a friend of mine gave me his Ti-10 to fix. the Ti-10 is in overall very good shape, except that the shaft is loose and he is able to wiggle the shaft against the handle. he also told me that the cone has been loose for a while. upon disassembling the handle i realized the reason for the shaft coming out, and that's because of the cone. i took some pictures to illustrate the tight coupling between the handle, cone and shaft and why it is important to reattach the cone when it comes off. the first pictures is to illustrate what the shaft end looks like and how it is secured to the handle. it is basically a graphite shaft with a hole drilled at the end. the handle, as pictured, is wood and has a hole for a screw, the screw goes through the hole in the shaft and ensure that it doesn't fly off. however, most of the strength comes from adhesive that glues the shaft and handle together. as you can see from the picture, after i removed the shaft, some wood fibers were pulled off because of the glue.
so where does the cone come into all these? as it turns out, the cone isn't just a plastic decoration but instead, have vital role in the joining of the shaft and handle. in the next picture, i have placed the cone in around the same location as where it would be when it is attached. as we can see, half the length of the shaft resides within the cone and half within the bulk of the handle. in other words, the cone bears a lot of force when the racket is being swung. we also have to notice that the cone part of the wooden handle is rather weak as it is only a thin piece of wood. and this is where the plastic cone comes in, the plastic cone holds together the wooden cone underneath and prevents it from splitting. without the plastic cone, the wooden cone will easily split after a few swings! and this is why it is vital to keep the plastic cone glued securely. otherwise, you will see what happened to my friend's racket, the wooden cone split and then the shaft becomes loose. luckily, it is easily fixable with some good gluing and the racket will be as good as new.
thanks for the detailed pics and explanations. what kind of glue did you use to fix the crack on the wooden handle? I play pool (billiards) and in hand manufacturing pool cues they use specific glues to bind wood together. BTW, did you just apply glue on the wood surface (after securing the handle to the shaft) and put on the cone?
I think the epoxy glue on the shaft and cap when you glue everything back together will fill in the crack on the handle. Epoxy glue can be found at home hardware stores, or any outdoor sporting goods store should have it too. Get the double barrel syringe dispenser type, those are easier to handle.
A few years ago, I did exactly this with my old Carlton Aerogear 1000FX, but unfortunately I didn't take photos like Kwun. Just a little observation: Looking at Kwun's photos, I noticed one big difference between Carlton and Yonex. In the Carlton racquet, the shaft is inserted much further into the handle than in the Ti-10. The securing screw is also located closer to the bottom of the handle. To me, the Yonex construction looks more fragile (especially with that screw hole close to the stress area), but in reality we know that it's Carlton that used to have problems with breaking handles... Odd.
Take a bamboo chopstick. Try to break it in the middle. Should be easy. Now take another bamboo chopstick. Try to break it near the end. Should be harder. Technically, the reason has to do with the stress intensity factor K being higher in the second case. A mechanical engineer can probably tell you more about this.
To be valid, your example assumes chop sticks of equal length. The Carlton shaft is much longer than the Yonex shaft, and inserted further into the handle. To me, this should mean fewer handle breakages (but possibly more shaft breakages).
Oops! Sorry, missed the bit about the handle breakage. Is handle breakages that common on Carlton racquets? I have only seen a handle breakage in the past 10 years... Perhaps something to do with the quality of the wood used for the handle?
i think so. if you look at the picture above with the screw hole. you will notice that the shaft doesn't penetrate the handle very far, maybe 2.5 inches or so. in other words, the wood in the handle bears a lot of the force exerted by the hand and then transfers it to the shaft. add to that the handle itself is rather light. from holding it on the hand, it is definitely heavier than balsa, but lighter than any other wood that i have used while doing woodworking. but then, i am not an expert on wood. given all these discussion, i believe that the selection of the handle material is very important. it affects the weight, durability as well as the feel of the racket.
It doesn't matter how long the shaft is, because you're concern with only the end. If the shaft doesn't go in far enough, then there might not be enough force holding the shaft from flying out. If you put it in too far, then the shaft will flex more inside the handle and will put more force onto the handle which will break the handle like the Ti-10 up top. I'm sure each manufacturer tried different depths when they designed the racquet.
I remember in architecture design that the actual force used is the same when you try to break two beams of equal shape and material, but of different lengths. It has something to do with how force is transfered or something. Maybe someone will enlighten us with the proper answer.
I also have the same problem with my old CAB15. whenever i shake the raket.. there is a round coming from the cone and the shaft... its abit loose i guess.. anyway its good to see actually whats inside the racket cone and wood.
I don't think you can just buy the handle at the store (shop people will think you are crazy ) However, if you have any broken rackets, it would be nice. Especially you can exchange to the grip size you like.
I dont think so either but maybe you could have a handle made from woodworkers in your area... a knowledgeable and good cuemaker might be able to custom fit a new handle.