We announced 3 products for badminton stringers lately and would like to share the respond that we received from the market with you because it is quite fascinating. It seems that badminton stringers can be divided into 2 main types, which differ a lot: Type 1. He declares every innovation, useless or no improvement. He strings very accurately without the need to check the stringbed stiffness after stringing, and he weaves quicker without a cross stringing tool despite the fact that it seems impossible to feed the string through so fast. Type 2. He is eager to try new tools to improve the quality of his stringjob or to make stringing more convenient. We got quite some inquiries about the delivery time of the new stringbed tester, which can also test badminton stringbeds. Our practical experiences are: * Our tournement stringer, who is the First one to test new tools, was very unhappy when he had to send our proto cross stringer back and had to weave by hand again. * We did an accuracy test in cooperation with him: - He strung 4 racquets on 8,6 kg with different strings and measured the stringbedstiffness (SBS) after stringing. This is the result: YangYang Nanoplatinum 66: SBS =2.7 kg/mm YangYang NS 68 SBS = 2.0 kg/mm Ashaway Powergut 66 SBS = 1.6 kg/mm Yonex BG-65 SBS = 2.0 kg/mm The conclusions can be: - The result in final stiffness of stringbeds, which are strung at the same tension, is huge. - Stringers who think that they can string accurately on tenth of lbs are very mistaken. The test shows that the difference in end result can be up to 40 % - This means that it is impossible for badminton stringers to obtain accurate results without testing the SBS after stringing. - It could be good when badminton players know what stiffness they prefer so that they can use different stringers and ask for a certain sbs result. The questions are: - Will the “Type 2” stringer be the better stringer after all? - Should badminton stringers start to think different, ……………… a little more out of te box? (I.o.w. make the switch that tennis stringers made years ago.)
all 4 same racquets? why not try 4 same racquet, same string same tension in your string bed stringing? because different type of strings have different stretching potentials, resulting in different string bed stiffness
agree. doing it on different strings (and different rackets also?) is not the proper way to do control experiments. so your experiment is flawed. if you give a seasoned stringer a electronic machine, have him string the same racket using the same string, you will (and i have) found that the tone of the stringjobs can be within 1Hz of each other. that's the closest thing (or an alternate way) we have to estimating stringjob stiffness.
I'm sorry, but despite loving what you guys are trying to do (which is innovate and create new tools to help badminton stringers across the world), the only thing I read into your post was: "I'm upset that some people don't want to use my tools". I'm gonna be hard and direct on you, but I hope you're gonna take it as constructive criticism and not insults. Your experiment doesn't make any sense at all. Rarely have I seen experiments with so many incoherences. First of all, you're doing a "consistency" experiment between different string jobs made by the same person, with different strings! If you want to evaluate the consistency of string jobs, the first thing you need to do is eliminate the most parameters out of the equations. Which should in practice mean the same machine, the same tools, the same rackets, the same strings, the same tension and the same pattern. Then, you indirectly claim that the person that is using your tools is a better stringer, without even comparing with someone else's string job. Is it because they are using your tools ? Is it because they are willing to try new things ? I doubt that using a tool that doesn't affect the final result of the string bed makes the string bed better. In your conclusions, you claim that it is impossible to achieve consistent results in stiffness of your stringbed, because your stringer couldn't do it. Many things are wrong with this. First, the experiment was inherently designed to get to that conclusion due to the usage of different strings. Then, your sample size is as small as it can get (1 stringer, 4 string jobs). Also, while your stringer is a "tournament" stringer, nothing tells us that he is a very good stringer. For all we know, he could have got there with his contacts or be one of those self proclaimed "best stringers in the region" because they string for their local sports shop, who happens to have people that play some tournaments as customers. Not trying to discredit him or you, but I'm saying that you can't assume that this person is the benchmark to use. Now with the stuff I agree with. Yes! Ultimately, it would be nice to have a "measure" of equivalence between different types of strings. We all know that 25lbs with BG65 is not the same as 25lbs with BG66UM. Having some (precise) way to get the same stiffness on your stringbed regardless of strings would be nice. Currently it is only "string 2lbs lower" or something similar. Definitely! Badminton stringing hasn't seen that much change or improvement lately, aside from machines being more precise and better designed. However, you have to understand that most changes don't make as much of a difference as in tennis. Just take for example "hybrid stringing". It is currently the way to go for tennis players. Badminton players tried it, and didn't feel much difference if any difference at all. There is a difference between thinking out of the box and doing things different just "to be cool and different" and thinking out of the box and finding things that really do make the difference. Sometimes you have to admit that your "out of the box" idea, while cool, does not make as big of a difference as you'd like to.
This is not a “consistency test”, it is meant to show the difference in result with different strings on the same machine with the same stringing speed on the same tension. It is the challenge for a stringer to obtain the same sbs with different strings. It is not right when the sbs of a stringjob is different because a certain string looses more tension then another during stringing. The playability of a string bed depends on 2 things separate from each other, the elongation character of the string and the SBS. So if you want to compare the playbility of string you should do that on the same sbs. So if a string is slower or has more friction the stringer has to reckon with that! If this would be our way to find more customers for our tools, it would a very wrong way of advertising. Do not worry about us and our frustration, it is going very well with us. As described above we ar not doing a consistency test. I am not claiming anything, I ask if using tools and being openminded makes the Type 2 stringer better or not at the end? Using the cross stringer can be more friendly to the string and the stringer. Testing the Sbs after stringing gives the stringer information about the job he has done, about the string, about the status of his machine and about his own quality. I am not saying anything about the quality of our stringer. The only major prove is that the string has a huge influence on the result which should be minimized. As described above it is not the intention of different strings to loose different amounts of tension during stringing. The only way to find out the influence of the string is to test the sbs after stringing or to measure the elongation character of the strings as we also did on the stringing happening that we organised:
Well, yeah, of course that the type of string used has a huge influence on the stiffness in the end. If that's what you were trying to say with your "experiment", that's what you should have said in your conclusion instead of "Is my stringer better because he's using my tools ?" As for "type 2 stringer being better" because they are more open minded, well, your type 2 stringer just discovered something we, "type 1" stringers have known for decades. (By the way, I don't consider myself as a "type 1" stringer, I'm just waiting for things that will really help me and give a good benefit/cost ratio. I'm still interested in your stiffness tester...) The reason no one is trying to introduce a "sbs" system for people to know what tension to use in the end is that it would be even more complicated for them to understand and trust this new system and for us to implement it than just having people remember what type of string and tension they use. Then, if they switch string, use this rule: Is the string thinner ? - X lbs. Is the string thicker ? + X lbs. Which brings me to this last statement: your elongation results don't really tell anything about stringbed stiffness, which is what you're trying to measure. Yeah, it is a good indicator of tension loss over time, but no where in your experiment did you talk about that. Your previous "SBS" measurements seem to be good indicators of stiffness, and as a general trend, you should be finding that thinner strings feel stiffer than thicker string at the same tension.
Let start with this one: If “stringing on stiffness” as we call it, would make it more difficult for the stringer and player, why does the tennisworld use this system for more than 20 years and more and more. We made our first stiffness tester in 1989 and used that for the badminton tests also. The big advantage is that you compare endresults and the value that the player feels when he plays. And the other advantage is that the player can ask for a certain result when he goes to different stringers. Many badminton stringers have to stay with the same stringer because they know what a certain tension means FROM THAT STRINGER. Stringing on tension means a lot of extra inaccuracy (machine, stringer, string) that is removed when you ask for a certain stiffness. As you can see in the table there is no relation between diamameter (First column) and total elongation (green column). In fact the thickest strings stretches most. Because the thickst strings has the highest remaining elongation (blijvende rek) it will loose more tension than the others. (this can be an coicidence for these strings) I am not talking about “my stringer” and not at all about my tool, it would be nice when you can stick to the technical discussion and leave your commercial suspicions behind. I believe that people can learn from each other by communicating on forums, that is why we founded the Dutch stringing forum www.stringforum.net/nl 2 years ago. Difference with this forum might be that suppliers are invited to discuss with users, which results in better founded discussions and it avoids that users blame suppliers that they are there to promote their products. The remaining elongation (blijvende rek) indicates the amount of tension loss not only during play but also during stringing. So if the stringer knows that a string stretches more, from these figures, he knows that he can expect more loss, that is the relation between the table and the sbs.
