Racquet tuning

Many owners may not be aware that new or old racquets are not always on-spec. Racquet manufacturing is a mass production and testing each and every racquet is not economically possible. That is where quality qc and finishers at the end of the chain are very important. This is one area Yonex scores quite well. The fakes are rather poor. But even Yonex's top of the range, including JPs, are not exempt from such flaws.
There are mainly 3 areas or methods to test, one of which is used by Japanese qc inspectors and another by some Chinese qc inspectors. But these inspectors only subject these tests to racquets they contract out to contract manufacturers, not racquets made by their own outfit. The third test is more severe and is proprietary. The test inspectors would reject all contract manufacture racquets that do not pass the test-they do not know how to rectify them.
Such sub-standard racquets can be made to be nearly as good as an on-spec racquet, and you do this by a special tuning method which can be a bit complicated.

 

I do this for my loyal customers for free except for the mandatory restring to make the tuning possible. Most of them have asked me how but I thought the question was like asking for more favors than what was already given.

 

Yes, you missed something that is significant. Yonex is not the only Japanese comapny making racquets. There are other Japanese companies, Taiwan companies, European companies and many OEMs from N. America too, who contract out to Chinese racquet manufacturers. At some large plants in China you can sometimes actually meet some Japanese testers testing their ordered racquets in a special room. I saw how the Chinese test it before and was surprised to find the Japanese test it in an entirely different way. In my opinion the Japanese method is ingenuous and so simple because it actually magnifies imperfections in the most important parts of the racquet-frame and shaft. The Chinese way-actually there are 2 Chinese ways-is fast but less than perfect if you are a bit old in age and have less than perfect eye sight.
I an not sure but I think RSL uses one of the two Chinese ways.

 

Yonex is very consistent in weight classification. Their finishing job on the fitting of the butt to the handle end is very good. Their balance is also very good. But there have been some deviations in their racquet length of even JP models. But all these are not as important as the ultimate test that Japanese testers test on racquets they contract out before accepting delivery. Some Yonex racquets are slightly off on this super test, much less than other brands especially the counterfeits. As a matter of fact I have told a friend of mine that his HK$1,200 NS9000 racquet is a fake because it failed this super test by a wide margin. He was mad as hell, saying it couldn't be as he bought it from a friend's shop that was closing down for business.

 

If you contract out manufacturing to plants in China, rule number one is that you send your own inspectors there to check every process. High end German luggage companies do this. I don't think Wal-mart bothers.

 

I use 3 tests to test finished racquets-the Japanese mwthod to test contract work, the Chinese way, and my own method. If you have more than one racquet of a particular model, do you notice their playability may be different? One may be more effortless than the other? The Japanese and Chinese tests will not be able to tell the difference except for widely off-specs racquets.
When weighing a racquet, pls take off the clear wrap on the handle-you will be surprised.