thinnest grip. I've gotten us started with my own records and by compiling info from most all posts on the...
tt.tennis-warehouse.com
