How often to re-string your racket? (revisited)

[kwun]

Obviously if your string breaks, you should go re-string it.

however, what if it doesn't break? how long will the string lose its playability?

in tennis (i know, yuck) the rule of thumb is to look at how often one plays every week, then that's how often one should re-string the racket per year. eg. if you play once a week, then re-string the racket once a year, if you play 5 times a week, then change your string 5 times per year.

i was thinking if something equivalent exists in badminton?

the frequency as recommended in tennis is too little. people who play 3 times a week will break their string in a month or two. the string will reach beyond its playable lifetime way before that. so maybe 2x the number of times the person play per week?

[visor]

i suppose it'll depend on a few things...

1. tension loss: which is dependent on the stringer, the string (eg. bg65 vs. zm70), temperature change (ie. strung in winter plays fine, but will feel dead in summer)

2. degradation of the string's pliability: eg. zm67 despite maintaining tension for a few months will feel dead/numb by then

3. string fraying: in my limited experience, once the strings begin to fray (or even set significantly) at the intersection of the cross and mains, then the strings will be unplayable

4. higher tensions with thinner strings playing with plastic birds in cold dry canadian winters will also definitely cause you to restring more often, whether you like it or not!

[Licin]

In my opinion, when the strings loses tension, we as a player might feel it. For me if the tension already lose around 3 Lbs, i will cut it, Albeit it is still playable & i could adjust to it, it might deteriorate the precision feeling i have on higher strings tension.

[kwun]

yeah. but for regular players who are not experienced player, how do you describe how to feel 3lbs or how to know the feeling is gone?

[kwun]

i suppose it'll depend on a few things...

1. tension loss: which is dependent on the stringer, the string (eg. bg65 vs. zm70), temperature change (ie. strung in winter plays fine, but will feel dead in summer)

2. degradation of the string's pliability: eg. zm67 despite maintaining tension for a few months will feel dead/numb by then

3. string fraying: in my limited experience, once the strings begin to fray (or even set significantly) at the intersection of the cross and mains, then the strings will be unplayable

4. higher tensions with thinner strings playing with plastic birds in cold dry canadian winters will also definitely cause you to restring more often, whether you like it or not!

the question is do we need to go into such details? or is a rule of thumb like tennis works better?

or do we think the tennis rule of thumb is just a way for the tennis stringers to trick customer into stringing their racket more often than needed?

[visor]

the question is do we need to go into such details? or is a rule of thumb like tennis works better?

or do we think the tennis rule of thumb is just a way for the tennis stringers to trick customer into stringing their racket more often than needed?

iirc, tennis strings and tension are very different... averaging 40-60 lbs, the tension drops quite quickly immediately after stringing, more than 25% in 24h after stringing without being used at all!

so, not comparable at all

[sautom88]

the frequency as recommended in tennis is too little. people who play 3 times a week will break their string in a month or two. the string will reach beyond its playable lifetime way before that. so maybe 2x the number of times the person play per week?

Agreed, I somehow feel that badminton strings loses its optimum 'playability' much faster than tennis (I play both, but only 20% tennis). Maybe also due to the number of strokes played, also the extreme tension difference when it is just strung on the racket and when it is at impact (during impact the tension should go up considerably, esp during power strokes).

But the problem is how do we know when to change? For me it's just by feel, ie when doing warm-up clears i just have to make sure it is on the sweetspot n yet the power is considerably less than usual. Then I just replace them.

Kwun, do u have those tension meters? Maybe someone who owns one can do some experiments to check the tensions periodically n tell us when certain strings loses its optimum playability.

[sautom88]

How much do tension meters cost and where can we buy them? Anyone

[Licin]

In my opinion, when the strings loses tension, we as a player might feel it. For me if the tension already lose around 3 Lbs, i will cut it, Albeit it is still playable & i could adjust to it, it might deteriorate the precision feeling i have on higher strings tension.

From what i inspect, if i have played around 3x2 Hours weekly, around a month, it will drop..

Usually, after the racket just newly strung, it feel really crisp & precise, as times goes by, you will notice that the crisp is gone, however the precision is still there yet diminishingly. After a couple of session you will notice 1 more lose of the feeling, this time is the precision. In my opinion it is the time to restring it...It will be around 3 weeks to 5 Weeks or could be more depends on the game intensity..

[visor]

yeah. but for regular players who are not experienced player, how do you describe how to feel 3lbs or how to know the feeling is gone?

i suppose it'll depend on the players skills and demands... if he's an advanced player always aiming for the corners/lines or getting it just over the tape consistently, then he'll be able to tell when the stringbed loses feel and accuracy when he can't consistently do those shots anymore

for an average player who's just safely clearing it to the middle court all the time, then to him it won't matter at all as he's just happy to have hit the bird

[CanucksDynasty]

Use apps to determine tension loss. Like ClearTune or rackettune (sp?).

[KillerQT]

For me, as I'm the owner of the racket... I will feel when I need to restring my racket by trying to smash hard. If its very slow it means the string is dead and... when I move the main/cross string but it doesn't go back to its position it means the string is no long that tight.

[Mark A]

I play at a school sports hall, so we are subject to school holidays. I string one racket during down-time and leave the other as a backup, then switch over at the next holiday. This way I never have a racket more than six weeks (ish) old.

I use fairly high tension, so I notice tension loss sooner than most would (and I'm inordinately fussy about consistency anyway).

[uselessmail]

Wow!!! Most of the guys here live in a perfect world where one can just go in for restringing at the slightest hint of tension loss, inconsistency etc. For the unfortunate ones (and I dare say, we outnumber you by a lot) the scenario ain't quite as rosy! The place where I live, a restringing costs around 12 - 15 Euros without the cost of the strings included. Also one needs to wait for a minimum of a week to get the racket back! So, we just keep playing until the strings completely give way and snap !
Such is the hard life of an ordinary Badminton lover... Sigh

[kingzzz]

When ever it doesn't feel right, got my own machine so doesn't bother me much

[sautom88]

Such is the hard life of an ordinary Badminton lover... Sigh

Stringing labor here only cost 1 Euro for digital machine n 1.1USD for manual.

[uselessmail]

Stringing labor here only cost 1 Euro for digital machine n 1.1USD for manual.

Ya I know! If I were in India right now, it'd cost me around 300-350 Rs for stringing on a digital machine with the String cost included! Thats around 6-7 USD. The cheapest is about $1 for manual stringing with some local made strings!