The usual black with gold/green chevrons and stripes, but it says "Pro II" on the side. They do come with the turquoise leather grips though, so can't wait to clean them. I'm thinking of putting Asheway Syn Gut in them to give them the full retro look (but do the Dunlop logo in red ink as I usually do).
MAX 200G 40th Anniversary?
- Thread starter Grafil Injection
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Grafil Injection
Hall of Fame
Natural or golden syngut does look good, as shown in my Glossy Pro on the left. I think you have to go white in the Teal version due to the grommets, on the right. For my poly experiment, I have narrowed it down to RPM in black or Element Forest Green to put in the Graphite Injection in the middle, with a white stencil.
She played with it in 1987.
Grafil Injection
Hall of Fame
From about French Open 1987 until Wimbledon 1988. She got to 4 GS finals and won 2 of them (W & US 87) with it, both against Steffi using it too. Good racket for a windy day in New York.
Yes, correct. And i always wondered that such different tennis style players like Graf and McEnroe used the same racquet.
Grafil Injection
Hall of Fame
No reason to think they are any different, but I can say that these three 'Demonstration' models all play great. The Graphite Injection and Grafil Injection are 365g strung with OG (Steffi spec). The Graphite is 385g no OG (J-Mac weight?).
kevin qmto
Hall of Fame
Just bought a max 200g today. Came with the original case in good shape. No warping to the naked eye.
Grafil Injection
Hall of Fame
Version, specs, strings? Not that it matters hugely, like choosing between Chateau Lafite and Latour.
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Good purchase. Enjoy playing!
kevin qmto
Hall of Fame
You're gonna have to tell me. I'm assuming its a later version, because it has JMac's signature (and even stringing recommendation!) on the side. Also, not sure if these are natural gut strings, but I think they might be. Admittedly, I've never once used nat gut before so this should be interesting. Says Babolat LE Plus on them, quick google search pulls up nothing lol. What are the extended grommets for? Grip's in good shape, as was the case, inside the pocket were 2 $1 bills, dated from 1985, good indicator of how long they've been there, slightly yellowed with age, but I'm sure they'll spend the same. Brought down the acquisition price to $13.
chrischris
Legend
Took mine out for a spin yesterday. Hot dry Condition. Had it strung recently. TF Xone biphase 17 gauge at 19kgs.
The racket felt heavy and a bit sluggish the first 10 minutes but then it felt like a soft beast of a bat with power and dwell. Very good feel and huge plow. Love it tbh.
The racket felt heavy and a bit sluggish the first 10 minutes but then it felt like a soft beast of a bat with power and dwell. Very good feel and huge plow. Love it tbh.
Grafil Injection
Hall of Fame
You're gonna have to tell me. I'm assuming its a later version, because it has JMac's signature (and even stringing recommendation!) on the side. Also, not sure if these are natural gut strings, but I think they might be. Admittedly, I've never once used nat gut before so this should be interesting. Says Babolat LE Plus on them, quick google search pulls up nothing lol. What are the extended grommets for? Grip's in good shape, as was the case, inside the pocket were 2 $1 bills, dated from 1985, good indicator of how long they've been there, slightly yellowed with age, but I'm sure they'll spend the same. Brought down the acquisition price to $13.
Yeah, I wish I knew too!
Very nice condition V2 'Graphite Injection' produced from 1984-1987, with correct matching full case, which is fairly rare. I would estimate less than 1 in 10 full cases were sold with the racket as it was an optional extra, compared to the half case that was free. This version was the highest selling 200G following Mac's 1984 successes, with over 200,000 being sold in 1985 & 1986. It's a good sign having some light scuffs if you want to play with it, as completely mint versions are usually too heavy or have too large a grip to use easily. Original Dunlop grip in what looks like Size 3 or 4, will play like a 2.5 or 3.5 as the leather is thin. I haven't heard of those strings, but Babolat made great synguts as well as gut in those days. The 6 individual grommets are to protect the shared holes, including the central two where you will note that the cross-string slants a lot, which I believe is because the auto-retracting spigots used to create the holes were larger at this point as they were also the internal mould (fusible core) centring spigots. If you need to restring, instructions are shown higher up in this thread, and you could use teflon tubes for the top 6 holes, and the 4 holes either side of the bottom 6, for added protection. However, it's fine to play without those tubes. The good thing about this version is you can use it without any worries because there are plenty out there. Welcome to the club!
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kevin qmto
Hall of Fame
Is there any material difference between frames labeled “graphite” or “grafil” injection?
Grafil Injection
Hall of Fame
No. My understanding is that the original company supplying the chopped graphite was a UK subsidiary of Courtaulds a UK conglomerate. For about a decade before, chopped graphite was known as grafil (graphite filaments) in the industry. The UK subsidiary was subsequently bought by Hysol (a US company) in 1985ish, and they sold the same product from the same UK factory, but called it 'Grafil' under a US trademark.
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I found a picture of a Pro using a MAX 300i in the Wimbledon 1988 annual. Anne Minter using the 2nd cosmetic version (huge chevrons). The dot indicates some make of strings I believe?
Cool pic! Is she wearing the Lendl Comps? Can’t tell.
Grafil Injection
Hall of Fame
Not sure, but I agree they are cool looking grass shoes.
He may mean more the consistency of the fibers. Using full length fibers versus chopped pieces presumably.
vsbabolat
G.O.A.T.
Well you see the chopped fibers were melted/liquified and injected into the mold around a low melting point alloy in the shape of the frame. Hence the name Injection Molded Frame. These are not compression molded racquets. It’s a unique manufacturing process that no one has done.
vsbabolat
G.O.A.T.
After 1989 Dunlop took the word Hysol off the frames. Those 1990 frames felt very different than the ones with Hysol written on them. Also was the first time that the USA got Max200G with Pro on them and a slightly longer grip. I hated them. That’s when I started looking for a different racket.
michael valek
Hall of Fame
Yes the purple ones don’t feel the same. Hollower and thinner.
joe sch
Legend
Excellent info as always. Took me a little longer to make this realization or probably Im more stubborn but the pc600 was my transition to be
Grafil Injection
Hall of Fame
I think the 'difference' from 1990 (Glossy then Purple versions) was that the handle was 1 inch longer, hence the point of flex moved slightly higher making it feel a bit stiffer. I don't think there was any difference in the formulation since the same suppliers were used throughout, but those later versions do feel a little crisper to me too. Interestingly, the companies that provided both the grafil and the tin-bismuth alloy core still exist and sell the same products. I'm quite tempted just to buy 1kg of grafil and 1kg of eutectic alloy now, just in case.
Do have a source referring to the chopped fibers being liquified or melted? Not sure how feasible that is with Graphite or even why that would be necessary.
I always assumed it was chopped fibers and resin mixed and injected together like a fairly typical Epoxy fiber mixture.
Hard to say if there is any real practical difference between compression molding and injection molding when you end up doing essentially the same thing. Putting your material between two hard surfaces under pressure. The injection molding is just closed from the start and requires the materials to be more broken down to get them in.
Grafil Injection
Hall of Fame
The main difference is the grafil was mixed in a Nylon 6-6 matrix, whereas compression moulded frames are woven carbon fibre in a epoxy-resin matrixes. And Nylon 6-6 is clearly somewhat more flexy than cured and baked epoxy-resins.
Yes, but that does not address the issue of melting Graphite which requires absurdly high temperature. I was really only expressing skepticism that that was done at all.
Short strand carbon injection molding is still done now, just not for racquets.
vsbabolat
G.O.A.T.
Yes, I do have a source, from Dunlop!!!!!
A real piece of art how Dunlop manufactured these racquets. Here is a layman's explanation of the Injection Molded Process works. First there is a casting of a low melting point alloy core. The alloy core is then put in the injection molding machine. A Compound of GRAPHITE and NYLON is Melted and then injected around the alloy core. Once the graphite and Nylon is cooled the Alloy core is heated up so it melts and then poured out of the frame. This leaves individual string holes that have pillars inside the frame. There are no holes drilled in these injection molded frames by Dunlop.
Yes and my point is that it's just the Nylon that is melting, not the graphite as well.
vsbabolat
G.O.A.T.
That’s not how Dunlop Injection Molded Frames were manufactured.
vsbabolat
G.O.A.T.
The graphite and nylon are both melted. They are matrix together. Pellets or chips
Grafil Injection
Hall of Fame
Yes, you are correct to be skeptical about that statement, the graphite filaments aren't melted. The Nylon 6-6 is molten around 250 degrees and the grafil is added and dispersed thoroughly before injection. The process was developed in the early 70s and as you say continues today. The X-rays of the resultant solid show the filaments dispersed throughout the Nylon matrix. Still quite different to compression moulding though since Nylon is the matrix.
I was trying to locate the specs of cured Nylon 6-6 compared to typical baked Epoxy.
I wouldn't be surprised if it's more the "chipboard" compared to "laminate" structure that's more responsible for the flex than the "glue" properties alone.
That still seems unlikely. Surely 3600 degrees will destroy Nylon.
vsbabolat
G.O.A.T.
It’s not unlikely as it happened!!!
I think you misunderstand the description. It was clarified above.
vsbabolat
G.O.A.T.
I don’t think you understand the process of how the IMF was manufactured.
Grafil Injection
Hall of Fame
Indeed the incredible challenges were the need to be hollow (the fusible core needs to be held precisely in the outer mould's void), and the creation of the string-holes using spigots through the outer mould into the fusible core. It would undoubtedly be a challenge today, even if I can gather the ingrediants. It's not surprising that the MAX 200G is in not just lots of tennis museums, but also various design and engineering museums.
Grafil Injection
Hall of Fame
The patents and various articles from Cranfield University show the X-rays, and yes chipboard is exactly what it looks like.
vsbabolat
G.O.A.T.
It’s nylon not glue or epoxy. There is no epoxy. There’s no flash when it comes out of the mold. The point of the IMF process was to try and make the manufacturing process less expensive because you had no drilled holes, no sanding of the flash off the frame. You just painted IMF racquets, applied the handle, and grip, butt-cap and it was done. But healthy and safety expenses form working with multiple molten liquids made it cost prohibitive in the end.
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The nylon functions the same as glue or epoxy. This really is not rocket science.
vsbabolat
G.O.A.T.
There’s no flash when it comes out of the mold. The point of the IMF process was to try and make the manufacturing process less expensive because you had no drilled holes, no sanding of the flash off the frame. You just painted IMF racquets, applied the handle, and grip, butt-cap and it was done. But healthy and safety expenses form working with multiple molten liquids made it cost prohibitive in the end.
I was not wondering why it was done.
vsbabolat
G.O.A.T.
Your loss then. It was all part of the IMF story.
vsbabolat
G.O.A.T.
You did not bother to read my explanation:
A real piece of art how Dunlop manufactured these racquets. Here is a layman's explanation of the Injection Molded Process works. First there is a casting of a low melting point alloy core. The alloy core is then put in the injection molding machine. A Compound of GRAPHITE and NYLON is Melted and then injected around the ALLOY CORE. Once the graphite and Nylon is cooled the Alloy core is heated up so it melts and then poured out of the frame. This leaves individual string holes that have pillars inside the frame. There are no holes drilled in these injection molded frames by Dunlop
Grafil Injection
Hall of Fame
The racket needs to be a hollow object because a solid racket will be too heavy, so you need a core to be held centrally in-between the outer moulds (but not touching) so that the grafil mix can flow around. The core needs to be fusible to remove it from the racket afterwards without changing the product, so it needs to melt below the solidification temperature of Nylon-Graphite mix (around 180 degrees). Hence, a tin-bismuth eutectic was used for the inner core, which melted around 140 degrees. Problem is how to stop that melting when the Nylon mix is first injected which has to take place around 250 degrees so that the mix is fluid enough. The answer is due to the core's eutectic nature which means it can absord a degree of heat before melting. Hence, the injection takes 3-seconds and the racket solidifies before passing enough heat into the fusible core, which can then be subsequently melted out once the racket is removed from the outer moulds, by passing it through a vat of hot oil (the fusible alloy can be fully recycled). This melt out process also anneals the thermoplastic improving its performance. Not dissimilar to the lost-wax process used for thousands of years to make sculptures, but they didn't have to worry about string-holes too!
I didn't have any problem understanding the set up or intricacies. It was just clarification that nylon and graphite were not actually melted together at 3600 like some sort of syrup.
I didn't wonder because I already knew why.
Grafil Injection
Hall of Fame
Yes, the Dunlop patents were somewhat imprecise on that suggesting the whole mixture was 'molten', but then later mentioning the melt temperatures which are those of just Nylon. They may have been better to say the reinforced thermoplastic was 'fluid', but molten may have been the parlance used by the team. Moreover, LNP Plastics who supplied the grafil and the Nylon, provided guidance on the appropriate mixing temperatures. That wasn't new. The innovative step was making a hollow product, with the requisite fast injection time, and including the string-holes. It's still undoubtedly not a simple process, especially when you look how fine and smooth the edges are defined (without any manual polishing). Would be interesting to know if any (primitive) computer assistance was used for the moulds, or if it was all done by pen and paper.
The molten term certainly confused some. Knowing the actual properties of the components is key.
I wonder if some sort of compromise in the system may have made it a bit more practical. Racquet head size seems like it would eliminate it today.
