Having this past week just purchased a used racket strung with NBG 98 at 24lbs, this is the first time I've used this string,... and it has the most effortless repulsion/power that I've ever had from all the strings I've tried, including my current favourite zm62, and zm65, bg80/66um, vs850. The only downfall is that the surface of the string is sooooo slippery, as if it was dipped in bacon fat and teflon! Such a pity! All my slice shots and control/placement shots required supra maximal concentration as I couldn't be sure how the shuttle was sliding on the string bed. Can't a string be made to have both max repulsion AND max control? Why should those two characteristics be mutually exclusive? For the time being I want to continue to try to adapt to this string, so my question is this: has anyone tried to mod this string to make it rougher? I was thinking perhaps with something that can be sprayed or brushed on that can permanently stick on the string surface to make it as rough as the strings above. Any one with any suggestions? Calling out @kwun @Mark A [MENTION=64484]j4ckie[/MENTION] @zombie0517
Did a little research on tennis strings... so apparently some pros have been suspected of spraying their stringbed with silicone spray to make it slippery so that it'll rebound faster with more power and more spin. If so, then I can see why slippery strings are also more powerful for badminton... less friction between strings so less energy and power lost when the stringbed stretches and rebounds. Hmmm... interesting.
Alright... have decided to test out hairspray on an old racket with bg65. Will start with very light spray first so that the strings can still slide against each other and not affect rebound much.
hehe... it's nice to have a wife around... can always borrow stuff from them for badminton application... like hairspray for strings, and nail polish for patching up paint chips on racket frames...
actually, kinda surprised that you think the NBG98 is slippery. while it is not a textured string like the BG80 or Zymaxes. it is hardly slippery to me. i strung 4 of them today and it has a smoother but slightly rubbery textures. maybe you should cut down your bacon in take during breakfast or wash your hands before you play with your badminton toys? or just have pancake for breakfast, dried syrup will stick to any thing, including feather shuttlecocks.
Kinda surprised you don't think it's slippery It's one of the most slippery strings I've ever laid hands on, only a few Li Nings are similar...even the NBG95 isn't quite as bad. I kinda suspect a more slippery string is more repulsive, or at least it is so by coincident....ZM65/BG66UM should both be as repulsive as the NBG98, but when I had a fresh set on my Mx80, nothing else came close. Sadly I was too impatient to let the strings rest for a day before play and paid the price (breaking it in the first session) BG66 is slippery as well. Used up a 4m leftover piece I had lying around yesterday (hybrid-ing it with a 6-7m leftover piece of ZM65), and they felt so, so different
you guys don't know what slippery mean until you have strung Adidas/Toalson string. my fixed clamp adjustment had to be drastically tightened. the prior setting worked fine for me even for ZM62. but slipped like it was on teflon with 0.69mm Adidas string!
Haha, maybe But having strung most Yonex strings there are and a couple Li Ning/Victor/Ashaway as well, the NBG98 is the most slippery so far. Closely on it's heels are LN AP101N/AP62/NS90 (I think. A very very repulsive, very slippery .67 string, anyway). After that, NBG95 and BG66 follow, which are still slippery but not that bad. Tightest clamp setting ever was the AP62 for me, with the new clamps (which haven't seen ZM62 or AP62 yet) it's been ZM65, surprisingly. Would've thought the NBG98 to need a tighter setting, but it doesn't.
@j4ckie Yep, I suspect your suspicions are right. In the tennis world, slippery tennis strings are supposedly more repulsive, because the stringbed has less friction between the mains and crosses, and hence a more efficient stretch and rebound cycle with each hit. Ultimately this means that more of your power input is transferred to output. Apparently some pros have even been accused of getting more power by spraying their already slippery strings with silicone (likely wd40) in an effort to further reduce friction. What this means for badminton is probably the same. Maybe that's why max power and max control are mutually exclusive in strings. It seems the only way to get both (eg. bg66um) is to make thin slippery strings. Slippery for power, as discussed above. And thin for control, so that the stringbed can cut into the cork.
@kwun ..... Hmmm, re Adidas Power Hybrid strings, it seems that Adidas is onto something here... thick 0.72mm mains for strength where it's needed as that's where most breaks occur, 0.69mm for crosses. And I'm willing to bet that one of them is slippery, while the other is rough. So that the intersections friction is still minimized as compared to having both rough. Very smart. Which means a hybrid of nbg98 and a rough string like vs850, zm62/65 would be a good combo.
both strings are slippery. the super slippery Adidas string i was refering to above is the Power Hybrid. 0.69mm would slip on a clamp that was adjusted for ZM62. it was that slippery. and super powerful. now where is my can of WD40?