Living in Polar Bear country, Canada... Temperature changes is the norm and we should live with it. But lately I've noticed that my strings seems to act differently as well... When the gym is cool and comfortable, my strings feels tight and strong. I get a nice pinging sound from my BG66M JP and my NBG99 JP strings. However, when the temperature changes (they either turned on the AC too late or left the heat on when it warms up) and it gets warmer and more humid, my strings moves around a lot more and my shots feels off. My smashes end up with a pow sound as oppose to the ping I'm used to. I string all my rackets at the same shop, same guy, at 26lbs. Does temperature and humidity affect string tension? I asked our club's pro player and he said it generally drops at least 1lb when the temperature changes. Should I consider getting my matching pairs of racket strung at 26 and 27lbs respectively to account for any temperature changes? I know most of you must be thinking that I shouldn't be able to tell a difference with 1 or 2 lbs of drop because it's normal for strings to loosen up. Well I'm the type that gets my racket restrung once I feel the tension is off...
Move to Vancouver!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It doesn't snow (much)....just rains alot. And summers are only a few weeks of hotness. If you got the dough...then sure. But it may be a problem if ever one of your strings break and then your back up racket is strung at a different tension.
I would love to move to Vancouver.... But jobs are definitely easier to find here Yea I know... I can't have 4 of the same racket now can I?!?!?! Guess I should suck it up and hope it doesn't get too hot during my tourney... Really want to do well this year
If you're super serious on tournaments...4 of the same rackets aren't that far from the norm (I would think). Look at how many the pros carry. They do it just in case.
on the contrary i think you should be able to tell the difference. 1-2lbs difference might not be much when we inspect the rackets, but for accuracy sakes, it is actually quite dramatic. i actually noticed that while i'm playing, the strings tends to be a tiny tiny bit looser than when it's been sitting there for days. it takes a lot more finger strength to slide the strings around when i'm not playing. if it bothers you that much, it might be a good idea to keep more than a few rackets with different tension to see how they perform. some people have a set of rackets for feather shuttles and another set for plastic shuttles, so i don't see why not. when i play tournaments i usually have 4 rackets to last the whole tournament.
You're not wrong with your suspicions... from what I've gathered from reading previous threads on string tension and temperature, a 5 degree Celsius change in temperature results in a change of 1 lb tension on average, due to contraction of the string material. Also strings become more brittle and harder at lower temperatures so it'll feel even harder subjectively. Knowing this, over the winter months, I try to use rackets with older stringjobs that have lost tension. Then when spring comes and weather warms up, I restring those as they become less playable in warmer weather. This is better than the alternative of stringing at a lower tension at the beginning of winter and then having it loose mega tension when spring approaches.
I suspect it depends on the string material and composition. PEEK based strings (Zymax) seem to be less affected by temp and humidity than nylon strings (BG65, 66UM, etc), which are in turn less affected by gut strings (who still use them nowadays? ). Strings also lose tension naturally, even without hitting. The pitch of "tapping sound" of a freshly-strung racquet is always higher than the same racquet that has been strung and left for several days. At least the temperature change in your place is SEASONAL. If you lived here there are big temperature differences in the SAME DAY, and there's not much you can do about that