I just got my new stringing machine. It is the Combo 810. It comes with swivel clamps. The unit came with tennis clamps/or the factory standard clamps. I don't have flying badminton clamps yet. My question is, would it be possible to string a badminton racquet with fixed clamps? I know we could do the main, how about the cross?
You can test it by clamp a BG66 or BG85 and tension the string to your regular tension and see if it holds for more than 30 sec without slipping. If it does, then the main is OK. Check the teeth of the tennis clamp, if you can fit it through all the main and clamp on the cross, then you are OK. If any of the condition earlier fail, You are not OK.
Even if holds up at the 1st demo run, it has a higher chance to fail later on, especially during high tension jobs. Better get badminton fixed or flying clamps from Yonex or HQ.
LB, I agree. However, people are just itchy to try out their new toy. So, if it is an old racquet for testing, I think it is OK to give it a shot. If it is an expensive racquet, don't try.
mains yes....crosses most likely not. Before Pete's many modifications to his LF machine, he used his laserfiber tennis fixed clamps to string the mains (at least for the starting method). For crosses the gap between teeth were insufficient to clamp the crosses so he used fly clamps. I just recently got badminton fixed clamps for my machine and am finding that it is faster to string the crosses with fly clamps (I use 3) compared to using the fixed clamps. However when stringing the mains..the fixed clamps are like heaven for holding tension and i don't need to "cheat" by stringing the first 6 mains with 0.5 lbs more to compensate for tension loss with my fly clamp + starting clamp + LB starting pin starting method. If you look at Dinker's stringing video, he uses the fixed clamps to start the mains and then switches to fly clamps until he reaches a tie-off.
could not have put in a better way; Tennis clamps are bigger and thicker than badminton clamps; If it fits through the close knitted strings, you should be fine; The top one is tennis clamp and the bottom one is a badminton clamp.
I use tennis clamps on my Alpha Revo and there are no problems except on the last tie-off at the top of the racquet, it doesn't fit but it's not a huge issue. They definitely clamp tight enough. I always make sure the clamps will not slip at least 5 more pounds than I'm doing.
I suppose you are using a crank machine, therefore, there might be tension loss w/o using a fix clamp. If you use a drop weight machine, I think any potential tension loss on the center mains should not be an issue, as long as if you let the leveler to be settled for an extra 10-15 seconds.
Using a laserfibre machine drop weight....Tension loss was an issue with using fly clamps but is no longer an issue now that I have fixed clamps.
Hmmm... I thought was consistant pulling machine, the possible tension loss due to clamping will be made up by the next pulling?
I don't think it will completely be made up. Anyway, it's not a big deal IMO because you can never clamp all of the tension.
It's true, but I figure as long as the "loss ratio" is small, and evenly distribute among the racket, it's as good as a job of "perfectly tensioned to the 0.0001". The difference is the overall tension will be slightly lowered (within 0.5 lbs, I suppose). However, that margin is hardly noticeable, and well accepted by the machine manufactures themselves.
I guess some of Pete's habits/methods have affected how i approach stringing. I'm guess i'm one of only a handful that have seen Pete string an entire racket. Mind you, you'll never see me string anywhere near his 30x33 tension. Pete always striving for perfection!
Thanks for the comments. I just strung my first badminton racquet at 21 lbs using just fixed tennis clamps. It was rather difficult as the teeth of the clamps did not really fix the into the strings. There was no way to clamp both the cross and the main. For ex. when I was stringing the cross, I could only clamp the cross and the teeth wouldn't accomodate the main also. As for the tension, the fixed swivel moved ever so slightly but still got the job done. Took longer than expected but glad to report that it could be done.