so i want to take off my original grip and use electrical tape + overgrip. just wondering if anyone know the weight for this setup. i mean how much heavier/lighter the electrical tape is compared with original yonex grips.
Buy a gram scale, take the original tape that comes with the racquet and weight it. Measure the same length of electrical tape and check the weight difference. I heard about using electrical tape as the finishing tape but never as grip
I use it and it weighs practically nothing. Literally anyone I see passing by me on the court with a stock grip on a head heavy racket is getting his racket snatched and grip removed. I do their electric tape on wood, one layer of cushion wrap and a victor thin overgrip because everyone needs to try it atleast once. It's a massive difference. Even on a racket like dzs it makes a major difference.
Protect the wood (from sweat) and if you ever use a grip tape with an adhesive back (towel grip), it's much easier to get off.... ... and that trying to not get a thick grip. There might be slightly thinner tapes, but electrical tape is slightly elastic, making it easier to apply. And it's cheap. And people like me have it at home anyway.
1 layer of electric grip with minimum overlap = ~ 4g Standard overgrip like Yonex = ~5g Yonex factory grip = ~ 7g Electric tape is quite heavy for such a thin tape, if you want to add even less weight to the handle while protecting the wood from moisture, I think there's some technique involving kitchen plastic wraps that you may need to search for on Badmintoncentral. Or you can do what I do and use scotch tape, it weights almost nothing, like 1g max. I would put some cushion wrap on top of that for cushioning and thickness, because cushion wrap weights almost nothing as well. If you use this setup however, you're removing a lot of mass from the grip end, so a head light racket will feel like an even balance racket, and an even balance racket will feel like a head heavy. So be wary of what type of racket you would like and use the type of tape that is best suited to the circumstance.
You add that weight at the handle, where you hold the racket, the point around which it rotates. It doesn't change the important properties of the racket at all. BTW, a 7g factory grip is on the lighter side, most weight more. All that weight is at the grip, it does not change the swing weight of the racket in any significant way! It does not change the properties of the racket. The weight of the sweat on your hand and forearm makes a bigger difference weight wise. If you don't want to believe anything I write, you can always use a wrist band to make your racket more head light. On a serious note, do not choose your grip setup based on weight, choose it because you like it. It should give you control over the racket at all times while making it easy to quickly change grips during a rally.
It doesn't increase the swing weight, but it will definitely play different. That I know for certain from experience. I removed a lot of weight (5g) off the grip for a very head heavy racket, and despite it not hitting harder due to no additional head weight added on, it became much harder to maneuver, specifically during the motion when you're in the front court and trying to intercept shots, like below. To be in a normal ready stance and then to lift your racket up (using mainly your wrist and elbow) like above, felt a lot heavier when the grip weight was removed. It almost felt like the head wanted to move downwards toward the direction it was lying in, and it always forced me to tense up my fingers. Whereas if you add a lot of grip onto the handle, I realized the racket kind of topples back and forth on its own, making it easier to handle. I forgot what the technology was called, but Yonex I think implemented it with the Astrox line. From what I felt from rackets with more weight on the grip, the grip weight kind of becomes a more competent fulcrum that lets you maneuver the racket head more easily when it comes to certain motions where the swing motion is mostly a rotation with the grip end as the fulcrum.
I got 2 karakal grips recently, and put one on my head heavy racket, and it felt like it transformed the head heaviness into an even/head light racket which I thought was strange. With the other karakal grip I weighed it, and iirc, it was a whopping 20 grams. The way I look at it, if you are batting in baseball, all the bats are obviously head heavy for a lack of better words. The reason being, you can hit the baseball further as you have more weight in the swing. Now if you start adding weights to the handle end of the the bat and transform it into a "head light" bat, your swing won't be nearly as powerful, otherwise everyone would be doing it. In conclusion, I think the weight of the grip can dramatically change the feel and swing of the racket.
I don’t understand, you really dont think the weight added onto the handle changes the racket playability in any way? You can just try it yourself then, add another layer of overgrip or something even heavier on your current racket and see if that doesnt make it easier to maneuver the head on certain shots. It completely changes the properties of the racket and the way you need to play it. Im not saying the head itself gains any head heaviness, Im saying the balance can shift significantly to the point where it plays different. What classifies something as head heavy or head light is not the head mass, but the balance point of the racket, which shifts when the grip setup changes. A lot of people dont seem to get that when this subject is brought up, all they do is regurgitate the same useless point that grip weight doesn't affect swing weight. It's not wrong, it's just that it doesn't paint the whole picture of the racket playability. For example, grab an empty dumbell, and add just weight to one side of it, and then start rotating the dumbell with your forearm pronation (with the weight side up where the badminton head is). Now, try the same motion except add weights to the other side too (where the badminton grip is supposed to be). If you don't think the 1st one is significantly more difficult to do than the 2nd one, then I don't know what to tell you. It's much harder to rotate something that doesn't have the counter weight. The 1st one puts a lot more force on the thumb and index finger.
This is where you are just plain wrong. This would only be correct if you would be holding the racket in between the head and the handle - as seen in your dumbbell example. If you add the weight in the middle of the dumbbell (right where you hold it, at the point of rotation), it will rotate the same way as before and won't feel any different (except... well.... a little bit heavier overall....). Racket manufacturers have over many years made the huge mistake to only use the balance point as a reference value to determine the "head heaviness" or "speed" of a racket. This topic has come up a gazillion times in here over the past years and this will not stop until the brands finally start to change to swing weight in their specs. Bottom line is that the balance point is in fact a completely useless value to determine the actual balance and perceived head heaviness and speed during a stroke and racket movement. The reason why you feel it differently after you've added stuff to the grip is simple: The grip gets thicker and with that, the opening position of your fingers holding the racket changes and will be giving you a very different perception of how the racket moves. Again, you are not the first one falling for this kind of "illusion" and I'm afraid you won't be the last one either.
Now that you mention, that might be why I feel this effect noticeably, but only when I'm at the front court. Tons of players including myself hold onto the cone area when we're at the front court trying to intercept and kill. People seriously need to add significant weight to the grip (10g+) and try that front court motion, because I'm telling you the racket does rotate downward more easily when you grip it at the cone. I know, because I removed a 8g manufacturer's lead tape off the handle, and despite the grip size not changing, it had that effect.
