Hi guys, A little short teaser of what's to come in the amazing world of badminton under the microscope! Showing lots of the Yonex BG66 Ultimax under a scanning electron microscope (SEM) in this teaser.
Wow, that is truly fascinating. Very well done! The holes in the BG80 and Aerobite... maybe a bit far fetched, but is it possible that they allow the string to compress more/faster with the core being able to "breathe" through the holes?
I'm not sure if it's for compression or 'breathing' but I think it might be for grip purposes? Like rough surfaces grips/adheres better because of its unevenness? Maybe it's designed to match/catch the shuttle's leather on the cork?
Hm.... I would have expected some kind of structure that goes outwards of the surface to increase grip. The leather needed some kind of spikes on the outside that would be locking into the holes to create the grip. The arrangement of the holes seems to be rather random too. What is noteable though is that only the very rough/grippy strings amongst those four are showing these holes. So yeah, chances are that there is some kind of relation.
Are there any patterns of the holes? If not, I suspect it might be Yonex trying to sabotage the longevities of these strings. It's always on my mind how BG80 being quite thick is very vulnerable to mishits. Would love to see ABBT, NGY99 and BG65 under microscope as well.