phrito
New User
I play with the Head Graphene Radical MP and really actually like the way it looks. I'm a fan of orange! However, I have seen the limited black edition and really like the way it looks, but not enough to buy a new racquet! At a recent tournament I played a guy who had customized his racquets and a few of them were just solid black, which I really liked! He gave me the run down on the process so I thought I'd do a little digging and see how hard it would be. There's not a whole lot out there but wow, some of the custom paint jobs I've seen are absolutely amazing! I wasn't looking for elaborate designs so I gave a shot at going to solid matte black and I think the results are pretty good, and it wasn't all that hard. It made for a nice project to work on for a few evenings. I would estimate I spent a total of 3-4 hours on and off. For anyone interested in how I did this, I've listed the steps I followed below and a few photos. Keep in mind, you can go really deep into this and take your racquet to the auto paint shop, etc etc... but I was looking for something I could do myself, inexpensive, looks good, and keeps the specs of the racquet (which you'll see I accomplished all of these...looks of course are in the eye of the beholder!).
Step 1 - I removed all the strings and grommets from my racquet and sprayed paint stripper on about half at a time. Let the paint stripper sit for about 15 minutes and use a plastic putty knife to scrape the paint. I noticed that some areas seemed to have more paint than others. Here you can see where I've gotten the paint off the bottom part.
Step 2 - After all (well, most) of the paint was off I used sand paper to remove the rest of it and started working on getting a good surface for painting. I started with rough paper at first, and also found that some small areas especially in the grooves were hard to get all the paint. After the paint was off I switched to 320 grit paper to get it ready for primer. Here is what it looked like after sanding. It was actually kind of cool just bare, but I doubt that would be good for the racquet. Also, you will notice some graphite coming off and it will make a mess. I did all sanding by hand, I do think you could mess up quickly if you used a sander or dremel tool.
Step 3 - Primer, Sand, Primer, Sand, Paint, Sand, Paint... Once all the paint was removed and the racquet was sanded to a smooth even finish I used spray primer (matte black) to apply a thin coat. I let dry then sanded with 600 grit sandpaper. Sprayed primer again and sanded. I'm not much of a painter but I think it goes without saying be careful not to get the can too close and cause runs. After a few coats of primer I sprayed with paint (again matte black). I can't remember the exact brand of paint I used but it was the name brand and looked appropriate... again you can get really sophisticated with this part but I was just trying to keep it simple. Here's what it looked like after painting, before stringing...
Step 4 - Replace grommets and string. I had just replaced the grommets in this one a few months ago so I didn't buy new ones again. If I could do anything over, I would have gone ahead and replaced them again, but it still turned out good. Here's the final product after stringing. I really like the looks and plan to do my other racquet soon!
Final thoughts... I weighed and balanced this racquet vs my other non-customized Radical MP. The strung weight of both are exactly 11.4 oz and the balance is 6pts HL on both. The offical specs of the MP are 4 pts HL but the overgrip and months of sweat in the handle add a little weight toward the butt. I was honestly surprised the specs did not change. I weighed and balanced them each 3 times just to be certain! I'm fairly hard on my racquets so I'm sure it'll have chips and dings in no time, but the good news is I can fix it like new anytime I want.
If you'd read this far I hope this has been helpful. There are many, many ways to do this process and several of you could do a much more technically sound job (I've seen some of the examples!), but again this was fun, easy, cheap and looks killer! Good luck!
Step 1 - I removed all the strings and grommets from my racquet and sprayed paint stripper on about half at a time. Let the paint stripper sit for about 15 minutes and use a plastic putty knife to scrape the paint. I noticed that some areas seemed to have more paint than others. Here you can see where I've gotten the paint off the bottom part.
Step 2 - After all (well, most) of the paint was off I used sand paper to remove the rest of it and started working on getting a good surface for painting. I started with rough paper at first, and also found that some small areas especially in the grooves were hard to get all the paint. After the paint was off I switched to 320 grit paper to get it ready for primer. Here is what it looked like after sanding. It was actually kind of cool just bare, but I doubt that would be good for the racquet. Also, you will notice some graphite coming off and it will make a mess. I did all sanding by hand, I do think you could mess up quickly if you used a sander or dremel tool.
Step 3 - Primer, Sand, Primer, Sand, Paint, Sand, Paint... Once all the paint was removed and the racquet was sanded to a smooth even finish I used spray primer (matte black) to apply a thin coat. I let dry then sanded with 600 grit sandpaper. Sprayed primer again and sanded. I'm not much of a painter but I think it goes without saying be careful not to get the can too close and cause runs. After a few coats of primer I sprayed with paint (again matte black). I can't remember the exact brand of paint I used but it was the name brand and looked appropriate... again you can get really sophisticated with this part but I was just trying to keep it simple. Here's what it looked like after painting, before stringing...
Step 4 - Replace grommets and string. I had just replaced the grommets in this one a few months ago so I didn't buy new ones again. If I could do anything over, I would have gone ahead and replaced them again, but it still turned out good. Here's the final product after stringing. I really like the looks and plan to do my other racquet soon!
Final thoughts... I weighed and balanced this racquet vs my other non-customized Radical MP. The strung weight of both are exactly 11.4 oz and the balance is 6pts HL on both. The offical specs of the MP are 4 pts HL but the overgrip and months of sweat in the handle add a little weight toward the butt. I was honestly surprised the specs did not change. I weighed and balanced them each 3 times just to be certain! I'm fairly hard on my racquets so I'm sure it'll have chips and dings in no time, but the good news is I can fix it like new anytime I want.
If you'd read this far I hope this has been helpful. There are many, many ways to do this process and several of you could do a much more technically sound job (I've seen some of the examples!), but again this was fun, easy, cheap and looks killer! Good luck!
