here is the method to do the 50/50 stringing pattern. i like the idea of a 50/50 pattern because it allows symmetrical tension of the top and bottom half of the crosses. afterall we don't do the mains from side to side why do we want to do the cross from one end to the other? the issue with the 50/50 is that it is impossible to do it properly with fixed clamps alone. a possible method is to use the help of a starting clamp. the easiest method however, is the one presented here which is to use 2 flying clamps to assist the fixed clamps. which is what i called a hybrid clamping method. as usual, comments and suggestions are welcomed.
Hmm... might have to give this another try. I do TD because it seems to end up dumping all the stress at the bottom of the racket (which is where we'd want it), but it does cause slight "egging" at the top of the racket... can't win them all. Did you miss the top cross?
Thats the "head stringing pattern". I was using this pattern a long time ago (only for head rackets) but the weaving of the last crosses at the top AND bottom is a little bit hard. hmmm... on the mains we have supports inside, not outside. so the frame can't move inwards on the first pull. when we start the crosses in the middle, there is no supports inside. when we start at the buttom (or maybe top) the stress on the frame is a little bit lower because of the angle of the grommet from inside to outside (ONLY speculation).
Were I doing this I'd do the first three or four crosses in the upward direction, then the same amount downwards. The upward crosses would put some stress at the bottom of the frame, then the downward crosses should equalize it. Then go up for another few, and down to equalize again. This way there always a bit of stress at the bottom of the frame, but little asymmetrical tension at the top. This could all be in my head, but it makes sense given my experiences with TD.
right. but the stress at the bottom of the frame using this method should be smaller than if you do top-down all the way from the top.
certainly head took the idea and gave it their own name. this method has been around for a long time. but when we start the cross in the middle, the frame is already loaded with main string which in a way is providing support? the net forces at the corner will always be higher, i think. each string alone might be lower, but in total the sum of the two force will result in a higher net force. that's why in oval rackets very often you will see the tear drop shape at the top sides of the frame gets squeezed in. ("egging" in Mark A's word.)
^Good illustration. The diagonal 35 lb vector not only causes the top to narrow, but applies all the way through the racket and causes the bottom to widen. I use the 10% rule and have found that doing the top cross at the main tension, and adding 1 lb to each subsequent cross until I reach the target cross tension, is the best way to keep the racket shape when doing TD. The 50/50 should require no such adjustments, though.
Hmm... very plausible - it'd be a good safety factor. The tennis stringer part of me (playability) thinks it's because they're shorter, and less tension would ensure the same "dynamic" tension as the longer crosses. No reason why it can't be both, I suppose.
thats why i put head stringing pattern in quotes... yes, true. but its not the same i think. in your video i can see a small distortion when you start the crosses moving (maybe i don't see it correct, its only a video). what i mean is that (red lines): when you start in the middle, there is no angle of the string on pull. so there is only one point where there is stress on the frame -> outside. when you start at bottom (or top), there is an angle of the string. so there are two points where force produces ?less? stress on the frame: first one inside of the frame. an which bend the frame outside down. this one is "hold" by the main string. second one outside the frame, with less force as you start in the middle. @kwun: you can test this maybe its equal because of the less friction of the less main strings. i hope you understand what i mean. its already hard to explain it in german, so in english is much more difficult... i also don't know if my speculation is correct. its only a speculation.
has it been that long? 4 years? in a whim I restrung one of my rackets with 50/50. Instead of hybrid clamping, I weave one ahead 4 strings at a time, and then clamping down the string at the outer frame with flying clamp before moving onto the other direction. my first try using this and the result was less than 25 mins which is still pretty good. the big plus is that the string was super responsive and powerful. symmetrical tensioning from middle out definite works. it is also easier to do compare to other patterns like the Gosen/Victor ones. if i can optimize it down to 22mins or so then it might become my go to flow.
Does it truly play better? When I did a few rackets this way, some years ago, the only difference I found was that those difficult to thread crosses, that one always encounters near the end of a string job, were now on top and bottom instead of just one or the other.
seems to ping better and when i first hit it at the court, i was all smile. the shuttle feels way more responsive. but i didn't do a A/B blind testing. if i ever have the time, it will be interesting to do. get 2 same rackets/string/grip, and only stringing method differ. no question that this is slower to string. now we have 2 ends to deal with but imho the feel of the string job trumps a few minutes extra work.
the ping sound. http://www.badmintoncentral.com/forums/index.php?threads/ping-tail-and-quality-of-stringing.111162/
Oh great, not only do we measure stringbed frequency but now we have to measure decay time too?! But seriously though, agree that a longer decay time would correlate with all the strings in the stringbed being in sync in tension and frequency... hopefully meaning they work together more in unison.
I meant to ask: What do you mean by "better"? Higher frequency? Clearer sound? Longer decay? More even sound from different places in the string bed?
so the theory goes. if the mains and cross strings are working together, then they should response the same way. so in other words, they don't kill off each other. thus they resonate longer together. if they have destructive interference, then it will be a thud and it will produce a dull ping that dies off easily. and my personal experience seems to correlate that theory to an extent. whenever a racket comes off the machine, usually i can tell if it is a good job or not by listening to the ping. i can verify that with my own rackets, and with limited number of client rackets that I get to try in the courts. as for your question. definitely not higher frequency, as that depends on the tension more than the technique. clearer sound, yes. longer decay, yes. more even sound from different places, i thought about that before, perhaps what we want is to correlate that with sweetspot size, i think that's a good theory, but someone will have to verify that as i haven't, and it is also quite hard to accurately tell.
I see. I thought you meant something like that, but was just not sure. I've considered this myself, and all things being equal, we'd like the racket to have a loud crisp and clear sound. No doubt. But will it really affect playability? I don't know. Perhaps. It's difficult to tell if it is only our ears and mind that tricks us, or if indeed it make a difference. At lease, I don't have enough experience and head to head comparisons to tell. Could be a nice test to do sometime (same racket, same string, different tension combos around same avg.). I've also thought about this when measuring frequencies using that Android app spectrum analyzer which shows the entire spectrum. Sometimes it's very clear which is the dominant frequency, while other times it is spredt out much more, and jump between peaks. But is this property simply a result of string job quality? Or is it more a question about main vs cross tension setting? (Getting the right difference to produce similar frequencies). And given that they are weaved together, they do produce one final frequency as a whole anyway, so will it matter at all? Perhaps you will always get a clearer sound from a progressive job? Ever tested this? I find it interesting indeed, but I'm not convinced that things are indeed so simple. Also grommets would affect the sound I guess?
those are all good thoughts. i also use the same app. there are definitely harmonics shown. sometimes the harmonics are as strong as the fundamental frequency. I am not sure what to make of that though. perhaps the natural tone of the string contains that much harmonics as it is not a pure sine wave. a good experiment will be to look at the spectrum of a single string and see what the spectrum looks like. as for main/cross weaving together. i think the matching of their response/frequency is still important. imagine an extreme case where we have a tensioned string 1 meter long tied to another string at 90 degrees at the same tension, but only 50cm long. when we pluck this 2 strings, they will try to cancel each other out and produce some interesting interference pattern at the junction. if they are the same length/tension though, then i think they will work together much better. It is just a theory but one that I currently believe in. That's why I always stress the matching of main/cross frequency. I spent a fair amount of energy trying to find the best match for my machine and the way i string. it is a difficult process as playability is sometime subjective and not easy to measure. another point is that, every wonder how we use similar tension in main/cross while they are of such different length? if you look closely, while the main strings are longer, they also have a smaller spacing. so effectively, for the same surface area, there is the same effective tension over the string surface. that cancels out the effect of a narrow frame shape. so whoever came up with the racket in the beginning already have this main/cross tension density matching in mind.
