A 'summary overview' of the document, which is largely derived from historical adverts, is given in the following video:
YouTube
https://www.youtube.com › watch
In particular:
- the 'cold bent' technology. Most wooden rackets were steam bent in single racket laminations then dried afterwards. Whereas, MaxPlys and high end Slazengers had the wood dried carefully first, cold bent in 3 racket thicknesses, then sliced into individual rackets, which was a more difficult process but was believed to retain more stiffness/spring in the wood.
- almost every Pro used the MaxPly at some point.
- there are lots of versions, especially in the early 70s, but the Fort remained the most common pro model.
- there were lots of copies. Despite looking quite similar and some aesthetically very nice, these are all most likely to be steam bent single rackets, so fundamentally not Maxplys. They also probably use lower grade woods.
It's worth noting that the superior performance of the MaxPly, although hard to tell today, was a real feature because Dunlop/Slazenger/Sykes had been making wooden sticks for 50 years already by 1936. And the English tradition of wooden sports equipment was at least 400 years old by then (Real tennis, golf, croquet etc). Imagine graphite racket technology in 350 years time.
ibb.co
