Hi friends!

It’s been two weeks since our last newsletter, so we’ve got a lot to cover in this one.

Between new paddle impressions, updated testing, and some slow-motion footage that completely changed how I think about paddle ‘feel’, and how protective eyewear responds to ball collisions.

This was probably one of our most fun, but scary experiments.

Let’s dive in!

In this week’s email:

GEAR DEEP DIVE

This was one of the more intense tests we’ve done, and it answered a lot of assumptions very quickly.

How we tested:

Using the ball cannon and high-speed footage, I tested eyewear at realistic kitchen speeds around 40–50 mph, harder drives in the 60 mph range, and then pushed well beyond normal play to see how different designs actually fail.

We compared everyday prescription glasses, casual court glasses, kitchen-blocker styles, and properly rated protective eyewear under the same impacts.

There is going to be a seperate Youtube video about this, but here is the first set of takeaways.

With prescription glasses and casual eyewear, frames and temples often snapped in the 40–60 mph range, creating sharp fragments near the eye.

Kitchen blockers were also concerning, as the ball could still reach the eye even at kitchen speeds, especially on glancing hits.

Z87+ and ASTM F3164-rated eyewear, like Briote Focus and Ria Reflex, performed very differently. They absorbed impacts far better and tended to fail at seams instead of shattering.

Early takeaway? Real protective eyewear matters, even at normal kitchen speeds.

The caveat: The gel head we used is soft without any internal structure. A real human head has bones beneath the skin and muscle, which could lead to different results. So please consider these results preliminary, and subject to change. I ordered a ballistic head with an interior skull, and I’ll redo the experiment with that after it arrives.

PADDLES OF THE WEEK

This is the first look at the Power 2 series from 11Six24, starting with the Vapor shape.

Launch is expected mid-February, priced at $210 before code, and it is UPA-A certified, only using a direct spin limit rather than grit roughness rules.

The Vapor Power 2 is a fully floating Gen 4 foam paddle, and in the x-ray you can see:

Notably, the center foam does not look like EPP foam. There are no visible beads, suggesting a different microcellular foam is being used

The new Hex Grit surface uses extremely fine embedded grit. Under the microscope, it looks more like finer particles that what is being used in Infinigrit and Diamond Tough, yet it still feels tacky and produces elite spin, especially on drives.

This is a power paddle, but not a pop monster.

On full swings and serves, the ball comes off fast with visible dip. In the kitchen, it stays surprisingly manageable. Resets don’t trampoline, and you’re not fighting uncontrollable bounce-back.

On the feel chart, it sits near the middle, leaning slightly:

It feels plush without feeling mushy, and powerful without feeling wild. A good spot to be.

The sweet spot is above average and I’d call it slightly larger than the original Power Series. It’s comparable to other modern power paddles, though not quite Boomstik-large.

The low swing weight is immediately noticeable and makes the paddle easy to accelerate without feeling unstable because of the generous twist weight.

For a longer, power-leaning paddle, that swing-to-twist-weight combo is very efficient and explains why it feels quick but controlled.

DEEP DIVE

This week, I put several of the newer “durable grit” paddle faces under the microscope to see what’s really going on beneath the surface.

What stood out immediately is that these are not the same technology, even if they’re marketed in similar ways.

What it looks like:
- A visible grid-like layer underneath (not woven carbon fiber)
- Sprayed grit bonded on top of the surface

What that means:
- The grit itself is doing most of the spin work
- The layer underneath likely helps with bonding and adds stiffness
- Early wear testing shows less RPM loss than raw carbon fiber

Tradeoff:
- Once the grit wears down, spin potential likely drops with it

What it appears to be:
- A layered surface with grit visible throughout
- Web-like, stringy structures mixed into the surface

What’s unclear:
- No one knows exactly what the stringy or spiderweb material is.
- The stringy material is probably epoxy, but there’s also something engineered into the grit to enhance coefficient of friction, so it might also be related to this

What we do know:
- The surface feels extremely gritty by hand
- Spin comes from both surface roughness and increased friction
- Designed to pass USAP roughness while still generating high spin

Key distinction:
- As the top layer wears, more grit appears underneath, unlike sprayed surfaces

What it appears to be:
- Traditional peel-ply texture
- Industrial diamond dust particles embedded into the epoxy surface

What we do know:
- This is not sprayed grit
- The diamond particles are mixed into the peel ply itself

What changed:
- Early production models exceeded USAP grit limits, so newer batches have less pronounced texture
- But Six Zero informed us that the diamond particle density has remained the same

Why:
- Six Zero had to dial back grit density after USAP roughness issues

What it appears to be:
- Peel-ply base with very fine grit particles embedded throughout
- Grit is visible across multiple foam layers in the X-ray

What’s unclear:
- The exact grit material isn’t disclosed

What we do know:
- Grit particles are much smaller than Six Zero’s
- Despite the fine texture, the surface still feels tacky and aggressive
- Spin is controlled by a direct spin limit, not a roughness limit (UPA-A)

The takeaway isn’t which grit is best, it’s that “durable grit” can mean very different things, from sprayed-on grit to embedded peel ply to layered surfaces that reveal more texture as they wear or rely more on friction than roughness. That’s why two paddles can both claim durable spin and still feel completely different on court.

We’ll continue testing durability on all these, and upcoming releases.

LATEST GEAR GOSSIP

I finally received the production version of the J6CR, which is why I waited to really talk about it.

The earlier samples varied more than I was comfortable with, and this final build feels noticeably more consistent.

The first thing you notice is how easy it is to swing.

Compared to paddles like the Boomstik:

In simple terms, it’s less powerful and poppy than the Boomstik, but it’s still a power paddle, and has more accessible control.

Looking at the CT scan helps explain why the paddle feels this way. Instead of one solid core, you can see channels and breaks inside. This lets the paddle flex and respond without feeling too stiff or too hollow.

Because of that, the fiberglass layer feels more controlled. You don’t get a big bounce right away like some paddles. The power shows up more when you swing faster, which makes the paddle easier to trust when touch and finesse are needed.

The sweet spot feels good for an elongated paddle. It’s at least as big as the sweet spot on the NF series. It doesn’t feel wild or dead. It sits in the middle between paddles that feel too explosive and paddles that feel too soft.

These are still early impressions, and I need more time before making final calls.

So far, though, the J6CR feels like a very playable option for players who want power without the chaos.

Price: $175.50 after code “JOHNKEW”
Swing Weight: 112.47
Twist Weight: 6.38
Static Weight: 8.0oz

Next batch of preorders ships Feb 5.

THIS WEEK’S DEEP DIVE

Last week, I shared that I was reworking how I test spin.

That meant moving away from radar-gun-based serve testing and investing in a high-speed camera so I could actually see what’s happening at contact instead of relying on guesswork.

What I didn’t expect was that this new setup would also let me test something we talk about all the time: whether dwell actually exists.

This ended up being the most eye-opening part of the week.

Using the high-speed camera to test which paddle type had the longest dwell time, I compared ball impact on:

What I found surprised me.

The wooden paddle actually had the longest dwell time. The ball stayed on it longer than on both the foam and thermoformed paddles.

So what gives?

Here’s the key distinction that became clear once I could see everything in slow motion:

Lower-power paddles tend to hold the ball longer simply because they don’t launch it as fast. Higher-power paddles, especially foam designs, pocket the ball more but release it quicker.

You can actually see this in paddles like the Luzz Inferno. In the slow-motion footage, the paddle face visibly vibrates at impact, and the EVA bands compress and rebound. That rebound acts like a spring. The ball doesn’t stay on the face longer, but the paddle is storing and releasing energy very quickly.

That’s why those paddles can feel like they have more dwell, even though the actual contact time is shorter.

So no, we’re not crazy for feeling more “dwell” on certain paddles. We’ve just been using the word incorrectly.

Seeing this clearly in slow motion completely changes how I think about dwell, and it’s going to change how I talk about it going forward.

Strictly speaking, ‘dwell time’ is how long the ball stays on the paddle face, and it involves several factors such as ball compression and the paddle’s firepower. A counter-intuitive result of these tests is that paddles with less firepower get more dwell time. That actually makes sense when you really think about it - when a paddle returns more power to a ball, it jumps off the face faster.

And moving forward, it’s important to distinguish dwell time from pocketing in the face of the paddle. Another term for this is ‘ball sink’. So it’s very possible to have low dwell time, but big pocketing. In fact, you can see this happening in both the Luzz Inferno and Selkirk Boomstik in the high-speed video clip above.

This week is the next step of my updated spin testing, with new close-up slow-motion footage and a more controlled ball-cannon setup to remove as much human variability as possible.

I’m now pairing the high-speed camera with the ball cannon to measure spin in a more controlled way by:

After testing multiple angles, 30 degrees consistently produced the highest RPM. Just a few degrees lower caused the ball to slip. A few degrees higher, and RPM dropped again.

Inbound speed matters too. More speed generally creates more spin, but that relationship starts to level off as speeds increase.

Going forward, I’m focusing testing around two ranges:

This updated approach, combined with the new slow-motion footage, opens the door for better spin durability testing and more meaningful paddle comparisons.