Michael Gordon is back to update us on his racquet experiment with the HEAD Ti.S6 Frankenstein. Which is no longer the HEAD Ti S6!

HEAD Ti.S6 Frankenstein Part 2

So hopefully, some of you read my article on my HEAD Ti.S6 Frankenstein experiment. Here is the Frankenstein Racquet part 2. You can read part 1 here.

(If you don’t know what the famous/infamous HEAD Ti.S6 is, you can read more here. Or you can check it out at Tennis Warehouse. But the HEAD Ti.S6 was just the inspiration for Michael’s Frankenstein racquet.

That HEAD Ti.S6 Frankenstein racket has been my go-to for quite a few months until I felt confident the concept was actually a good idea! Having been convinced it was worth pursuing, I was determined to get my perfect concept of the idea made. A genuine oversized ‘players’ frame for the modern game. To me, this meant a large head size but with the majority of those extra square inches going into the width of the stringbed, not the length. The logic being with the current game being so dominated by spin, a larger width of racket would allow players to take a bigger ‘cut’ at the ball without the risk of missing the sweetspot. So my next job was drawing it.

I initially chose to do this on paper with a 1:1 scale to get the perfect idea of the size. I didn’t have a head size I was specifically aiming for, just that I wanted the stringbed to be 11″ wide (the max-width allowed is 11.5″). I started out by tracing a few rackets I liked and extending that shape out in the places I wanted until I got what I desired. When I was happy with this I then looked into beam width in both height and width.

After a bit of fiddling, I ended up with what I wanted and found someone to help me take this 2D drawing into a 3D CAD program.

Finding a factory to make it

Amazingly after a bit of searching, I found a factory willing to make a small production run of just 10 of my frames. Like last time, these were coming ‘undrilled’ so drilling holes for the grommets and string pattern would be up to me. After six weeks, the frames arrived. To say I was pretty nervous opening them up is an understatement. I’d put a lot of faith in people I’ve never met to make something very specific. Thankfully they were exactly what I’d asked for and the quality really did look good. I was very relieved!

Next was the most time-consuming bit for me. Designing the exact string pattern and drilling it! I based my design off a fairly standard 18×20 pattern of a racket I like, adding 2 extra mains and 1 extra cross to compensate for the bigger head. So a 20×21 pattern. Like last time I made a stencil, marked it up on the frame and drilled all the holes with a high-speed Dremel. All went smoothly and after 246 passes of the drill through the frame, I had the correct diameter for each grommet. Individual replacement grommets were placed in (no bumper guard or premade grommets for this one), and the frame was then strung up and ready to go.

Specs

Current specs (unstrung):

Headsize: 115.9″
Weight: 320g
Balance: 310mm
Swingweight: 303
Beam width: 21mm
Stiffness: 65RA
String pattern: 20×21

I say current specs because I’m still tinkering with weight and distribution, but first impressions are very impressive. It really does play as I hoped. Plays, feels and even moves (despite the big head) like a classic player’s frame. Control is good, it has that solid classic feel on volleys and actually spin potential is great, simply because you can take such a cut as the ball with such a big surface area. The sweetspot also seems to be significantly more forgiving. I’m not saying all players will love this frame. At a very high level, I can’t see the size being needed. However, anything below that for aspiring hard hitters who can’t get on the court 4+ times a week, it just offers something very forgiving whilst still playing like a ‘players’ frame.

The next step, if I get enough interest, I’m planning to start a crowdfunding campaign to get some of these to market. If all goes well I will get one to Jonas for a review in the future too.

If you want to be kept informed, do email me.