Hi all, I have been a long time reader of many posts here, but don't post very often. In fact this is my first question here... Its time to restring my racket - a CAB 8800 Power (oval head). It was on factory strings till now. We play with nylon shuttles (mavis 350) in our club. After reading lot of posts on stringing and rackets, I have decided to string my racket with YY BG65. Considering that (1) BG65 loses tension quickly by 1-2 lbs (2) and my restringer may not know about pre-stretching; I am thinking of about 21-22 lbs of tension (my target tension is 20 lbs). 1. Am I correct in my judgement for the string tension? 2. How much time should I allow stringbed to settle before playing? (I read about 48 hours somewhere) 3. Will string lose its tension by 1-2 lbs even if I allow it to settle for 48 hours (depending on point 2 above)? Many thanks in advance!!
from my experience i noticed a tension drop to about 2lbs within a couple of weeks. waiting 2 days would be good. but i think if you start hitting the tension will drop a tiny bit as well. depending on your experience, 21-22 is pretty tight for an oval for me, but it might be good for you.
normal string, not bg65, loses 1lb of tension sitting idle after strung, and then lose a further 2 lbs of tension with normal playing. and after that it will settle. BG65 is notoriously bad in this regard and i'd factor in at least 1-2 lbs to compensate. so to get a target tension of 20lbs when the tension settle, you are really talking about at least 24lbs out of the machine. i don't see the need to wait for the string tension to settle after you string it. badminton is too fun to be sitting around waiting for the paint to... i mean for the string to stretch.
Thank you guys for the suggestions, I really appreciate it. [MENTION=39250]gundamzaku[/MENTION] - I guess 20 lbs could be tight for me as well, but I'm considering further tension loss as I play may be over a week or so. [MENTION=1]kwun[/MENTION] - My racket's got fair amount of chips from clashes. From my clubmates I heard that our local stringer doesn't go till max recommended (24 lbs) tension if the racket has chips. I will discuss with him once he has seen my racket. Oh and I do have a backup racket to play with while this is getting restrung (and the 2 days rest I was planning earlier)..
I got my racket strung with BG65 at 22 lbs (in agreement with stringer) on Sunday afternoon. There was no game session that day, so I (and racket) had to wait till Monday evening... So, I had about 1.5 hour session yesterday evening. Initial impressions are positive. I didn't feel like I had to put more effort to generate power compared to before, which is a good thing. Overall, I didn't feel much change, except for a slightly more crisp impact and a "crunchy" sound upon impact. Thanks again for the recommendation guys!! Btw, couple of pics...
