I would like to know when using a 6 point drop weight stringing machine and using a 2 piece stringing method if the possibility of breaking a racquet increases when you start the cross strings from the top of the racquet. I am asking this since it has happened to me in consecutive occasions in the same spot (bottom right hand of the frame when mounted on the machine. additional info stringing machine : eagnas hawk 80
you didn't mention the racket and tension, that obviously has a lot to do with why the racket cracked. aside fro that, due to the shape of the frame, top down tension of the crosses puts a surprising amount of stress at the 4 o'clock position of the racket. make sure your supports are well positioned and you are not tensioning too high. the hawk80 is also has notoriously unreliable side supports which slips, making the situation much worse.
one racquet was arc 10 @ 27x29lb while the second was a armotec 900p at 20x22lb. what is strange to me in this situation is that I have done other arc 10@ 25x27lb and a host of other racquets there was no sign of it even cracking. which kind of leaves me to believe its more of the machine causing this fault than the fact that i'm using a top down tension of the cross.
also check the calibration. IIRC, a 21lb setting on the Hawk80 ends up being 25lbs. so if you are doing 27x29, you may end up with a 35lbs tension on the cross.
I have similar machine and had the same problem and as a result one cracked racket. I believe the problem with side supports as Kwun suggests. See this thread http://www.badmintoncentral.com/for...at-3-o-clock?p=1932189&highlight=#post1932189. After the fix I even started to string same tension for mains and crosses since supports are very firm now and racket ends up with perfect shape after. I also scraped the knob of side supports with rough sandpaper, so I have better grip when tensioning the screw. Make sure your machine is calibrated. When I had racket cracked, in addition to side supports slip, my machine pulled 4 pounds more! I thought that it was calibrated when I got it but it was not... good luck!
thanks for the advise. i will try these suggestions on my nxt stringing. on the other hand i was also advised by a club member not use the side supports by having them face away from the racquet. thus making the machine a 2 point machine and also start the cross from the bottom. what are your thoughts on this suggestion?
Hope you understand it correctly when we say "problem with side supports" ... I mean it's not a problem they are there , but they are not doing their job efficiently enough. If you take them away it will be only worse, since there will be no support at all and racket will subject to even more stress. The problem with the supports on this machine, is that they made to hold the frame by friction (as pointed out to me by Kwun in my thread). On other better machines it is done by direct screw. And for some reason the plate, that should stay in place, is polished metal, and it don't have much friction at all, so racket's head widens when stringing mains, which really shouldn't happen. Than when you pull the crosses it is under lots of stress. Gluing sandpaper to the plate creates needed friction. I think for me it worked really very well and totally fixed the problem. Another thing to check, make sure that the screw, that needs to be tightened to hold side supports in place, is not damaged. If it is, you can buy similar screw in almost any hardware store, make sure to buy big washer as well (instead of small 10mm one that originally come with the machine, and I am pretty sure it is totally out of shape by now), I bought thick 30 mm one and it works well.
thanks again for replies. I tried the advice of stradrider and glued some rough sand paper to the side supports and also check the calibration of the machine. Nothing was wrong with the calibration. it was spot on. however I tried to string an old boron that I had @ 18x20lb and it went well. I marked the position of the supports to ensure that they didn't move while I was doing the mains, at the end they didn't move at all and the racquet came out really well. I will post some pics soon.
these are the pics when I strung the boron. my only concern now is if the side supports are to close now?
the positioning of the side supports is also one of the reason your racket broke as it is not supporting the weak point of the racket. there are many many video and photos of how people position their side support in this forum. you should be able to use them as a reference and adjust yours similarly.
from what I have seen so far the side supports should be at the 2&10 o clock positions(for the top) which comes close to the a15 &a16 holes and the 4 & 8 o clock positions, which aligns with the b 11 and b12 holes. however the closest I am getting with this machine is a 17 & a 18 for the top supports and b17 & b 18 for the bottom supports. will this still cause insufficient side support?
You can adjust the width of the support stands, the screw handles are under the table. You should position 6 and 12 o'clock supports all the way inside, so that the top and bottom of the racket barely sits on the edge, kind of all the way inside. Than move the support stands to fit the racket, so that the 6 and 12 supports sit tight inside the racket frame. Make sure to tighten stand's screws really well, so that it will not collapse when pulling mains...
stradrider I did tried that and the best i'm getting is b13 for the lower supports and a17 for the upper.
Grommets 14-15 in the bottom still should be fine I think, but try to position the top of the frame like in the photo, make sure there is still firm support under the frame, not just white protection plate. It will make side support at somewhere about grommets 13-14. You can see also, there is leather protection between the top support rod and frame, I think it helps to prevent damage to the paint.
if you did it certainly didn't show in the photos. you should've spread the 6/12 o'clock columns further, maybe even as much as 3" further away from each other. then you adjust the 6/12 o'clock support accordingly and your side support will be further apart as a result.
