VIDEO: Stringing A Racket (Bird's-Eye View)

[DinkAlot]

Here's the bird's-eye view of me stringing a racket:

You Tube:

Part I: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIjO9MLTjJk

Part II: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0Iy5fuBt3A

Google Video: ULing...

[malayali]

This should be a sticky......

[DinkAlot]

This should be a sticky......

Thanks, here Google, finally:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...64114226&hl=en

[BombaTwIsT]

wheres the music on part 2!! lols. jk. nice video.

[DinkAlot]

wheres the music on part 2!! lols. jk. nice video.

There is music, but it got cut out for some reason and doesn't come back until 4:40. Also, I don't know why the music is so loud on You Tube.

The music goes all the way through on the Google Video...

...however the quality is not that good. It should have been very good though as the compression was minimal. Oh well, I guess Google did something.

[Dreamzz]

the google one looked fine to me, haven't seen the youtube one though. nice vid, i now have a new respect for my stringer. damn, that's a lotta effort, good thing my strings don't really break too often (relatively speaking! ).

[gavias]

Thank you for your video.

Its a 2 knot stringing.

I need to know how shoud be done a 4 knot pre-string. The objective is to have the racket prestringed to be tensioned at the stores.

[KooGuy]

Thank you for your video.

Its a 2 knot stringing.

I need to know how shoud be done a 4 knot pre-string. The objective is to have the racket prestringed to be tensioned at the stores.

Just do the regular 2 knots string pre-string. Go to the machine and complete tensioning of the main string. When you are done, just cut and tie the knot and you have two knots for the main string. Tie a starting knot for the cross and continue stringing, when you are all done, you have 4 knots on your racket.

Simple and don't have to worry too much about measurement of the two strings (main and cross).

[Joseph]

Hey dink, do your strings slip when you use your machine to pull? I can see you're using a piece of paper. You probably need to use alcohol to clean off the wax/oil residue.

[DinkAlot]

I need to know how shoud be done a 4 knot pre-string. The objective is to have the racket prestringed to be tensioned at the stores.

My pre-stringing method is atypical. I would need to diagram it for you to understand it more clearly.

Also, you need to find out a few things from your stringer:

1) Do they start stringing the mains first, from the center, or go left to right?
Reason: if they start from the center, you need to have extra string in the center. If from left to right, you need extra string on that side.

2) On the crosses do they go top down or bottom up?
Reason: if top down, you need extra string on top, bottom up, you need extra string on the bottom.

My pre-stringing method can accommodate any stringing style but it's designed for either 2 or 4 knot that is:

+strung from the center out
+has to be bottom up on a 2-knot
+can to be top down or bottom up on a 4-knot, just need to allocate enough string.

[DinkAlot]

Hey dink, do your strings slip when you use your machine to pull? I can see you're using a piece of paper. You probably need to use alcohol to clean off the wax/oil residue.

My machine is designed for tennis. The gripper doesn't like 0.68mm string or thinner. It may slip, that's why I put a business card there, so it doesn't slip.

[BadFever]

Hey DinkAlot, you are too fast. At normal speed, all I can see are plenty of hands action. Old man with bad eyes like me has to run the video at 50% slowmo to enjoy. Anyway, thanks for the effort. Very educational.

Question, when you were doing cross prestring (this is from your old video), have you ever made mistake by skipping a main string(other words, instead of having "On" & "Off", you do 2 "On"/"Off"). If you don't understand what I am saying, just ignore my question. I am not a stringer. What I would like to know is, normally, do you find out during stringing or after? If you found out after, do you ignore the error and keep using the racket?

[taneepak]

Good work, DinAlot, on your video stringing demonstration. Good demonstration on the proper way to use two flying clamps. You may want to consider some alternatives :
1. Clamp the flying clamps from the bottom up instead of at the top. It may be slower because the 2 fixed clamps get in the way, but taking advantage of gravity will help a little here.
2. Why don't you pull and tension the mains in a strictly one string on either side with each pull instaed of pulling/tensioning 4 on each side at a time? Alternating one pull on each side will equalize the stress and spread the load better.
3. It is better not to pre-string the crosses beyond the top grommet #11 by leaving the top grommets #10, #9, #8, #7 with only the mains but without the crosses. After you have pulled and tensioned the cross at the top grommet #11, you can then pre-string the remaining crosses at the top. The reason is to leave sufficient space at the top-there are no cross strings to prevent your flying clamps from sitting deep into the mains-for your flying clamps to work more efficiently when clamping the mains at the top. This also ensures a more even load equalization at the critical center.
4. Is there any way you can relocate the side supports more to the four corners, nearer to where the two main strings on the sides meet the crosses? Not critical but it would be better.

[DinkAlot]

Question, when you were doing cross prestring (this is from your old video), have you ever made mistake by skipping a main string(other words, instead of having "On" & "Off", you do 2 "On"/"Off").

No, I have never missed, the reasons are twofold:

1) When I pre-weave the racket, I can feel it. If it's not smooth, I inspect. if smooth, then I know I am alternating correctly.

2) I inspect the racket after I finish pre-weaving to make sure there are not misses.

[DinkAlot]

Good work, DinAlot, on your video stringing demonstration. Good demonstration on the proper way to use two flying clamps.

Thanks, I learned how to use the two alternating fly clamps from you.

1. Clamp the flying clamps from the bottom up instead of at the top. It may be slower because the 2 fixed clamps get in the way, but taking advantage of gravity will help a little here.

Aside from being significantly slower, what is the benefit or clamping from the bottom?

2. Why don't you pull and tension the mains in a strictly one string on either side with each pull instaed of pulling/tensioning 4 on each side at a time? Alternating one pull on each side will equalize the stress and spread the load better.

I try to maximize efficiency with effectiveness. I have found alternating back and forth and doing four on each side have not yielded any differences, at least not noticeable. And it also depends on the racket and tension I'm using. Since I strung this Woven 7 at 27.5/30lbs., it's not very hard on the racket. If I were to strung a fragile racket at say 32/35lbs. then I would surely go slower and alternate: be more careful.

3. It is better not to pre-string the crosses beyond the top grommet #11 by leaving the top grommets #10, #9, #8, #7 with only the mains but without the crosses.

I agree with this but again, I try to maximize E&E. I have found I can save over 5 minutes per string job by pre-stringing the whole racket. Also if you notice, I jump, I go from C18 to C20 to C19 to C21, then finish C22. I have found this minimizes and twisting.

4. Is there any way you can relocate the side supports more to the four corners, nearer to where the two main strings on the sides meet the crosses? Not critical but it would be better.

I would like that as well but it's not possible as my machine is designed for tennis rackets. If I did move the side supports, I would not be able to get the last cross string with the fixed clamp doing a bottom up stringing method for the crosses.

[Neil Nicholls]

I just didn't like the way you were pulling the string with the string mover, for 2 reasons.

1. as you pull the string it goes 180 degrees round the hook, and thats a small diameter. Whenever I've done that, I've used something thicker so the string doesn't have to bend round such a sharp corner.

2. you pull it so fast I think you have to worry about the string kinking on the other side of the racquet. More so on the crosses than the mains, and it looked like you had a bit of a kink towards the end of the crosses and you had to stop and sort it out.

edit:
good work for doing the video though

[gavias]

Just do the regular 2 knots string pre-string. Go to the machine and complete tensioning of the main string. When you are done, just cut and tie the knot and you have two knots for the main string. Tie a starting knot for the cross and continue stringing, when you are all done, you have 4 knots on your racket.

Simple and don't have to worry too much about measurement of the two strings (main and cross).

I need to have all the pre-stringing done: mains and crosses. The objective is not to be dependent from the stringers in the stores. I just want that they tension the strings , and thats all.