Dunlop Maxply Fort Weights
- Thread starter Rob2D
- Start date
Grafil Injection
Hall of Fame
I have a Medium that is 392g strung (14oz). I'm not sure if Heavy versions exist, but if they did they would probably be 1/2oz more, so around 406g strung. And each weight was a range +/- 7g, so you might get up to 420g for a Heavy if my Medium is at the bottom of the range.
My Med is balanced at 33cm (4pt HL), so it's a bit of a struggle serving, but the plow on ground-strokes is awesome. To hit with a Heavy, it's best to be a farmer's son!
My Med is balanced at 33cm (4pt HL), so it's a bit of a struggle serving, but the plow on ground-strokes is awesome. To hit with a Heavy, it's best to be a farmer's son!
esgee48
G.O.A.T.
IIRC different makers had slightly different ranges for Light, LightMedium, Medium, LightHeavy and Heavy. Heavy was at least 16 oz. They had little control over how heavy the wooden parts were, so frames were just made and then weighed for classification. I do know that Dunlop Forts were much heavier than 14 oz if you wanted the hoop not to break. Eventually went to Kramers and Smiths.
I used to use Dunlop Maxply Forts in 4 3/4 medium. I did try a 4 3/4 heavy once just to see how it played and while I did not weigh it, it was noticeably heavier than the medium, too heavy for me. I was a serve and volleyer and imagine the heavys would appeal more to a baseliner who hit hard and flat.
Cheers for that fellas.
I asked the seller of the one I was looking at and he said there's a sticker that says "T5" and that it weighs in at 462g!!! So that must definitely be a Heavy. I guess the 5 means grip but not sure what "T" could mean........Maybe it stands for Too. As in too heavy
I asked the seller of the one I was looking at and he said there's a sticker that says "T5" and that it weighs in at 462g!!! So that must definitely be a Heavy. I guess the 5 means grip but not sure what "T" could mean........Maybe it stands for Too. As in too heavy
onehandbh
G.O.A.T.
Not Dunlop Maxplys but I have a few Medium Wilson wood racquets.
Wilson Advantage
Medium
4 5/8
Babolat VS 16g
48/47 lbs
1 overgrip
403g (14.2 oz)
Wilson JK Pro Staff
Medium
L5
Cheap gut
384g (no overgrip)
391g (overgrip)
Wilson JK Auto
Medium
L5
Spiral nylon
1 overgrip
383g (13.5 oz)
Wilson Advantage
Medium
4 5/8
Babolat VS 16g
48/47 lbs
1 overgrip
403g (14.2 oz)
Wilson JK Pro Staff
Medium
L5
Cheap gut
384g (no overgrip)
391g (overgrip)
Wilson JK Auto
Medium
L5
Spiral nylon
1 overgrip
383g (13.5 oz)
Ohhh an Advantage is on my list as well. I always thought they looked very smart.
onehandbh
G.O.A.T.
One of my favorites as well. I also like the old racquets with the grooved, wooden handles from around 1900 - 1920s or so.
Agreed! I had the chance to buy a good condition Slazenger Demon years ago for small money and I passed it up. I regret that decision ever since.
I.M. Weasel
New User
@ Rob2D I think T stands for Top. I am not sure but I think some manufacturers used Top to mark the frames heavier than any others.
As esgee48 explained " Light, LightMedium, Medium, LightHeavy and Heavy "
I am pretty sure T stands for Top but who knows is Top even heavier than Heavy or it just means the same as Heavy...
As esgee48 explained " Light, LightMedium, Medium, LightHeavy and Heavy "
I am pretty sure T stands for Top but who knows is Top even heavier than Heavy or it just means the same as Heavy...
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So, I had a lot of fun hitting with my Top the last couple days. When it arrived it actually had another leather grip tacked on over the original so had to take them both off. It's not everyday you have to pry tacks out of a tennis racket! I replaced with a Fairway I had lying around. What I did notice after having removed the grip was the handle was wrapped with a sort of duct tape. At least a couple times around as I could see a yellow wrap under the red. I wonder was this done to build up grip size or just to give the leather a bit of purchase? It's definitely factory applied.
Anyway, some specs for anyone who might be interested! (Re-strung with Prince Synthetic Gut Duraflex 16 @55lbs)
Maxply Fort Top Grip 5:
UNSTRUNG:
Weight: 426g
Swing Weight: 354
Balance: 10pts HL
STRUNG:
Weight: 441g
Swing Weight: 381
Balance: 8pts HL
It's hefty alright but not at all as bad as I feared. I actually played quite well with it. It's nice to be able to place the ball exactly where you want, even if it isn't going very fast haha. I much much prefer it to the Light Maxply I tried years ago. That thing was awful.
Anyway I can definitely see myself bringing this out more often at social nights at the club. Great fun altogether! Plus, all the girls say it's "cute" and want to look at it
Anyway, some specs for anyone who might be interested! (Re-strung with Prince Synthetic Gut Duraflex 16 @55lbs)
Maxply Fort Top Grip 5:
UNSTRUNG:
Weight: 426g
Swing Weight: 354
Balance: 10pts HL
STRUNG:
Weight: 441g
Swing Weight: 381
Balance: 8pts HL
It's hefty alright but not at all as bad as I feared. I actually played quite well with it. It's nice to be able to place the ball exactly where you want, even if it isn't going very fast haha. I much much prefer it to the Light Maxply I tried years ago. That thing was awful.
Anyway I can definitely see myself bringing this out more often at social nights at the club. Great fun altogether! Plus, all the girls say it's "cute" and want to look at it
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Grafil Injection
Hall of Fame
Beefy! How was serving?!
Looks in great condition. I noticed that the Dunlop & Slazenger black leather grips, with their names printed continuously, tend to be thinner than the normal leather grip, which might explain the additional factory tape.
Looks in great condition. I noticed that the Dunlop & Slazenger black leather grips, with their names printed continuously, tend to be thinner than the normal leather grip, which might explain the additional factory tape.
Ah, that could well be it, yes. The original grip is quite thin. It was so worn and dried out that it felt like paper almost.
Serving is an absolute delight. Once you get used to applying a slower swing that is. The angles you can hit with this headsize are of course ludicrous. Fired a few aces and a LOT of unreturned serves. Lads sort of scoff at the racket at first, so they sure aren't ready for 441g of weighted ball coming at them on return haha!
Grafil Injection
Hall of Fame
Impressive serving!
muddlehead
Professional
Here's a copy paste of my post from a few yrs ago 2019.
You might remember, in our first installment, I was searching for wood rackets marked "heavy" or "H" to see how much they actually weighed. Wood rackets came in three weights. Light, medium, and heavy. The heavy weight kicked in for grips 4 3/4 and above. (Apologies to anyone under 40 who has no idea what the preceding sentences mean). I thought they would weigh at least 15 oz. They are difficult to come across, as I discovered. Well, I found 2 rackets in the past 6 months. (1) Tad Imperial 4 3/4 H tips the scale at 14.41 oz. (2) Wilson Kramer Autograph. The most iconic wood racket of all time. Gorgeous in beautiful near minty condition. How much will it weigh? 15 oz? I put it on the scale. A robust 14.78 oz. Close enough to 15. So there you have it. An experiment of two. Maybe someday someone will read this and say I've got a Woodie that's 15 oz. Until then, the leader in the clubhouse is 14.78 oz.
Frankc
Professional
In the day, the two best regional doubles players used H Maxplys. Everything was so crisp and exact - perfect by-the-book clay court doubles placement and percentage patterns. You knew what each would do as the pattern developed and each would do just that...
Gardnar Mulloy used those very heavy Prince Woodies through his seventies - after he won the National 65s clay court title, he told me that he played tight gut and the heaviest Wodies that he could find. His precision was phenomenal...
Gardnar Mulloy used those very heavy Prince Woodies through his seventies - after he won the National 65s clay court title, he told me that he played tight gut and the heaviest Wodies that he could find. His precision was phenomenal...
Grafil Injection
Hall of Fame
I came across a MAXPLY Fort advert that confirms the specs as follows, unstrung I believe. The picture is a bit blurry, so I list the figures above. Essentially, the same ranges that were used for most Dunlops of the 1930-1985 period including MAX 200G, although some models didn't seperate out SL from L, nor had an H category:
EL (precursor to SL) - 12-12.5oz (340-353g)
L - 12.5-13oz (354g-367g)
LM - 13-13.5oz (368g-381g)
M - 13.5-14oz (382g-395g)
H - over 14oz (>396g)
So Heavies are >410g strung with no upper limit.
EL (precursor to SL) - 12-12.5oz (340-353g)
L - 12.5-13oz (354g-367g)
LM - 13-13.5oz (368g-381g)
M - 13.5-14oz (382g-395g)
H - over 14oz (>396g)
So Heavies are >410g strung with no upper limit.
Great racquet! Probably the best wood ever.So, I had a lot of fun hitting with my Top the last couple days. When it arrived it actually had another leather grip tacked on over the original so had to take them both off. It's not everyday you have to pry tacks out of a tennis racket! I replaced with a Fairway I had lying around. What I did notice after having removed the grip was the handle was wrapped with a sort of duct tape. At least a couple times around as I could see a yellow wrap under the red. I wonder was this done to build up grip size or just to give the leather a bit of purchase? It's definitely factory applied.
Anyway, some specs for anyone who might be interested! (Re-strung with Prince Synthetic Gut Duraflex 16 @55lbs)
Maxply Fort Top Grip 5:
UNSTRUNG:
Weight: 426g
Swing Weight: 354
Twist Weight: 364
Balance: 10pts HL
STRUNG:
Weight: 441g
Swing Weight: 381
Twist Weight: 392
Balance: 8pts HL
It's hefty alright but not at all as bad as I feared. I actually played quite well with it. It's nice to be able to place the ball exactly where you want, even if it isn't going very fast haha. I much much prefer it to the Light Maxply I tried years ago. That thing was awful.
Anyway I can definitely see myself bringing this out more often at social nights at the club. Great fun altogether! Plus, all the girls say it's "cute" and want to look at it
alexmcnab
Rookie
Had a hit with my old Maxply Fort and really surprised how easy it was to play with. Played some crunching forehands and serving was great too. I strung it about 10yrs again with synthetic gut and feels freshly strung to me. It weighs 425g strung. Need to check out the balance and sw just for fun.
Update - Balance 6HL, SW 375g
Update - Balance 6HL, SW 375g
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Grafil Injection
Hall of Fame
In addition to the advert above, I found this one that indicates that Top was used interchangeably with Heavy, to indicate >14oz (396g) unstrung.
Grafil Injection
Hall of Fame
I landed a L4 Fort recently, that came in at 372g strung, so I guess 354g (12.5oz) unstrung. The balance was 33.75cm (2pt HL), but it wasn't a problem to manoeuvre at all, and still great plow and solidity for a wood. It's the Beech-Ash-Beech plies next to each other that give the strength, and the whopping flake. You could say the Maxply was the first 'dual-taper-beam' racket - the beam goes 30mm above the handle, down to 15mm in the neck, then back up to 22mm for the shoulder reinforcement and back down to 15mm again at the top. When they moved to the Fort Graphite, the flake and the reinforcement were much thinner. Getting a Fort in 1932 must have been amazing.
Grafil Injection
Hall of Fame
Nice hit with the Fort tonight. Man, if you can find the golf-ball sized sweet-spot, the feel is amazing! I can sense my eyes are on stalks as I watch the incoming ball!
tennistiger
Professional
My 1981 Dunlop katalog says that the Maxplay Fort is available in:I came across a MAXPLY Fort advert that confirms the specs as follows, unstrung I believe. The picture is a bit blurry, so I list the figures above. Essentially, the same ranges that were used for most Dunlops of the 1930-1985 period including MAX 200G, although some models didn't seperate out SL from L, nor had an H category:
EL (precursor to SL) - 12-12.5oz (340-353g)
L - 12.5-13oz (354g-367g)
LM - 13-13.5oz (368g-381g)
M - 13.5-14oz (382g-395g)
H - over 14oz (>396g)
So Heavies are >410g strung with no upper limit.
L 3
LM 3-5
M 4-8
T 6,8,10
How in earth can someone pick up a racket with grip size 10 !!!!!
Grafil Injection
Hall of Fame
Yeah, I saw an T8 recently - scary!
Gonzo Panchales
New User
I have a 1965 Maxply T 10. It currently weighs 410 g strung with synthetic multifilament but perhaps the wood is a bit dried out. I remember it weighed about 425 g strung with natural gut. It feels wonderfully stable at straight or slice strokes. Play a topspin and you feel the pull at your shoulder joint! The reasoning behind large grip sizes was as follows: with those small racquet heads a ball hit off-center would twist the racquet in your hand. So on one hand it was taught to firmly grip the racquet, on the other hand the standard grip sizes were larger than today. Men would play with sizes 5 to 6, or 7 to 8 if they had large hands. For beginners, who did not yet have the trained forearms of advanced players, it was recommended to choose a grip one or two sizes larger in order to relieve the forearm muscles. Also, a heavy racquet was recommended in order to learn to swing the racquet properly instead of yanking or hacking for the ball.
Grafil Injection
Hall of Fame
An easier to read version of the weights mentioned above, from 1964:
Note the option to have a Lew Hoad or Rod Laver specifications version of the Fort.
Note the option to have a Lew Hoad or Rod Laver specifications version of the Fort.
I doubt if it was the same but my second real racquet was a 'Dunlop Rod Laver'. It differed in appearance from the Maxply Fort in that the white part around the shoulders was brown and, on the throat, the light and dark colored woods were reversed and the three stripes were black. I don't remember if it said 'Maxply' or 'Fort'. But it was a cool looking frame and while there were similarities in looks and dimensions it played differently to the Maxply Fort which I went to next.
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Grafil Injection
Hall of Fame
The 1964 catalogue has some colourful Rod and Lew models, and I expect there were many others through the 1960s. The Maxply Fort in Rod and Lew specs were probably the same cosmetic as the normal Fort, just in the 15-16oz range.
Grafil Injection
Hall of Fame
I have seen a few size 6s and 8s for sale (plus the bonkers size 12 museum piece), but as the adverts suggest, size 5 was the normal largest offering for obvious reasons. I wonder if the size 8s were just larger handle pieces, or whether the whole racket including the hoop is thicker. What are the beam dimensions of your size 8 at the hoop?
The bi-handers were also rarer and I think only produced towards the end of the 70s when 2hbh became popular. My Challenge bi-hander plays really nicely with its extra 2-inches of grip.
Grafil Injection
Hall of Fame
Just got a Top 5 (aka Heavy 5), which is 'only' 404g strung, so there has perhaps been a bit of moisture evaporation over the years. The hoop is clearly more stiff feeling than lighter models, and the sweet-spot larger.
