i just finished my 90th racket and approaching 100 with my backlogs. what have i learned in the last 40 racket beyond the ones that i have posted so far? very little, other than practice makes perfect. i seem to have the process pretty well controlled now. i can do a 26 minutes job with a little bit of sweating, this is down from around 45mins a while back. to be honest, i don't see any more speedup from the procedure. beyond this point, it is just move faster and sweat more. practice, practice, practice.
I'm not a stringer (Yet!), but why are cross-overs considered a 'bad' thing when stringing a racket? Is it purely for aesthetic reasons or does it serve a practical purpose also?
imho. it is for stringing perfectionists. for me, it is a would be nice, but not totally end of the world if there is a cross over.
It is for aesthetic reasons until stringing at high tensions. With ZM62 and other thin strings, I find tensioning a "crossover" at such a high tension can severely pinch and weaken the string that is being squished. I've had a few (rare, but a few) breakages at such areas, especially since I still do +10% on the crosses, but its a risk that is easily avoided with practice.
Besides aesthetic reason and strings cutting into each other, you get a truer pull if the main and cross strings are parallel to each other versus crossover.
Once you've been stringing for long enough your technique is pretty much locked and the only improvements you can make are aesthetic. Crossovers are the last remaiing bane to my stringing OCD - the fact that one showed up in my picture is extremely irritating - but there is a (admittedly tenuous) mechanical reason to avoid them. At least that's what I tell myself. I'm wondering how crossovers are treated by the various stringing Certification bodies, because if it means 9/10 instead of 10/10 then I'm glad I'm so fussy; I once re-took an A-Level Maths exam because I "only" got 93%...
This talk of crossovers is giving me an ulcer. I just finished stringing a racket for a experienced but fussy player. This guy's word will carry some weight with others, so I thought I was fastidious. But sure enough there is a cross-over. Hope he doesn't notice. Or at least hope he doesn't read this forum.
it has been a productive March. so far 17 rackets strung already. people have been breaking strings and racket a lot! usually i get maybe 8-10 for the whole month. i just strung my 105th racket since 2 years ago.
if no more comes in, the final tally for March should be 27 rackets. you guys are massacring strings left and right.
hey kwun, do you string for the pleasure or is it more of a means to save money, or i guess a combination of both? i was thinking of taking up stringing this summer but my rate of string breakage is getting less and less not slicing enough
for pleasure. i am too slow and lazy to make a living out of it. for education. it is something that a badminton fanatic would love to learn to do. for consistency. i like to be able to get the same string job, every time.
haha sounds like i have a new hobby this summer xD really tempted to pick up my friend's gamma progression machine
Kwun, do you notice any extra wear by zm62 on the grommits? I had a couple strings dig through the grommits and broke on the frame. I wasnt sure if it was the string, the old grommits or what.
no. ZM62 while thin doesn't really cut the grommets. usually the texture of the string has more to do with it than the thickness.
IME Z62 knots definitely cut into their grommets moreso than other strings - as a Z62 player I have a bag of 600 2.7s on standby for this reason.
