I kinda/sorta work in an arena where I see a lot of carbon and other high end non-ferrous materials, and just coming into badminton again after a long break I gotta say I'm surprised not to see custom rackets or even many that have a raw carbon fiber finish anywhere. Everything seems to be about fairly dodgy colour combos and graphic design that more often than not looks, well, rubbish. I understand that paint does have a degree of impact resistance protecting the carbon somewhat, but still, I'm surprised there's not more 'Werks' raw carbon rackets out there. Especially for singles where the added weight of paint could be substituted for structural carbon.
I have 5 racquets that are carbon black, and not only that, they are also unpolished with rough surfaces with the grains and imperfections of each mold clearly visible. One even had a detachable shaft at one time but I decided to have it fixed because the frame/shaft used to twist away from the wooden hold after hitting power shots angularly.
If you can get custom rackets, tell me where! Could somebody please give me some contact info for somebody to hook me up with one of these beasts?
All those imperfections are bound to slow down the speed due to air resistance hitting all those imperfections....I want mine bright and shinny and slick with little air resistance as possible....lol...
With all the rackets around now I dont know what a custom racket maker could do to make one better...they could take any racket you like and change the graphics easily...but to change anything structurally would be really hard to do...Sotx has some of the best racket frame innovations around...wheather they work or not is hard to tell...just like Yonex and their fantastic claims, how is anyone to really tell if they work or not (nano Tubes, give me a break please)...at least the Sotx claims look like they would make a difference...
True, but I would like someone to make a racket as head heavy as I like without me having to add lead tape. I've got some Karakal MTec 80s on order so I'll be using them for a while. However, a custom racket would be good, as I wouldn't have to add tape. I just wonder how much it would cost and whether it would be worth it. Oh and Sunny, sorry for not replying to that e-mail yet. I'm probably gonna go in to this venture with a friend, so we're negotiating right now. I'll give you a reply sometime this week.
If you see a market for a really headheavy M-tec 80 (which to my mind is the best of Karakal frames) then try to get your distributor to order enough to have it made for his market with 30.0 to 31.0 bp...this should make a really powerful racket which would require no lead tape to juice it up...I will try to get the Asia end of Karakal to come up with one for testing if you want...
Well, I'd still be happy with a glossy layer, but that raw carbon look is so popular in other sports, it made me wonder why it wasn't more popular in Badminton. I'm guessing it would be pretty easy to strip a racket, put a cosmetic twill layer over the top, and clearcoat it. Taneepak, what's the story behind your rackets?
I'd love the unfinished look on my racket - personally I think the paint ruins it. Secondly, a rough finish is actually more aerodynamic in many situations, although ideally it would be dimpled
Of course this (increasing the head-heaviness) can be done. I have had a few done, but you must have a friend who owns a racquet manufacturing plant, if you want a few such racquets made. About 15 of my mid-priced racquets bearing the words "TEP Version" were made, but sadly I forgot to keep one for myself. All you do is to get an inch of extra prepreg that weighs about 1g to get an extra 0.8g extra weight on the top of the frame. In other words, the prepreg for the frame will have an added 1" prepreg at the 12 o'clock, which you must insert onto the mold. After it has been baked the top part will have normal dimensions but more material inside. Now who will do this for you for a few racquets? Also, if you do not know what you are doing you will get a garbage. But if you are an OEM racquet marketing company, which means you have to order 1,000 racquets for one production run, you can ask the manufacturer to do it for you. But, be warned because so far no manufacturer, other than that one owned by my friend, has done it. You have to ensure the 1" of extra prepreg will weigh 1g if the net weight you want added is 0.8g. The loss of 0.2g is due to holes being drilled for the grommets.
regarding custom racket: It is very hard to design your own frame unless you are able to design one and could afford big money for develop a set of mould . But it is possible to have cutom rackets by using existing mould and specifying the parameters(weight,balance,stiffness...) and graphics design..