Strung up some BG85 for a customer/friend who is a very strong player. The customer didn't know what tension. I thought that perhaps since the customer is as strong as I am, I could give them 23 x 25 lbs since I myself use 25 x 27.5 lbs. I guess 23 x 25 would be what commercial stringers call 25 lbs, and this customer previously had a 21lb string job. Meaning it's 19 x 21. I just increased the tension by 4lbs, not to mention a Laserfibre machine makes a very tight stringbed, and BG85 is recommended to be strung 10% looser than regularly. Realistically, the strinbed probably feels 7lbs tighter than what my customer is used to. I don't know what I was thinking... I gave the customer the racquet at the club today and the customer wasn't able to play like normal. Smashes, clears, lifts were all weaker. After 2 hours there wasn't much improvement. Being a responsible stringer and a good friend, even though I was given no tension to work with, I still feel badly about my poor decision. Also I know my customer has a tournament coming up which is why the racquet was brought for some nice new strings in the first place. I want to either help my customer drop the tension or restring it. Is there a way to drop the tension really quick?
Yes, try with hair dryer at high tempeture just for 10 secound at 10". But restring it is recommended for tournament.
Re-string it, as the difference (7lb) is way too much for any "fast and safe" method. Since he's your friend, and have a tourny coming up, contribute another hour to back him up.
One way to lower tention is to step on the strings with your own weight(carefully) for a while and the tention will go down. Another is to put it under a table leg and leave it there for several hours accordingly.
Thanks guys. I told my customer to play with me again tomorrow. I didn't say anything about restringing, but I'll just inspect. If my customer is adapting, then I won't say anything, but if my customer is still struggling, I will restring it. Matt: do you play tennis? I know of such practices in tennis, but a badminton frame is much thinner and extremely fragile, I hope you will be a little more hesitant to advise such a practise.
Nope, I do not play tennis. If one does the method(s) carefully there will no be a concern. My stringer advised the step on method to me but it was not for me, it was for my friend who's racket was stringed too tight. The table idea came from the same friend who actually used the table leg on it - a suprize to me because I advised him to use the step on method and he never mentioned about using the table until after he did it. I assume he took precautions about that. Well it worked, since the tention did drop to his liking.
kick the stringgs/ bang the strings on ur foot with shoes on, if they are not prestretched, i had a girl from my school team took my racket and started doing that.....and i went from a 24x26 to 21....i hate her now jsut to let u guys know lol....
loosening string by methods of banging and hitting on shoes will most likely deterioate the quality of the strings really quickly... i think the ebst thing is to cut them and slap on some fresh strings wouldn't want some abused strings to snap during a tournament :crying:
She must be a good girl to do that so she can use the racket to her liking (she is right!!). I guess she could of did a more careful job than what you described as kicking which could wear out the strings more, not to mention damage the racket.
i didnt let her kick it.....i had it down when i was setting the nets....then she took it and started banging....
nah i didnt think it would affect me that much, when i was practise i thought i was just having a bad day not able to smash properly...then i go home sit down and admire my mp-99, 2 chips on the side of the frame.........and i pushed on the strings and they came out like a centimetre and i was like:crying: :crying: :crying: :crying: oh well, i can get it restrung so im not that mad....
Well, I don't know how... but my friend who's not particularly strong has broken the BG85 in about 4 practises. One of those practises was purely serving for 2 hours so it didn't even really count. The string was broke, it was 2 mains at once in the sweetspot... must've been some smash...