Tuning putty for tennis racquets — 24 g
€7.90
“Try a setting before you commit to it.”
Tuning putty is the only weight you can put inside a handle, and the only one you can move as many times as you like. It kneads, it holds where you press it, it comes off clean and leaves nothing behind.
Two uses. In the handle, through the buttcap, to move balance, recoilweight and MGR/I without touching swingweight. And anywhere on the frame — at 12 o'clock, at 3 and 9, on the hairpin — to try a setting before making it permanent. Play, measure, move it, play again.
Three 8 g portions, 24 g in all. A dense, mouldable polymer that keeps its softness and its density over time.
Quantity
What each portion moves in the handle
Reference frame 310 g, balance 32.0 cm, swingweight 320, putty placed in the butt.
- Starting point — 310 g · balance 32.00 cm · swingweight 320.0 · recoilweight 170.0 · MGR/I 19.96
- One portion, 8 g — 318 g · 31.50 cm · 320.0 · 173.1 · 20.10
- Two portions, 16 g — 326 g · 31.02 cm · 320.1 · 176.0 · 20.25
- Three portions, 24 g — 334 g · 30.56 cm · 320.1 · 178.9 · 20.39
Read the swingweight column. Twenty-four grams, and it does not move: two centimetres from the measuring axis, mass has nowhere to act. Meanwhile the balance comes back a centimetre and a half, the recoilweight climbs nine points and the MGR/I four tenths. The racquet becomes steadier at impact without costing anything to set in motion.
Trying a setting on the frame
Press a piece where you are thinking of adding weight — 12 o'clock for swingweight, 3 and 9 for torsional stability, the hairpin for a compromise — and go and hit with it. Move it, change the amount, hit again. Nothing is committed and nothing is marked. When you have found the setting, lead tape makes it permanent and thin enough to disappear under the bumper guard.
Putty or lead tape
Putty looks for the setting; lead fixes it. Putty is thick, reversible, and the only one that goes inside the handle. Lead is thin, permanent, and disappears under the bumper guard. Most setups use the putty first and the lead last — and that is exactly the order the customisation service works in.
What putty does not do
It does not filter the vibration that travels up your arm. That comes from the frame's own bending mode, around 140 Hz, whose effective mass is on another scale entirely from twenty-four grams. What putty changes, it changes on mass, balance, recoilweight and MGR/I — and it changes those for real.