I mainly play with feathers and have my racquet strung at 25lbs. I started dropping in at Bonsor Comm Centre where they only use plastic. Plastics fly differently than feathers and I also heard that plastics are harder on your string than feathers. So if I have second racquet (same as my main) and wanted to use that for plastics, would I string at a different tension?
Why not take the opportunity to introduce them to "real" badminton Most people prefer to use feathers, given the choise, its usually just economy or "cheapness" that makes people use plastic shuttles.. Just use your shuttles for the first sessions (the first fix is free concept ) Its like when you go playing Icehockey.. You use skates you don't bring rollerblades to the ice-rink hmm.. maybe not a perfect analogy.. Lets say you go down to the air-rifle shooting-club... You dont bring a paintball-rifle Aah.. that didnt work to good either ok.. If you want to play tennis yo dont use a foam ball, right?? /Twobeer
I thought feathers were more damaging to the strings, seeing as they are heavier, after all. Furthermore, they also usually fly quicker, don't they?
I'd use feathers if I could, but the badminton courts there are in a multi-use gym with white walls & ceiling and lights that make a white birdie "disappear". Unless I can find colored feather shuttles then I'm stuck to using yellow plastic birdies.
BTW, being from Sweden, I'd think you'd be able to come up with a perfect hockey analogy. How about this - it's like playing hockey with figure-skating skates. It'll do but you'll probably not be skating too well with that toe pick scraping the ice.
You can spay paint bird ! =) j/k! Pedro, where do you play in Vancouver? I play in Richmond and the community centers there i don't have issues there even thou some have white walls and white lights. ---------------------------------------------- twobeer, Is there really a paint ball riffle? I do know the paint ball in the championships (shown on ESPN) that the paintball gun is like a machine gun except it has two triggers (1 paintball fire per trigger pull), therefore using two fingers to fire for very rapid gun fire.
Your clears are probably gonna fly half way to the next court if you spray paint your birdies. I mainly play at Richmond Pro and we use feathers there. Bonsor is in Burnaby near Metrotown. A "rifle" is a firearm you use to shoot long range so you can't really call a paintball gun a "rifle" since paintballs only travel straight to around 75 feet. There are special barrels that put a backspin to the balls to make them "float" farther but you lose accuracy. Paintball guns come with either semi-automatic manual triggers or with electronic triggers that allow you to fire semi-auto, full-auto, 3-burst or in "turbo" mode (one shot when you pull or release the trigger). They also only have one trigger and the 2-finger shooting style you saw on ESPN is called "walking the trigger" which is used to get a higher rate of fire when shooting in semi-auto.
I'm not sure about this one. I've heard that plastics are more damaging to strings, but I don't yet have any evidence/experience or argument to support that view. From (very limited) experience, however, I feel that lower tension strings are slightly better for hitting plastics. The timing just feels a little better (mushy strings and mushy shuttles seem to go together). For coloured feather shuttles, try the Carlton Hi-Vis, or the Ashaway Canary. These are both yellow. You can even get green ones, and I think I might have seen blue ones somewhere!
Use the same tension until you break a string, if you restring specifically it would be a waste of money.
I play 2 session of feathers and 1 session of plastic each week. I find the plastic heavier and more sluggish, and feels better if the string tension is slightly higher. But often I use the same racket to play with both types of shuttles, and the difference isn't great. My string should last 9 months at least.
off-topic But yes there are paintball rifles (sniper rifles are populer I ve heard.. But probably not for std. paintball cometitions type games .. http://www.specialopspaintball.com/articles/the_true_paintball_sniper.asp for example cheers, T
That's so cool! Is sound suppressor legal in Sweden? Would be nice to have sound suppressed 6.5 X 55 mm (SW) tactical rifle .
Uhmm..... fun but not valid in any way. For stability (going straight forward) the regular icehockey skates are better but for skating technic figure-skating skates are superior. Also the technic of figure skaters are superior compared to icehockey players. In Sweden I know lots of icehockey teams in the last 2-3 years engaging figure-skating trainers to help refine their technic. To keep On Topic: I agree with Gollum that lower tension goes better with plastic, at least that's my experience. IMO you also should use a thicker string. I have two rackets I (try to) use with feathers only, they are strung with Bg80 at 21/23 lbs. If I try playing plastic with any of them it feels very dull and without any power. Then I have a racket strung with Bg65 at 19/21 lbs I use with plastic and that suits me quite ok. I've tried to raise the tension but it didn't feel good to me, YMMV (I like the description Gollum makes "mushy strings and mushy shuttles seem to go together") /mats
