Head Elite Pro

[Dino Lagaffe]

I've posted pics of my Elite Pros before, but this is the most recent family picture.
This model is definetely a favorite of mine, roughly speaking a slightly softer Prestige. But those grommets... I have capped three of them and the others are in various stages of decay.

1) What with 3D printers and modern technology, wouldn't it be possible to make new, white half CAPs and grommets in a better material?

2) As I mentioned I have retrofitted full CAPs on three of them, but I seem to remember that there is a half CAP grommet/bumper set that would work. Which one is it?

https://imgur.com/CCZfyMJ

 

[Henry Hub]

Paging @retrowagen to the thread...

 

[vsbabolat]

On mine I trimmed the CAP Grommets so they would only be a bumper for the top of the hoop

 

[retrowagen]

Did someone say, “Head Elite Pro?!”

I have had success taking ordinary black full-length TK52 CAPs, as well as later, clear ones used on the MG series of 18x20 Prestige mid, and trimming the “skids” off of the portion that the frame was not designed to receive. There’s an obvious notch in the molding of the frame, on the 1988 Elite and Elektra Pros, designed to accommodate the “bumper” part of the half-CAP. It’s an elegant design, though I have always opined that Head’s designers should have done the CAP on the Elite in black... it looks much better!

Some have retrofitted the full cap, but it looks clumsy, pinching inwardly under string tension, and makes the racquet far heavier and less airfoil-like, not to mention harder to string.

If perchance you don’t feel like doing a few minutes’ careful work with a hobby knife, you could alternately fit the very, very rare TK10 non-cap set (some pro room PC600’s could be had with these, and some of the green/silver Prestige Pro 600’s of 1993 or so had green TK10 sets!), or perhaps a set similar to the TK10 used on the Spalding ATP Tour 200, or the more recent Gamma Tour 340X Team.

Don’t use an iPrestige or Flexpoint Prestige CAP... you’ll thank me later.

Somewhere on this board’s archives is more documentation of my blood, sweat, and tears (more blood than you might have imagined!) in trimming and fitting CAPS in my Elite Pros. I have also in years past prepared a few sets for friends to fit in their racquets, but since Head stopped making 18x20 retail mids, my supply of CAP stocks has dwindled to nil.

 

[Frankc]

Hopefully on topic - Arthur Ashe , long retired, spent a full day at our local Indoor Club. He was wonderful and active as you would guess - mixing freely with group children lessons and adult players. The set of pictures at the club are a joy and a gift for all of us. He is posed in the pics and enjoyed a Head Elite Pro that day.