removing bumper guard takes off ??weight

[BjornBorg]

On a Babolat for example, how many tenths of an ounce does removing the bumper guard take a racket down? If a racket weighs 11.5 oz, what is the weight with the bumper guard taken off? (11.4--11.3???)

If the swing weight is 318, what is the sw with the bumper guard taken off?--317? 316? --even less??? thanks.

I'm going to take off the bumper guard to make the racket a tad lighter, a tad more head light and a tad easier swing weight. Thanks!!!

 

[John Kawasaki]

Removing the headguard will do a couple of things: yes, you will change the balance to "more headlite" as well as change/lower the swing weight (since you are actually removing material from overall static weight)...it will swing easier....most likely less than 317/316...it will be quite noticeable...

 

[BjornBorg]

Could you give me a ballpark? Like 318 swingweight to 312? and 5 points headlight to 7? And 11.5 oz to 11.3?

 

[brtennis]

bumper guards usually weight between 12-18 grams. The effect of taking off bumper guard on swingweight is huge. Like if you take off a 12-gram BG, the swingweight will be reduced by more than 24...

 

[tonyjh63]

When y'all write about the "bumper guard", are you referring to the plastic insert with the built-in grommets at the head/tip of the racquet? Wouldn't the racquet look really weird without this? How would you fill in the void that's left? Thanks, and I appologize if this sounds like a stupid question.

 

[TN1]

When y'all write about the "bumper guard", are you referring to the plastic insert with the built-in grommets at the head/tip of the racquet? Wouldn't the racquet look really weird without this? How would you fill in the void that's left? Thanks, and I appologize if this sounds like a stupid question.

He has a point there. Correct if I am wrong but alot of new racquets don't have a grommet strip underneath the bumper do they? I don't have any racquet made in the last decade besides a cheap $30 racquet, so I can't be sure. I know on the older racquets though. The grommet strips rides on top of the bumper guard. It overlaps, sits on the bumper guard to hold it down. So if you take of the bumper you still have the grommet strip.

 

[NoBadMojo]

most of the modern racquets have the bumper guard integrated into the grommet strip so removing the bumper guard isnt an option other than to replacing with ndividual grommets. if you were to remove the bumper guard, your frame would of course be subject to nasty scrapes if you scrape your racquet on the court from time to time. you can , however, cut materal away from the bumper guard/grommet strip which would result in lowering the swingweight and making the frame more headlight to some degree depending on the racquets bumper guard and how much material you cut away. i assume the babalot frames have an integrated bumper guard/ grommet strip?

 

[El Diablo]

My experience is similar as above -- I've removed just a part of the headguard on two racquets and the swingweight felt dramatically less. Be advised that power and "plow" are also considerably less -- you might make up for some of that by swinging faster on your groundies, but you may really miss the weight on shots where you generally can't do that, particularly returns and volleys. Think of the dramatic change in a racquet when you add 12-18 grams and you'll have an idea what happens when you subtract that weight.

 

[Torres]

I'm about to try and strip some weight off a Wilson 6.1 because its slightly out of spec and feels noticebly more head heavy than my other 6.1 Other than using paintstripper (which I'm not prepared to do), the only way I can see that this could be done would be to cut away some of the bumperguard lengthways on each side of the central grommets.

Don't know what the weights are for Babolats but the weight of the bumperguard on the 6.1 (which isn't integrated with with the L/R side grommet strips) is about 3g.

Looking at the bumperguard, I don't think its feasible to do the cutting whilst the bumperguard is on the racquet, so its a case of buying a replacement bumperguard, and cutting it before fitting.

 

[Fed Kennedy]

Punch holes in the guard, you still get protection and you minus the weight evenly

 

[Torres]

^ Good tip - didn't think of that. But what tool are you using to punch holes in it? The bumper guard doesn't go deep enough into the 'jaws' of a paper hole punch (which presumably is still strong enough to punch a hole through plastic?)

[Edit: nevermind - just found one on the Bay - one of those metal 'pliar' type single holepunches]

 

[morten]

1 gram removed at 12 o`clock reduce sw points by 3... so yes a huge impact...

 

[The Djoker]

^ Good tip - didn't think of that. But what tool are you using to punch holes in it? The bumper guard doesn't go deep enough into the 'jaws' of a paper hole punch (which presumably is still strong enough to punch a hole through plastic?)

[Edit: nevermind - just found one on the Bay - one of those metal 'pliar' type single holepunches]

just use a drill...:neutral:

 

[Torres]

1 gram removed at 12 o`clock reduce sw points by 3... so yes a huge impact...

Anything that brings the spec closer to the other stick would be useful, no matter how small.

Otherwise its a case of selling the racquet.

 

[Playtimefun]

I can comment on the 90 racquets as I have done this modifications and more with my KPS88s.

The bumper guard (top portion only) for a KPS88 is about 9.8 grams in weight. All of the grommets/plastic total about 19 grams. If you cut the outside plastic and even the middle portions out in betwen the grommets on the top part, you will cut the weight almost in half to about 5.6 grams. Generally 5 grams at the handle end of a racquet will gain you close to 3 points HL on a racquet. (Tennis Warehouse has the modification spreadsheet that also shows this.) So by trimming the headguard you will probably gain about 2 points HL (depends how far the guard extends down the sides of the racquet, size, etc.).

If you trim the rest, you will save about another 5 to 6 grams but because it is closer to the balance point the effect on the head lightness of the racquet is reduced. I found on my KPS88s that by totally trimming a lot of the plastic from around grommets (leaving some to make sure they werent going to pull through when stringing) that I gained 5 points of head lightness.

To me, the loss of the headguard is insignificant as the KPS88s, K90s, etc. have so much material that they can take the abuse easily. But if you are person that has a tendency to "push" the racquet into the ground when hitting low pick-ups etc. then this is not an option for you. My doubles partner does this all the time and he basically wears off the guard and into the graphite and thus a racquet barely lasts a year for him.

Here is a little test that I did on one of my KPS88s to strip the paint off of it to get it even more headlight and to see how it affected the stiffness, etc.

http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?t=377378&highlight=paint+trim+weight

Even going from 16 to 18 gauge tennis string will also gain you about 1 point HL.

Hope this helps.

 

[Playtimefun]

And sorry thats 90 square inch racquets that I have done this to.

I have just recently gotten into substantially modifying racquets in the last couple of years after learning a lot from the many knowledgeable folks here.

Its always fun to play, and heck a bumber guard is $5 or so. If you string your own racquets, you can modifiy it one time and see if you like it and if you dont, replace the headguard and away you go.

 

[Torres]

I just weighed the bumperguard on the 6.1 95.

It's 10.5g, so clearly trimming it is going to have a noticeable effect on reducing the swingweight.

Tried that hole punch thing but it didn't work. The hole punch isn't strong enough to 'punch through' the plastic. It just distorts without punching through the plastic. It doesn't seem to be sharp enough.

I think I'm just going to have to trim the bumperguard along the length to reduce the weight.

 

[esgee48]

What 'The Djoker' said: Use a drill with a sharp 1/2" or 3/8" drill bit. That and a piece of scrap wood.

 

[Torres]

Trimmed the bumper guard longitudinally using some scissors, which took 3g off it, which I guess is roughly 9g off the swingweight as the bumperguard runs from 10-2. I actually think I took a bit too much off, so I got a second bumper guard and used a craft knife this time to cut logitudinally (gives more control than scissors). Took 2.5g this time.

Sticks are almost matched balancewise, though the distribution of mass still seems to be different. With the trimmed stick, it feels as if there's it less polarized than the other stick, with more mass around 3-6 / 9-6. They don't quite feel exactly the same though they're certainly closer, but I doubt that I can do anything more to match these sticks now other than shaving paint off the hoop.