YES! Definitely get the TOYO clamps. I've had mine for over 6 months and love them! Definitely worth the money.
No, not at £160 EACH !!! Not for me anyway, I play more than string...! And don't do it for a living either.
Thanks for that. I want to polish the bottom of the clamp bases and also the rails to make them as smooth as possible for the ultimate glide.
The clamping action happens inside the bases and on the bottom of the rails, so you can pretty much go nuts on the mating surfaces with regard to smoothness. A light coat of Vaseline or, better, Nivea makes them run like they're on an air-hockey table. (The bottoms of my clamps aren't very smooth at all, actually; I'd probably need to start with 180 to cut everything level before lapping.)
I'm getting annoyed with my pros pro challenger string gripped shredding string - the spring inside nips it so I've started using paper to protect it (which gets shredded). this causes the gripper to stick and is a pain. Is there an improved/modded gripper I can fit? Maybe I just need to lube my balls? the bearings in the slide mechanism that is.
Don't lube the gripper bearings - whatever you try, they will stick. Believe me. If you find you have to do something, take everything apart and clean the ball bearings and raceways with acetone (you can soak the balls in an old yoghurt pot for ten minutes), then rub a tiny bit of Nivea Creme into the raceways - this makes my WISE gripper plates fly like billy-o.
I have been using Michal's side supports and they have worked wonders for me. Anyone ever had an issue with them damaging the racket paintwork at 26lbs? (this racket is an old carlton) I followed Kwun's video about adjusting the supports so that they not too tight but are snug and once I had done the mains, there are small pressure marks on the paint where the supports are placed and the paint is coming off. Anything I can do about this?
What do you have covering the metal support where it meets the racket? My supports have plastic tubing, in addition to the very thin coating that came on the support.
The supports are covered with a white kind of hard plastic and have been used for over a year now. They are the ones in the photo a few posts above (below URL) It is on a PS3600 machine. https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/M-UCeaCBPd6iwoarDipmy1ffUjGRS_Pqf98XZlDQHdk=w800-h533
As long as the supports are adjusted to be touching the racquet as flat as possible, i.e at right angles thus presenting the flat plastic onto the racquet frame, there should be no dents at 26lbs. It is possible that the old Carlton might not be able to handle this tension, therefore what you see is the indentation due to the accumulated force on the contact point, when stringing the mains is when this is likely to occur.
The more contact area on the racket, the better. This is why the clear tubing mod on these supports is so good - the tubing spreads out over the frame.