50 string jobs later.... what have I learned?

Discussion in 'Badminton Stringing Techniques & Tools' started by kwun, Oct 2, 2010.

  1. canti

    canti Regular Member

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    thinking about doing 30lbs with zm62s on my Tpro, you up to it kwun? haha
     
  2. kwun

    kwun Administrator

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    you sure?

    maybe you should try ZM67@31lbs. one of Panda's favorite tension (or is it Pete?)
     
  3. druss

    druss Regular Member

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    Definitely... I have to use a larger knot with 62 than any other string I use, the first time I didn't it held but sank halfway into the frame.

    I'm up to about 10 rackets strung with my wise head now. I really like it, much faster and I can feel a noticeably tighter string bed when strung at the same tension as my old crank. I've started to reduce the tension by 1.5 lbs for those that were used to a certain tension on my old machine. I.E. if usually string at 24x26 for them I dropped it to 22.5x25.5 on the wise.
     
  4. kwun

    kwun Administrator

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    that's for sure. but i think we are talking about the string cutting into grommets in other locations.
     
  5. druss

    druss Regular Member

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    Ya... I think if the tension was high enough it's a problem with any string. The quality of the grommet also makes a difference. I strung a racket with BG70pro at 24x26 and the corner grommets all cracked (N55).
     
  6. Pete LSD

    Pete LSD Regular Member

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    Yeap, one of my favourites :D.
     
  7. canti

    canti Regular Member

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    I'm scared my tpro will break above 30 @-@
     
  8. kwun

    kwun Administrator

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    how about ZM67@30lbs? that will last much longer than ZM62@30lbs. it is not i don't like your business, but i just want you to get more for your money... ;)
     
  9. druss

    druss Regular Member

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    LOL, last time I strung my ZM62 at 28 lbs and it snapped in the warm up... Good thing I have 2 spools of it and I string my own rackets or I'd be broke.
     
  10. canti

    canti Regular Member

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    I think I gave kwun 10 rackets to string this month and 3-4 last month. I wish i had a machine T___T
     
  11. kwun

    kwun Administrator

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    11. soon i will be able to quit my job. ;)
     
  12. singnflip4life

    singnflip4life Regular Member

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    Heh 11 rackets at $10 each is already halfway to a Klippermate! or almost halfway to your own Shuttle Express!

    I myself got inundated this week, I have 10 badminton and 3 tennis plus one racquetball racket. So many....
     
  13. kwun

    kwun Administrator

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    will be stringing my 150th racket this week.

    just extended my client base to another group of my friends. i think i will soon have saturated my capacity. i don't think i can manage anything more than 20 rackets a month without making too much sacrifice in my regular life.
     
  14. illusionistpro

    illusionistpro Regular Member

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    Send me some of your peninsula clients ;) I won't mind :D
     
  15. kwun

    kwun Administrator

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    haha sure, but then i don't have any clients up north. mainly because it is uneconomical to do so. just driving up there and back will be $5 gas money. and also since i don't go up there to play, i don't know many people there and therefore no word of mouth.

    most of my clients are my circle of badminton friends down south.
     
  16. kwun

    kwun Administrator

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    just finished my 175th string job this week.

    i find that i can do a pretty consistent 27 mins string job. given no screw up on the way. some of the time saving came from incremental speed up with weaving crosses with more and more practice. but also i have been refining my technique on tensioning/weaving mains. now i do one by one (no pre-weaving). however, i achieved some concurrency by weaving the next main immediately after i engage the electronic tensioner. so while the tensioner is doing its job, i am also doing mine at the same time. that saved around 2mins.

    i have been trying to do the same for cross string but i find that i ended up taking more time as the positioning of my fingers needing to weave the cross is not agreeing with the positioning of the tensioner. i need to refine that but once i do, i might be able to save another 2 mins. which in theory will bring me down to 25 mins.

    the disadvantage now then is that the tensioner will have less time to stretch out the string so i change the setting to do a slow pull instead of fast pull. hopefully that will iron out some tension slack.

    weaving main is now around 9mins total and the rest goes to weaving cross.
     
  17. kwun

    kwun Administrator

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    strung my 200th racket this weekend.

    started a new flow for cross strings. instead of my old pre-weave 4 to 8 strings, and then tension in batch, now i weave one tension one. and use the skip one string method to always weave a soft weave.

    the weaving part is smooth, but the flow requires a lot of flip-floping between different sub-jobs which makes it a bit slower.

    but i do know that the string stays tensioned longer on the tensioner which is better for settling on the right tension.

    cross weaving is super fast, as it is actually harder to make a mis-weave mistake then to do a perfect job. partly also because i weave when the string is on the tensioner, which means the turntable is stabilized and that also make it easier to string.
     
  18. Fidget

    Fidget Regular Member

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    Thank you for continuing to share the story of the refinement of your stringing process. :)
    Interesting how you've dissected each component to a certain number of minutes in your effort to shave off more and more time.
    Surely, though, there must be a limit to how quickly you can do a good job?

    There's a short story by Stephen King in which a woman is continuously looking for a shorter way from the city to her cottage. One day she arrives with the odometer reading fewer miles than the distance is as the crow flies. She has a strange otherwordly aura about her and there are some pretty unusual things splattered on her grill.
    So kwun, keep up with your time-shaving but don't mess with Relativity. ;)
     
  19. kwun

    kwun Administrator

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    i keep telling myself that 200 racket is halfway to a Victor C7030! but wifey says, "what's wrong with your current machine?"

    *blank*
     
  20. kwun

    kwun Administrator

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    in a few years i will be able to defy law of physics! ;)

    it is not just a process of speeding up, but also a process of refining the quality, resulting in a more optimal overall process.

    stupid engineer traits...
     

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