I recently bought myself a new racket after wearing out my old Browning. I chose the Carlton firebalde tour and played with it last night at my club. It played great but then my old racket had pretty terrible strings and I'd been using it for at least 5 years.

However at the end of my session I was concerned to notice that the dampening polymer that seems to be used for the carlton flex system has moved up the shaft of the racket and now covers the cfs on the racket. It started with only the very top edge visible

http://i10.tinypic.com/54bccj7.jpg
Could anyone tell me if it's supposed to do this or do I have a fake/ faulty racket? The racket was bought from centralsports uk.

First, I don't think anyone bother to make Carlton clone. It may be manufacturering fault, if I were you, I would go back and try to ask them for a replacement.

I remember the older Powerblade rackets have something like this protruding the cone end of the grip, just that the 'damper' that you see in the photo is covered by a transparent cap. Try checking with centralsports.

ooh CSC (control support cap) more yonex rip off

However at the end of my session I was concerned to notice that the dampening polymer that seems to be used for the carlton flex system has moved up the shaft of the racket and now covers the cfs on the racket. It started with only the very top edge visible
...
Could anyone tell me if it's supposed to do this or do I have a fake/ faulty racket? The racket was bought from centralsports uk.

I doubt it's a fake (I've never heard of fake Carlton rackets).
However, it's definitely NOT supposed to come out that far.
As you said, only the top edge should be visible.
Is it possible to push it back in?

Since I wanted to buy a Carlton Fireblade Iso Tour myself, I'm a bit concerned now.. maybe I shouldn't buy a Carlton after all?

All the Carlton Fireblade Iso Tour are selling for, at least, 100quid. I don't know if anybody from Hong Kong if the new Carlton series can be found there as well. I am sure it will be much cheaper over there by the way.

Hey Myrddrael,

My doubles partner has a Fireblade Tour and exactly the same thing has happened to her racket, she got hers from a Carlton Dealer so it's definately not a fake, she's taking hers back to the dealer to get it changed.

I suggest you do the same. :)

Thanks for all your responses, the top can't be pushed back in. I contacted central sports and they've told me to send it back to them and it sounds like it is a fault with the racket. I just hope that the same thing doesn't happen to the replacement after reading Tulsamacs post

P.S. The racket was £85.00 which included postage.

Two weeks ago the grip of my friend's Carlton C-600 just disintegrated itself from the shaft while we were playing. It looked to me that either the shaft of that racket was not embedded well into the grip, or, the cork/wood used in the grip was just crap. I have not seen anything like this before. The broken racket had seen action only twice according to my friend, so he took it back to the shop and exchanged for a new one. We haven't tried the new one yet. My old Powerblade Lite seems fine. Not sure if it is a common problem for the grip QC of Carlton as there are not many people using their rackets, but I don't really expect a £85 racket would be that fragile. Exchange it!