So I've always been stringing 4 knots yonex pattern bottom up, but I was wondering is there a difference at all in a 4knot top to bottom.
I damaged my racquet with top down at tying knot (frame cracked right there), top part is weaker than bottom, expensive lesson to learn.
The top part of the racket is always the weakest point. Theoretically, when you start from the bottom, the top sustains more stress than if you would have started from the top. However, I've always done bottom-up because I feel safer using this method. In the tennis world though, it is a big concern. Most tennis stringers believe that stringing bottom-up is a "newbie" mistake because of the reason I stated earlier and most of the patterns suggest starting from the top.
I've always done top-down - I'd rather have the "spreading" stress dumped to the bottom of the racket than the top. I always do my top cross (with a starting knot) 3 lb lower than the target cross tension and add a pound each time.
I am not a stringer but my regular stringer also strings top down. His reason is that with top/down the head shape of the racket almost always stays in its original shape. He also adds that bottom/up stringing is tighter (with the same tension) but the head shape is almost always bent out of proportion. I read somewhere here that most importantly in rackets to perform optimally in terms of power is to maintain/distribute even pressure points throughout its head/frame. Can the sifus please explain.
So far I have only strung bottom up but I am considering switching to top down because with some rackets I have trouble clamping the top cross. Do I need to watch out for something or is it just like the other way round?
I've did two rackets top down and i found that it had a better hitting sound and less racquet head deforming. I will keep on trying it to see the difference. I believe that its better because when we tie off when we do a bottom up, the last two strings on the top of the racquet will ususally but lower tensioned or different tensioned due to us tieing the string off compared to all the individual crosses in a racquet. however if we start top bottom, the loss of tension due to tie offs will then be at the bottom two strings of the racquet. (this observation can be assumed that we add an extra two or three pounds on the tie off string) When we play badminton, usually defending fast smashes, our precision can be off from the sweet spot of the racquet head while trying to return the smash and the bird would usually hit the upper part of the sweet spot more, thus hitting at the higher point of the racquet string bed. So thats why i think top down should have a better hitting sound and feel as well.
Maybe we should have a poll to see what the community thinks is safer. Do you mean like this example? First cross from top - 20lbs Second cross from top - 21lbs Third cross from top - 22lbs Fourth cross from top - 23lbs Fifth cross and beyond - 23lbs
I never bother with this unless the crosses are above 28, but let's say I'm doing one of my own rackets - 31 x 31 these days: First cross from top - 28lbs Second cross from top - 29lbs Third cross from top - 30lbs Fourth cross from top - 31lbs Fifth cross and beyond - 31lbs etc.