Hi All, Firstly thanks for all the great forum posts, they have been invaluable. For the benefit of other new starters, I'd like to share my experiences after finally stringing my first badminton racquet. I used the most basic stringing machine, a Pro's Pro B150. Apart from an appalling manual, I cant fault the machine so far. 1. Watch all the videos - kinda obvious, but they really help. In particular how to get string through shared grommets (top tip, learn to use tooth floss it really helps!) and how to tie parnell and starter knots. 2. Practise on an old racquet - apart for the possibility of breaking it, I deformed my first practise racquet because I loaded into the machine the wrong way around!. It sounds stupid once you know, but its easy to do. 3. Buy practice string, you can get 100m of .68m string from RacquetDepot for £15. Unless you are lucky, you will certainly break strings trying to get them through shared grommets. In fact I would say you really need to break a few strings during this time to make you realise how delicate they are and that you cant use an awl like an axe! When you do break a string, its very disappointing, but you need the practise so its all good, just dont use your best string to start with! 4. Before starting a stringing, PRACTISE how to tie the knots, the last thing you want to do is complete the job only to find you cant tie the knot and you messed it up, either releasing the tension or not putting tension in because you didnt cinch the knot. Practise them! 5. Calibrate your string machine tension. On ebay you can buy a portable digital electronic scales for £4. The purpose of this is not really about calibrating (although that is useful) it is more about learning that for weighted string machines, the tensioner needs to be in the horizontal position when the tension is applied. For those who know physics, you will know that if it isnt level, you wont be applying the correct tension (its all about gravity and trigonometry!), this becomes very visible using the scales. 6. When you do your cross strings, alternate the weaving above and below the main string. Don't do what I did and just weave regardless, you will end up with cross strings that can move all over the place, because they are not being held in place by the main strings. Look at how you threaded the previous cross string and if you finished the row under the main string, the next row should start over it. Google "hard and soft weaving" 7. If you are using an old practise racquet and you are breaking strings, it maybe that the grommets are broken creating sharp edges. If you are like me and cant wait for replacement grommets, it might be worth opening/clearing the grommet hole with an awl BEFORE you start stringing. Other experienced stringers may disagree with this next suggestion, but I sanded down some of the brokern grommets so I could continue practising. 8. Many of the top racquets have specific threading patterns, which is fine. Your practise racquet is probably old and knackerd, so I suggest printing off and using the default Yonex threading pattern (http://www.yonex.co.uk/products/badminton-stringing-instructions/). Of course check to see if you racquet does have a specific pattern, use this. 9. On my practice racquet I used Tippex (correction fluid) to mark the important side and top grommets so I didnt have to keep counting them during threading. 10. Take your time and know that you need practise, so try not to get too frustrated. If in doubt, do more research. I wont be able to offer much help but there are loads a great experts on the forums. Hope this helps.
Thanks. Does anyone know any information about grommets? they appear to vary in length and diameter. Also, when I look at the grommets across all my rackets they appear to stick out at varying lengths from racket to racket. Is there an ideal length the grommet should stick out ?
When I started I too thought that grommets is a very very complicated topic, but discovered that it is actually not complicated at all. Most simple rackets use 2.7 mm grommets for the whole racket and more advanced rackets mostly use 2.1 for single grommet and 2.6 for shared. So if you have those three it will cover all the bases. Somehow I never had to replace double grommets, seems like theese are never damaged much. I use theese generic grommets from mybadmintonstore. I got only the longest ones from 3 sizes 2.1, 2.6 and 2.7. Every grommet have different length even on the same racket and there is no point getting the shorter ones. You still have to trim them in most cases. What I do, I first insert the grommet all the way in and then use very sharp cutter to trim it the same length as the surrounding grommets.
