wedge
Semi-Pro
It's such a shame that soooo many amazing Yonex models have these disintegrating throat grommets. It's always the same story, the two on the far edges are fine, and all the grommets inbetween just either crustify and turn into crystalline dust, or else liquify and turn to goop.
I've long wanted to try and come up with a permanent solution that is doable at home, that looks and performs better than just Fittex grommets, which are depressing. I also wanted to try and reproduce some of the effect of the vibration dampening layer that exists between the throat piece and the frame. So this was my first attempt. Not perfect, but as a proof of concept I think pretty encouraging, and I know what could be done better. And I'm hoping this might encourage other people to try doing this themselves to save their SRD's and SRQ's and RDX's and all else without paying someone else to do it. I am not an engineer but I am animated by SPITE in this case so I will be iterating on this effort tirelessly until I have a solution.
First I cleaned out the grommet holes and removed the throat piece with the two end grommets still attached. I had bought a mat of silicone that fit what would at least SEEM like the requirements for absorbing shock, which is 50A durometer, kinda soft but not too soft. I used 1/16" thickness, which seemed close enough to what the original Yonex frame used.
The throat piece has little blocks that press up against the frame, so I cut out a piece of silicone, used an awl to poke holes for the two grommets on either end, and cut out holes for the blocks as best as I could considering how fiddly and small it all is.
Then I measured and cut down four replacement Fittex-style grommets that I confirmed would fit. All I had were 2.8mm which was a tiny bit small for the holes, but it was close enough.
So, ideally I would have enlarged the holes in the throat piece, and glued the new grommets into those holes, but I really didn't want to do anything destructive until I had some sense of whether or not this would work. So I set out carefully gorilla gluing the new grommets directly onto the throat piece, being careful not to obstruct the holes with any glue. If they ended up breaking off, no biggie, that's when I'd get to just drilling out the holes and doing it all more securely.
I found it was helpful to use the silicone to hold the grommets in place as they dried. Kind of a lifesaver honestly.
Finally had all four grommets glued in and they seemed pretty secure.
Once everything had dried and set, I came back and trimmed the silicone down. Some Yonex models have an absorber layer that bulges out a tiny bit, and I didn't want to cut it down too close and risk it all falling apart, so I erred on the side of clearance and trimmed away the silicone with a bit of room to spare. I figured I can always trim more down later.
With the silicone layer pushed firmly down into the throat piece, around the little spacer blocks, the thickness seems bang on. It's just a tiny bit thicker than the spacer blocks, which means the silicone will be compressed a little bit.
I carefully and sweatily fit the whole assembly in, and it clicked in fine! Very relieved.
I am nervous about the weak joints that are just surface-glued, even though it's gorilla glue which essentially melts it all together, so I thought it made sense to use some Kimony power pads to relieve some of the pressure on the base of the grommets. And besides, at the time this Muscle Power 1 would have come out, I figure power pads would not have been so unusual a thing. Though next time, when I fully drill through the throat holes, I don't think they'd be necessary.
We'll see how it strings up! When I squeeze it all against the frame, the silicone at the edges folds downward, which I hadn't thought through completely. So I may just end up trimming the whole thing more flush. Might even try to do it with a super sharp blade without taking the grommets back out, just to increase the sweatiness factor
Anyway I'll update tomorrow once it's all strung up, hopefully it doesn't all explode. But yeah honestly it would not be hard to put together a parts list as a kit for people to do this as a little project at home with a minimum of tools. Would be so nice for people to be able to get all their RDiS 100's and 200's, and SRD's and RA3000s and SRQ's into solid playing shape again. Or, you know, they could come out with official replacement parts. I expect it any day now ...
I've long wanted to try and come up with a permanent solution that is doable at home, that looks and performs better than just Fittex grommets, which are depressing. I also wanted to try and reproduce some of the effect of the vibration dampening layer that exists between the throat piece and the frame. So this was my first attempt. Not perfect, but as a proof of concept I think pretty encouraging, and I know what could be done better. And I'm hoping this might encourage other people to try doing this themselves to save their SRD's and SRQ's and RDX's and all else without paying someone else to do it. I am not an engineer but I am animated by SPITE in this case so I will be iterating on this effort tirelessly until I have a solution.
First I cleaned out the grommet holes and removed the throat piece with the two end grommets still attached. I had bought a mat of silicone that fit what would at least SEEM like the requirements for absorbing shock, which is 50A durometer, kinda soft but not too soft. I used 1/16" thickness, which seemed close enough to what the original Yonex frame used.
The throat piece has little blocks that press up against the frame, so I cut out a piece of silicone, used an awl to poke holes for the two grommets on either end, and cut out holes for the blocks as best as I could considering how fiddly and small it all is.
Then I measured and cut down four replacement Fittex-style grommets that I confirmed would fit. All I had were 2.8mm which was a tiny bit small for the holes, but it was close enough.
So, ideally I would have enlarged the holes in the throat piece, and glued the new grommets into those holes, but I really didn't want to do anything destructive until I had some sense of whether or not this would work. So I set out carefully gorilla gluing the new grommets directly onto the throat piece, being careful not to obstruct the holes with any glue. If they ended up breaking off, no biggie, that's when I'd get to just drilling out the holes and doing it all more securely.
I found it was helpful to use the silicone to hold the grommets in place as they dried. Kind of a lifesaver honestly.
Finally had all four grommets glued in and they seemed pretty secure.
Once everything had dried and set, I came back and trimmed the silicone down. Some Yonex models have an absorber layer that bulges out a tiny bit, and I didn't want to cut it down too close and risk it all falling apart, so I erred on the side of clearance and trimmed away the silicone with a bit of room to spare. I figured I can always trim more down later.
With the silicone layer pushed firmly down into the throat piece, around the little spacer blocks, the thickness seems bang on. It's just a tiny bit thicker than the spacer blocks, which means the silicone will be compressed a little bit.
I carefully and sweatily fit the whole assembly in, and it clicked in fine! Very relieved.
I am nervous about the weak joints that are just surface-glued, even though it's gorilla glue which essentially melts it all together, so I thought it made sense to use some Kimony power pads to relieve some of the pressure on the base of the grommets. And besides, at the time this Muscle Power 1 would have come out, I figure power pads would not have been so unusual a thing. Though next time, when I fully drill through the throat holes, I don't think they'd be necessary.
We'll see how it strings up! When I squeeze it all against the frame, the silicone at the edges folds downward, which I hadn't thought through completely. So I may just end up trimming the whole thing more flush. Might even try to do it with a super sharp blade without taking the grommets back out, just to increase the sweatiness factor
Anyway I'll update tomorrow once it's all strung up, hopefully it doesn't all explode. But yeah honestly it would not be hard to put together a parts list as a kit for people to do this as a little project at home with a minimum of tools. Would be so nice for people to be able to get all their RDiS 100's and 200's, and SRD's and RA3000s and SRQ's into solid playing shape again. Or, you know, they could come out with official replacement parts. I expect it any day now ...
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