Complete Catalog of Yamaha Releases?

Sanglier said:
The original PWS plates on the patented Wilson "Ultra" were tungsten, and added up to more than 0.5 Oz (14.2g) total (4 plates), as stated in Wilson's patent claims. This was a a lot of mass on a sub-14 Oz frame, and quite a bit more than what is typically achieved using lead-taping (a 4" strip of lead tape weighs about 1g). The original tungsten PWS was definitely not a trivial detail! If other vendors wanted to put something there, they could have stayed clear of Wilson's patent by limiting the total weight of the add-on to under 0.5 Oz; which was probably what most of them did. Dunlop even managed to patent a user-adjustable version of this idea using ball bearings many years later.

No idea how much added mass was in the later molded-in-place PWS bumps though.
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Then when Dunlop stopped this technology, Pro Kennex took the idea in the 2000's and perfected it so the Pro Kennex shift tech was more usable then on Dunlop racquets as the ball bearings shifted too much in the Dunlop but being more concentrated in Pro Kennex actually worked.
 
wedge said:
Was just browsing the Japanese sites for one, and came across this catalog that had the 110 in it

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Translated:

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Which is pretty much what the Yamaha press releases at the time said. Although I was interested to learn that boldness will not be defeated.

The bottom part gives us I think a little bit of new info:

ibbcebc.jpeg


I find it super interesting that you could get a USL1, made to order. Imagine that!

The part on the right that Google couldn't translate says that the target player is TOPPU. I bet lol :laughing:
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What’s the date from that magazine?
 
Casey 1988 said:
Then when Dunlop stopped this technology, Pro Kennex took the idea in the 2000's and perfected it so the Pro Kennex shift tech was more usable then on Dunlop racquets as the ball bearings shifted too much in the Dunlop but being more concentrated in Pro Kennex actually worked.
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I'm fairly sure @Sanglier was describing the mid-1980s selectable ball-bearing system that allowed the tailoring of a racket's TW/SW, which Dunlop used for a couple of years to rival Wilson's patented PWS system. There was no attempt at vibration absorption when those systems were designed, and neither of them had moving parts in use. In contrast, the PK Kinetic Shift system was developed in the 00s to reduce vibration and help TE sufferers, specifically via movable masses. They're totally different concepts.
 
Grafil Injection said:
I'm fairly sure @Sanglier was describing the mid-1980s selectable ball-bearing system that allowed the tailoring of a racket's TW/SW, which Dunlop used for a couple of years to rival Wilson's patented PWS system. There was no attempt at vibration absorption when those systems were designed, and neither of them had moving parts in use. In contrast, the PK Kinetic Shift system was developed in the 00s to reduce vibration and help TE sufferers, specifically via movable masses. They're totally different concepts.
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They had a tech in the 2000's I remember seeing on TV during sports events being promoted and sold only in big box sporting goods stores like Dick's and Scheel's as the two main places selling the Dunlop series where they had this shift tech in the models. Maybe I am wrong with Dunlop, but I remember one of the brands not Pro Kennex having this tech that flopped hard to where the lower end of graphite tech was sold in Kmart, as Walmart at the time wanted a better deal.
 
wedge said:
@ongbenghui did you have a chance to try your FX-TP? Very interested to know how it compares to the earlier frames.
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Yes, I played with it for a few games. But I will still go back to my EX110 Tour. The head is smaller, sweet spot is smaller. Less forgiving, not as powerful as the EX110. Not as comfy. I dunno, it is hard for me to describe now. Maybe need a few more games to focus to give a proper review.
 
Very interesting -- appreciate the info and update, let us know if you have any further thoughts! You may be the only person on this entire forum who has hit with this racket :laughing:
 
wedge said:
Very interesting -- appreciate the info and update, let us know if you have any further thoughts! You may be the only person on this entire forum who has hit with this racket :laughing:
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Do you have any pics from the rest of the tennis sections of that Yamaha catalog?
 
kevin qmto said:
Idk about Gosen, but Puma sold a rebadged Secret as the Puma Davis Cup Tour. Might’ve been the last racket they sold before exiting tennis.
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I've seen that racquet on the auction sites. It always surprises me how the head shape was much more standard than what Puma usually made, now I know why.
 
Ronin74 said:
I've seen that racquet on the auction sites. It always surprises me how the head shape was much more standard than what Puma usually made, now I know why.
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My speculation is at the end of their time in tennis they wanted to fill out their lineup without having to do R&D. Maybe their interest in the sport was waning but they still wanted the appearance of a larger racket lineup? Pretty flattering to Yamaha to get the call asking if Puma could just rebadge a Secret as a Puma. But nerds like me saw that and were like: “Dats a Yammy.”
 
ekucheraw said:
The ceramic 90 series (specifically the Gold) surprised me the most as the stick that I've had the most enjoyable experiences with. Probably not going to blast anyone off the court with it but it's so incredibly smooth and comfortable feeling, feels like a much larger headsize than it is.
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I actually got called out to play the other day, and all I had in the trunk was a Silver 90 that I was bringing to show a friend, but had never actually hit with.

I was expecting a bit of a brutal day since 90's are not my usual jam, but boy I had an absolute blast. And you're right, It really didn't play like a small-headed racket at all, I was finding the right part of the strings pretty reliably.

Only thing was, it was heavy ... weighed it later and it's 361g, but just a 320 swing weight so reasonably playable. I lasted two hours with it and then I could feel my arm getting sore, but it was the good kind of sore. Elbow and wrist felt just fine -- the bronze and silver seem like flexy bois, I'm curious if the white gold is that much stiffer.
 
Has anyone heard of a Proto 05? I found one on a Japanese site and it came today -- in all honestly I thought it said PROTO OS, and I was thinking huh, this was some kind of pre-EX 110 or something? The font and everything is very EX., but it's got a bit of the EX-1 graphics on the throat.

But when I got my hands on it, I realized it's not an OS at all ... that's when I went DUH, that's an 05, not a OS. And it's in the standard ~100sq in proto mold.

I've heard of a Secret-05, and I've seen a 05RS, but never a Proto 05, if anyone has info I'd love to know more about it. After a few smacks I can say it's definitely way less stiff than a Secret 04, though of course you could build a skyscraper out of steel beams that are less stiff than the 04. The only other 100sqin proto mold I have to compare it to is an 06, and yeah again it's not as stiff as that. Honestly? If you handed it to me and I hit with it blindfolded I would say it's a mid-flex racket.

332g/316sw. Most comfy proto/ex I've tried yet, though that could be down to the low-tension syngut.

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teachingprotx said:
What is the softest/ proto secret I wonder . I do love that mold …
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I've been messing around with this Proto-05 and I am thinking this has to be in the conversation of softest secret, though the mold is slightly different in really interesting ways!

I grabbed a Proto-07 to compare, and borrowed my techbro friend's calipers and measured beam thickness. The 07 is 25 all the way down (or near enough as makes no difference).

But the 05 was tapered, 26-23-26! I tried to get a photo where you could really see how the frame is a bit more tapered and undulating.

AfDbYQ0.jpeg


Also the throat part is more, I wanna say the word is scalloped? Like it's cut away, whereas the original secret mold is very straightforward. Here's a pic of them on top of each other and you can really see how the throat ends up being less "stout" and boxy.

5ZDUpWe.jpeg


And yeah I can say it plays FLEXY!! That's not to say it's incredibly "comfortable", though hitting back to back with the 07, yeah it's a different galaxy. The RA can't be that far above 60, it has that feeling where you can feel the whole frame flexing on off-center hits.

Very interesting, I will continue trying to track down info even if it means digging through archived microfiche of old Japanese tennis magazines!!
 
wedge said:
I've been messing around with this Proto-05 and I am thinking this has to be in the conversation of softest secret, though the mold is slightly different in really interesting ways!

I grabbed a Proto-07 to compare, and borrowed my techbro friend's calipers and measured beam thickness. The 07 is 25 all the way down (or near enough as makes no difference).

But the 05 was tapered, 26-23-26! I tried to get a photo where you could really see how the frame is a bit more tapered and undulating.

AfDbYQ0.jpeg


Also the throat part is more, I wanna say the word is scalloped? Like it's cut away, whereas the original secret mold is very straightforward. Here's a pic of them on top of each other and you can really see how the throat ends up being less "stout" and boxy.

5ZDUpWe.jpeg


And yeah I can say it plays FLEXY!! That's not to say it's incredibly "comfortable", though hitting back to back with the 07, yeah it's a different galaxy. The RA can't be that far above 60, it has that feeling where you can feel the whole frame flexing on off-center hits.

Very interesting, I will continue trying to track down info even if it means digging through archived microfiche of old Japanese tennis magazines!!
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I love you .
 
Nice find. My favorite is still the EX97, in yellow, blue & coral. No matter what i hit, I always find myself coming back to it. Just wish I could track down some more of them. Any suggestions for a frame that plays similarly would be appreciated
 
Ronin74 said:
Nice find. My favorite is still the EX97, in yellow, blue & coral. No matter what i hit, I always find myself coming back to it. Just wish I could track down some more of them. Any suggestions for a frame that plays similarly would be appreciated
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I see a few on ebbbbblayeeee from Japan and the prices are right ..
 
EX97's just don't really exist on any of the Japanese secondhand markets -- none of them.

I gave up a while back. You can find non-110 EX/EX2/FX frames but no EX97.

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I do have an FX-97S which is the successor, and I'll be selling it soon. No idea of the mold similarities with EX97, because I can't compare the frame with a racket I was never able to find :laughing:
 
Just a heads up that I put up one of my Alpha 97L's on the For Sale forum if anyone's interested! 328g/285sw/13HL/42RA, hyper wacky little thing.
 
Grafil Injection said:
I'm fairly sure @Sanglier was describing the mid-1980s selectable ball-bearing system that allowed the tailoring of a racket's TW/SW, which Dunlop used for a couple of years to rival Wilson's patented PWS system. There was no attempt at vibration absorption when those systems were designed, and neither of them had moving parts in use. In contrast, the PK Kinetic Shift system was developed in the 00s to reduce vibration and help TE sufferers, specifically via movable masses. They're totally different concepts.
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You of course are correct. Only ProKennex has the movable mass for vibration purposes
 
I'm curious if anyone here might be able to help clarify just what the situation is with the Ceramics series models ...

I found a Gold 90 locally, so now I have almost one of each "color" and since I know very little about this series of rackets other than how fun they are to play with (I don't remember anyone playing with them back in The Day) I'm trying to piece it all together.

So I know there's Gold/Silver/Bronze, which colloquially would seem to decrease in stiffness. There's also a White Gold, which I am (perhaps incorrectly) assuming is just a Gold that looks more swell. However in looking at what I have, I am realizing I don't actually have any Bronze frames. I have a Copper 110 ... for whatever reason I just always assumed this was a Bronze,

The sizes are all over the map -- the Gold and Silver are 90's, there's a Silver and White Gold 100, and then the Copper 110. I'm not the greatest judge of flex in the best of days, so does anyone have any idea a) just how much difference in flex there is across the "colors", and b) where on earth the "Copper" fits in?

Funny thing about the Gold 90 I just got, is that it initially weighed in at 380g! That didn't make much sense to me since it was an L3, 12-12.9oz unstrung. Then I thought, well, it's got a Yamaha leather grip on it, maybe that was some option or something, and it bumped it up in weight. But that also didn't sound right given the numbers, and that's when I tested swingweight, and it came back at 306 lol ... so I'm thinking okay something's up ... test on balance board and it's a full 16 pts HL.

Removed the grip and lo and behold there was a bunch of Babolat VS head guard tape building the grip up to a 4.5. But it was the best-concealed modification I've ever found in an old racket ... I didn't expect someone decades ago to have actually purchased a brand new Yamaha leather grip just to make their built-up Gold 90 look stock. I suspect it was a shop that did it for them, since it was done so, so nicely, and finished off perfectly with proper tape. I have to think they didn't realize that they were adding what turned out to be 25g worth of tape in the process. Owner probably didn't use it much after the mod, given the nice shape the frame is in.

ANYWAY, my point is, hitting that back to back with a Silver 90, yeah the difference is noticeable even past the strings. That's a stiffer frame, and frankly not as nice to hit with (Silver 90 is a tremendously fun stick). But it really got me wondering just how different in flex. The Copper is a 110, which feels super flexy, but it's so hard to compare when the sizes are so different.

There's also that weird CG 100 I found a while back, I'm not even gonna try to figure out where that fits into all of this!

In any case, if anyone has some experience with these Ceramics frames, yeah any thoughts or info would be greatly appreciated. Also if anyone has any thoughts on strings/tensions, I think it's time to put something proper in some of these!!
 
The Kuebler list in post #113 is fairly accurate showing the Ceramics across 1985-87. The 90s were all out by 1986.

This magazine list has the layups, which should explain the flexes you mention; with both boron, and presumably silicon carbide, in the Gold 90:

IMG-20250616-144908-2.jpg
 
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No, no RAs I'm afraid, but we can assume that anything with boron in, like the Gold 90, is extra-firm, especially if it also has ceramics and Kevlar.

The Bronze 90 would seem to be your best bet.

Christchurch is in Dorset just along the coast from Bournemouth. I expect there are some nice grass courts there.
 
Ronin74 said:
When Yamaha closed up shop, didn't Gosen buy some of their molds? Did Gosen make a version of Ex97?
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They did use some Secret 04 molds, but I never heard that they made an EX97. I didn't know about Puma using those molds, either, but it wouldn't surprise me. I do remember the Secret scaring the hell out of the bigger companies (Wilson, Prince, and Head, in that order) that had taken the lead in the late 80s widebody craze.

Tennis Warehouse was selling the Gosen Secret, Secret Lite, and Secret Lite OS back in 2000 (link).
 
Grafil Injection said:
The Kuebler list in post #113 is fairly accurate showing the Ceramics across 1985-87. The 90s were all out by 1986.

This magazine list has the layups, which should explain the flexes you mention; with both boron, and presumably silicon carbide, in the Gold 90:

IMG-20250616-144908-2.jpg
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This is so cool. It really would be worth begging the rights holder of that book to make it a free digital resource, it's got so much good info in it.

This certainly tracks with the differences between the Silver and Gold 90's. Starting to really think Kevlar was something special.
 
Don't Let It Bounce said:
They did use some Secret 04 molds, but I never heard that they made an EX97. I didn't know about Puma using those molds, either, but it wouldn't surprise me. I do remember the Secret scaring the hell out of the bigger companies (Wilson, Prince, and Head, in that order) that had taken the lead in the late 80s widebody craze.

Tennis Warehouse was selling the Gosen Secret, Secret Lite, and Secret Lite OS back in 2000 (link).
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The Puma version of the Secret was made when Yamaha was still in operation. Puma actually left tennis before Yamaha did.
 
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