Four knots position

Just the same

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4 knots and 2 knots also no difference.

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As stated many times before, there is not a single scientific explanation why 4 knots should hold tension better than 2 knots. If you can think of one, feel free to post.

I expect that your experiences with 2 vs. 4 knots were made with jobs from different stringers, correct?

 

Looks like you want to understand the important things in stringing and that's very good. However if one don't know enough on what to focus his attention one might judge someones work in a way that might be not fair. I would first just go by the feel and not try to focus too much on these small things that have little if any impact to the final result.

Usually you would want the racket to play well, that is your main indication. If you want to focus on details, look for obvious mistakes like very uneven string spacing, crosses curving badly up or down, horrible looking knots , warped frame or long loose pieces of string outside the frame. Other than that I wouldn't use the knot placement or one or two piece stringing to judge if stringing was good or not...

There are could be some times differences of the tension between the stringers. It is totally normal, has to do often with the machine used and for sure with the stringing method. However if other things are good it is still not indication of bad stringing job. You need to learn with the stringer what tension is best for you with his stringing. So if everything is ok but feels too soft/too hard just ask to adjust the tension up or down next time. If it feels too bad go elsewhere. When you find the stringer that does the work the way you like - stay with him, even if another stringer would use the same string and tension it most often will not feel the same...

 

That is in fact one of the best stringing metaphors I've read yet. It matches on so many different levels.

Hope you don't mind if I'll be stealing that one from time to time.

 

I'm really shocked, that nobody of the stringers mentioned the quality of the knots. While the position can mean that there is less slack, it doen't mean that the tie-offs or starter don't sink over time, or the stringer pulled the slack mostly out due a perfect execution of a quality knot. Also not clamping close enough to the frame can made out of a good knot position a poor result, same with bad knot technique. As long as a job plays good, go to the stringer which gave you the best playability over time.

My vote goes to No.2 because as a stringer it is important to me that a client have the warranty of Yonex. For myself I wouldn't care, but beside the playability also a not-voided warranty for new rackets is important to hand out.

 

I am sorry but the stringing doesn't look that bad to me... The knots could be a bit sunk or just a bit small or just looking small on camera or perhaps on the bottom side of the frame? It's nothing like those horrible knots from the German open that were discussed couple of years ago...

The topic of the video was how the knot placement affects the playability and these all look good enough to me. It is for sure hard to judge from the photos but I would say that all the jobs look quite competent - strings are very even and tight, nothing hanging on the outside, shape of the frame looks fine - basic stringing principles seem to be correctly executed. Yes, Yonex guarantee might be "hurt" but I even stopped asking people if they want it preserved as never ever anybody told me they care about it.

Just to make sure I am not misunderstood , playability is on the first place for me however I have seen people misjudge someone's stringing job just because the choice of strings/ tension didn't work for them... And it is often some kind of self proclaimed rules that people invent that in fact are not mistakes at all...

 

The look of the knot is not equal to quality of it. I agree with you that all jobs look reasonable and non of them look bad. But as long as a knot look neat it doesn't mean that it is executed well. Trust me I can make a neat Gudgeon, Parnell or Bulky knot, but it doesn't mean that I pulled out enough slack to give the job an excellent tension retention which is also part of playability in my world.

And the different positioning of the knots is the same reason to make the way to the pulled string shorter to minimize slack and place it in a hole as the 3rd string to prevent sinking in. That are the main arguments and benefits IMO for the different placing and also the arguments which make a knot good or bad.

To discover if they play same or different you made everything equal. With 3 different strings (even different colour) and 3 different stringers it is impossible to compare to figure out a possible difference. IMO the stringers skills and routine effect the playability more than the knots.

I did in the last months one-piece haribito basic, YY pattern and Kakinami way on identical rackets with different knots and same strings and all played the same. Over time of 4 weeks I discovered that my Gudgeon tie-off is not as good as my bulky and one piece hold tension slightly better. I just share my experience with playing around with knots and patterns.

 

Absolutely agree on importance of good knots as a stringer. However if I would give an advice for a player, the knot quality would not be on the first place on the list of things to look for, in fact I would argue that sunken knots does not effect loss of tension as much as other things despite been a popular complaint on BC...

If you think about it, sunken knot give in how much slack, 2-3 mm? 12 mm in total for 4 knots? How would slack of 12 mm over 9 meter total string length reduce so much tension that you would actually feel it? If it would be so impact-full, no one would use the 4 knot method... There are for sure other much more significant things that can affect the string job, like improper clamping can loose 2-3 mm on every single string pull...

The experiment with the 3 rackets you mentioned needs a little work to be accepted as an indication of knot difference authority . For starters different patterns can have much bigger effect on tension retention and also sample size is not large enough to quirk out the inconsistency in how good you are at making different kinds of knots .

 

Reading this brought me to this idea or fun experiment :
It could be interesting to measure the exact length of the string used at the end of each stringjob for every tension and number of knots and compare all the data.
Process :
- use the same racquet or the same model of racquet and the same string
- use the exact same length of string at the beginning of the stringing process (for example 10 meters)
- keep every piece of string that is cut during the process
- measure all the remaining pieces and add what length is needed for every knot (not every knot is equal in length to another and not every stringer use the same knot or length of string to do a knot, but let's say it's not negligible, but not a big number too, let's call it kappa)
- do the math : 10m - (total of what is left + number of knots X kappa) = exact length of string in tension on the racquet

For sure every kind of string has its own stretching properties, so it could be interesting to compare strings with this process too, and what we could learn about this new measurement or data.

 

I would think 12 mm is roughly about 0.15% of the whole string length, in my opinion very negligible.

I don't know if anyone would do the string stretching measurement but I remember when tried to do some hand stretching using the door knob, strings were easily stretching a good half a meter and possibly much more... Don't catch me on this since it's been years but you get the idea..

I am thinking perhaps you are right and it wouldn't be so difficult just to check how much string lengthens before and over certain period of time and also measure how much tension was lost... Hm...

 

This isn't as simple as that. Mathematically it is only a very small amount of slack but strings in general don't stretch a huge amount, so that amount of slack can result in a couple lbs drop overall. It also affects the stringed overall since the tension becomes uneven. When I ask for 31+lbs for thin strings one of the most difficult part of stringing becomes the knots.

One thing I would say though is that the quality of things like knots become more important at higher tensions, as it means that 1. Player is more sensitive to tension and 2. Uneven stringing can cause uneven stress on the frame, and we know how easily that can break the frame. The lower the tension, the less it matters how the stringing is done, where the knots are placed, etc.