so excited about my new toy. just collected it from racketsupply.com who ordered it for me from Gamma. the machine comes in 2 huge boxes, the larger one holds the turntable and the smaller one holds everything else. at this point i have only taken photos and it is still un-assembled. i just want to share the pics with you all. the quality of the machine is as expected top notch. beautiful engineering which i am a bit of a sucker for. but it is not all form, function is also top notch. all the controls are smooth as butter and solid as a rock. i took the time to take some photos of the whole thing and sorry for the huge photo dump here. every piece of it have been well made and is worth sharing. these boxes are pretty big: the turntable. i love the black/silver color combo: the end posts are in black. the 3 knobs are (from top to bottom): symmetric side support adjust, 12/6 o'clock support adjust, and symmetric post adjustment. together they offer full adjustment of the size as well as the positioning of the side support. the posts opens up pretty wide for tennis. i doubt i will see it in this config that often. some closeup of the support and the clamp base: positioning of the clamp base: bottom of the turntable, you can see the side handle can be taken out and also the wormscrew to adjust the end posts: some pics with a racket mounted: i am going to miss the super close frame to clamp distance of my WASE. the factory side support with the badminton sleeve. aside being way too tall, the clearance is actually not too bad. i will have to bear with this until something better come along. this is the new compact low profile universal clamp that Gamma came out with this year. only machines that was purchased in the last few months comes with it. this is is how the clamp looks like on the turntable: these are the legs. 3 short and one long to go below the tensioner bar: the main post. i swear this is so heavy and solid just this piece alone is probably heavier than my Alpha Shuttle Express. the bar is height adjustable. this sleeve hides the opening: the horizontal tensioner bar. similarly, this is solid and heavy. this is also new in the latest revision. i think the revision is done to accomodate for the new brake mechanism. 2 huge bearing supports the turntable mounting plate. the tool tray that sits below the table. it is lined with some foamy stuff. the crank tensioner. i doubt i will see much of this in action with my WISE. i might take it out to play with it. it is also solidly built and designed. maybe overly engineered a bit considering how heavy this is: and lastly some of the tools supplied with the machine. the quality is better than the ones supplied by the Alpha. the pliers are suprisingly ok and the cutter cut. i do have better cutter though. and i don't think these are as nice as the ones from Victor. the awl i haven't tried, the pathfinder awl will probably not useful for badminton.
and the last two pics. more tools and some of the extra end support padding for badminton, squash and tennis...
Congratz on the new machine! I don't know about you, but I would probably run around the house and cut every stringbed I see just to test out the machine if I just received one! lol
Congrats on the new machine. I have the Gamma 5003, and from the look of it theres a lot of stuff thats new and upgraded, and some are pretty much the same. I love the gamma machine and its very well put together. Are you going to put your wise on it or you going to use the crank? It will take about 1 hour to put this machine together, and yeah i cut up like 5 rackets and tested it out the first day i got it. I love this machine...so well put together.
so here is the problem with the Gamma 6004 with the WISE head. with the standard mount that comes with the WISE, the tensioner is sitting too low. in fact, i think low enough that i think the string will hit the support tower on the middle mains. WISE sells an adapter that raises the head higher, but aside from costing $30, the adapter raises the head too high and it will lose 360 rotation.
so i didn't exactly come to the battle unprepared. thanks to PeteLSD and DarthHowie, who had/has the 6004 with the WISE, i was totally aware of the issue. DarthHowie uses the WISE adapter, but i want 360 degrees. so in advanced i ordered a piece of 1/4" 6064 Aluminum plate that i drilled a couple of hole and mounted on the WISE/6004. it took a little bit of care as i want the WISE to be as high as possible and still get 360 and as close to the turntable as possible to minimize string length. the result is the i ended up with a tiny amount of tolerance, around 1mm between the WISE and the tower adjustment knob, and a few mm between the gripper and the handle, depending on the racket and amount of grip. the Aluminum plate is mounted using the existing screw holes at the bottom of the WISE and the existing tensioner bar thread holes. the tolerance is around 1mm. and the 6004 is so well built that tensioning the racket doesn't draw the table towards the WISE. slightly more gap for the gripper/racket side as there are more variation there. not the prettiest but can be made more pretty later. SUCCESS!!!!
without the WISE and the crank, it took me less than 15mins to put together. some screws here and there. but to make the plate to custom mount the WISE as described above, it took around an hour to do. lots of measurement and drilling a few holes. in the end the result is as best as it can get without going into even more involved machining which will for sure come a bit later. meanwhile, i am going to string a racket. now where are my scissors...
oh. one last thing. i don't have the badminton specific 3 fingers 12 o'clock mount yet. Gamma forgot to send it to me. so meanwhile i need to figure out how to mount the MBS load spreader on the 12 oclock support.
i am not sure which support the 5003 takes, as the turntable is different than the 6004. for the 6004, this one fits: http://www.gammasports.com/gamma.cfm?product=2296 you might want to call them up and ask them. there are 3 of them in the catalog.
so i just strung my first racket on the 6004. my SW35 with ZM65@29lbs (i know, i know. but what the heck...) i love it! the machine is rock solid. i thought my ASE is pretty decent machine, but this one, nothing gives. pulling at 29lbs the turntable stays put and doesn't bend, sway or anything like that. the table is more sticky than my ASE so it makes weaving easier. even when pulling and tightening knots i don't feel like the machine is going to tip over any time soon. didn't time myself but i am sure it was over 30mins. i had to abort a few times coz i forgot to tighten the clamp base. and it took a bit getting used to dealing with the clamp and bases. flipping around, finding the right orientations. a few observations. i had to use the MBS load spreader as my badminton one didn't arrive with the machine. it turned out the support posts is thinner than the older 6004. the total thickness isn't much more than my ASE post. i am getting the badminton one anyway but this may mean i can use the MBS one in 6 oclock. the huge side supports are actually ok. i was expecting them to be really annoying. but aside from bumping my hands a few times, they are fine. the clearance is way better than my ASE's one. and it never caught the string despite being so gignormous. it means that i can wait a little for the Chudek or any other type of support. i used to get my string wrapping around all those knobs and screwed and posts and every where on my ASE. for the Gamma. i only had the string caught twice. once on the little lever of the brake, the other time on the WISE gripper. yes. nothing else catches the string on the turntable at all. this is going to lengthen my lifespan by at least 2 yrs. the tool tray is fine. it is around 6-7 inches below the turntable and i don't have to bend down to get to any tools. originally i was going to mount a tray just below the WISE for tools but i have scrap that ideal now. the only issue with the tool tray is that the turntable kinda blocks the view so i cannot see what is in the tray. minor inconvenience i guess. and also, for the very very often used tools. i find that i can even just leave it on the turntable itself! anyway, my SW35 turns out perfect, it came out the same exact shape as it went in. no sign of shorten/fatten/skinnien/lengthen at all. very happy right now.
Okay I found out that my 5003 needs a MBFS-11, which is different from yours. Also, I really like your base clamp as my 5003 base clamp can get pretty tight at some section of the racket, but I got two floating clamps so I was able to get by all the trouble spots. Anyways, MBFS just got ordered from ATS sports, and it should be on its way. I will probably do a setup of the Gamma head clamp at the 12, and load spreader at the 6. Congrats on the new machine once again. The 5003 was my first machine and I love it. Next step is to save up for a 2086 or just get permission from the banker (aka the wife)
Welcome to the Gamma 6004 + Wise club. I really miss this Gamma new 5 fingers diamond coated universal clamp. Oh also that 1/4" aluminum custom made plate, except I would made it level up with the racket. BTW, please post a picture with the clamp on the main and cross string to show the space of the teeth. and other one with the clamp on the last tie off main string to see how close is to the frame and side support. Thanks.
I like what you did with the aluminium plate. I may need to do the same thing once I get my WISE since it doesn't fit many Gamma machines, can that be found in pretty much any hardware store ?