How did YOU get started????!!!

Discussion in 'Badminton Stringing Techniques & Tools' started by kakinami, Oct 1, 2020.

  1. kakinami

    kakinami Regular Member

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    I am curious how all you stringers got started? What is your story? What made you want to start stringing rackets? What machine did you start on? What machine are you currently using? Do you work in a shop or string at home? About how many rackets do you string a year? Do you have any goals as a stringer, work in a shop, own a shop, string at a tournament? If you have strung at a tournament what tournament? Tell any fun facts about you as a stringer too, hobbies or anything interesting about you. If people are interested in my story I can give my story later. I want to read about YOU the stringer!! Maybe most people only know me as a stringer in this forum, but I also like to skate (skateboarding) and I don't like bowling very much been doing it off and on for about 41 years. Let me hear your STORY!!! Fun facts unrelated to stringing too!! I look forward to learning about stringers!! I really want to hear @kwun story!!
     
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  2. tjiew

    tjiew Regular Member

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    I started to learn how to string my own racket due to high cost badminton stringing services in Singapore. I learned how to pre-weave from YouTube and slowly know stringing pattern. Finally in mid of 2012, I got a chance to help my friend who open badminton shop as part time stringer. How lucky I was back then first machine I used was Yonex ES5 Protech. Short story, I became home badminton stringer and I am using Wise tension head to do stringing job.

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  3. kakinami

    kakinami Regular Member

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    What machine did you start on? If people in Singapore need stringing can they contact you? How? Shameless plugs!! Any other hobbies? Give me more stuff! Thanks for the first reply!

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  4. tjiew

    tjiew Regular Member

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    Yonex ES5 Protech, that machine belong to my friend. My current machine is AEF table top machine with wise tension head. Well, I have put my contact number in SG carousell(buy/sell app). My hobbies is badminton(no.1), swimming, etc. In the future, if I go to Japan again, I will hunt(visit) you down.

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  5. tjiew

    tjiew Regular Member

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    My favourite badminton stringing pattern is Gosen Basic pattern, I only use yonex stringing pattern when customer asked for it.

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  6. tjiew

    tjiew Regular Member

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    My machine [​IMG]

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  7. kakinami

    kakinami Regular Member

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    Interesting fact!!
     
  8. tjiew

    tjiew Regular Member

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    I just need to use string with 13 rackets length. 5 rackets length + length of handle grip for the short side. The rest is for the long side.

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  9. Rimano

    Rimano Regular Member

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    How much is high costs? I always thought stringing was more affordable in other countries. You should see what the average shop in UK charges.

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  10. tjiew

    tjiew Regular Member

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    13 Singapore dollars for BG65, Bg66um cost around 16 Singapore dollars. I came from Indonesia where the stringing services even cheaper.

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  11. kakinami

    kakinami Regular Member

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    How many rackets do you string a year on average?

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  12. tjiew

    tjiew Regular Member

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    80 rackets a year. I have full time job as IT Analyst. So I do stringing mainly as my hobby. Hahaha

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  13. Alex82

    Alex82 Regular Member

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    I started stringing in January 2010 with a Pro's Pro Pioneer drop weight machine. The reason why I stared? Because the sport shop has increased the prices for stringing. First from 8 to 10 Euro and then to 14 Euro per racket with own string. Also there was only one (of three) stringers in the shop who can really string a Badminton racket. My first racket I strung was a Kason Lepton F1. I need nearly 4 hours to string it. At this time there were no videos about Badminton stringing (or I could not find it) on youtube. I looked a lot tennis stringing videos and try to adapt it.
    After 72 rackets I upgraded my machine a little bit with Chudek side supports and a Tension Wise Head. But I quickly realized that the machine (except the Chudek side supports and the Wise Head) is still horrible. The clamp base and the clamps itself were horrible (I mainly strung the Badminton rackets with flying clamps). Also the posts and the side arm were not stable enough. So I decided to buy a new and good stringing machine. I tested and looked at many machines. Signum Pro, Prince, Babolat, Wilson and ... Yonex. Finally I decided to go for the Yonex ES5Protech.
    In November 2012, after a problem with DHL (I only got 2 of 3 packets), I got my new baby. The machine was a dream... But before I strung the customer rackets on it, I do a lot of testing if the tension/stringbed feels different. After a while, I strung the customer rackets on it, with 1 kg less tension...
    Since April 2018 I also have a Yonex Protech 8 Deluxe and the ES5Protech is mainly for tournaments or if a customer wants to wait for his stringjob. The ES5 is in the basement in my "stringing room" where I also store my strings, gripts, etc. and the PT8DX stands in the living room behind the couch.

    When I started stringing Tennis rackets, I also want to know what I do, so I started to play Tennis.
    Since 2016 I play Racketlon (Table Tennis, Badminton, Squash and Tennis). Main sport it still Badminton.

    Mainly I string the most time at home. Sometimes I string at small local Badminton tournaments. Since last year I also string on a Junior ITF (Tennis) tournament.
    Last year I reached the 1000 rackets (per year). If there is no lockdown again this year, I should reach the 1000 again.
    This year I strung 356 Tennis rackets, 501 Badminton rackets and 27 Squash rackets and currently I have 11 Badminton rackets in the queue.

    Actually stringing is still my hobby, my full time job is Linux System Administrator...

    This forum helps me a lot to improve my stringing. Thanks a lot to all guys here! Especially @kwun and @kakinami!
     
  14. thyrif

    thyrif Regular Member

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    I started in 2016, when my rate of breaking BG80 had gone up quite a lot! Here there are not a lot of shops that can actually string badminton without damaging it (those butchers usually do tennis), so usually there are some people at the clubs that do it as a service for the club and their buddies. Our club was running low on stringers, and so the only stringer was very busy and took two weeks to get rackets back (looking at you, @Dekkert :p). So I decided to get stringing! With some help from this forum and @s_mair in particular I prepared and decided on a Super Stringer T20 and added some Chudek supports in the months after. The first racket took me 3 hours and then some. Luckily quickly got to under an hour and eventually settled around 30m with my dropweight machine.
    The machine is quite decent, but I'd like to upgrade to a nicer one with electronics in a couple of years. Nothing too fancy, I string as a hobby and a friendly service to my friends. My main job is in IT, and I have plenty of expensive hobbies as it is :p
    I strung around 300 rackets so far, with 80 being for myself. So not that many, although I have had a year hiatus and a lockdown right after eachother. But since this summer it has spiked to 10-15 a month. My girlfriend strings on my machine, too (about 60 rackets so far).

    I've enjoyed learning from this forum and @kwun and @kakinami 's videos a lot, also a lot of great discussions.

    What I have not enjoyed is when rackets come in that need ALL their grommets replaced, because of neglect from previous stringers. And what itches the most is rackets that have had their factory stringjob for ten years and people think it's just fine to play with :D

    Other hobbies include playing guitar (strings again! Just as important!) and riding motorcycles.
     
    #14 thyrif, Oct 2, 2020
    Last edited: Oct 2, 2020
  15. kakinami

    kakinami Regular Member

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    All your stories are quite enjoyable to read!!! Keep them coming!

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  16. mokomima

    mokomima Regular Member

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    Can't really remember when I started (but later than @Alex82 and @tjiew ), but I started because I broke around 2 strings per week. "Best" fail was when I tried BG 68 Ti and broke it after 5 minutes during warm up... Even when the price of a friend who strung my rackets was cheap (10€ with strings) it was quite expensive when you brake several rackets per months. So I did a research on the Internet about machines for beginners and talked to a friend who had a Pro's Pro Pilot. Then I bought one Pilot too. Learning from @kwun helped a lot;)

    I really wanted to improve my stringing so I watched different videos, what to do and what not to do. You can learn from bad videos as well. Then I gradually upgraded my Pro's Pro machine with Chudek side supports, semi-automatic clamp bases and then the Wise tension head.

    Due to some contacts in our club I got the chance to string at the Yonex German Open in 2017. Here I learned that stringing on a tournament is much different than stringing at home. Even if I was quite bad in this first tournament (just around 10 rackets per day) I could improve more and more and was invited again in the following years for the same tournament (then with much more than 10 rackets:D). My biggest tournament was in Basel 2019, the World Championships.

    For me stringing is still a hobby at home with around 700-800 rackets (only badminton) per year.


    After buying a used Yonex Protech 8 in 2018 I sold it some weeks ago this year and now stringing on a Yonex Precision 9.0:)

    For me badminton is a real passion and because I like photography too I take pictures of our 1. and 2. team in our club from time to time.

    Goals? Hmmm, I would say no matter how many rackets I get to keep the quality on a high level. That's what I'm looking for. For me that is more important than how fast I string or how many rackets people have given me at the end of a month.

    Even if not every topic here is really necessary for what you're looking for I really like to read other people's articles what they might think of or maybe someone has a problem and the others have great ideas to solve that.


    Oh, by the way @kakinami the Gudgeon knot is my main knot;) Thanks for your video about that.


    Keep going with interesting input;) Well done!
     
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  17. kakinami

    kakinami Regular Member

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    Why don't you share photos of your machine? You like photography? We should see some awesome photos of your beast! German Open?!! Do you know Boris, Maurice, or Dennis (I think was his name)? Great story!

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  18. kakinami

    kakinami Regular Member

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    Can I ask what string pattern do you use? Do you do Yonex pattern or Yonex modified pattern (tie mains at 9 and start cross at 8)? Someone at the 2019 World Championships used that pattern and you can see the knots in Ratchanok's racket in the 2020 Japan Yonex catalog.

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  19. mokomima

    mokomima Regular Member

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    I did this one for a stringing advertisement. Was quite a lot to do with lightning etc.

    IMG_7610.jpg


    Yes, I know Boris and Maurice, but never heard about someone called Dennis. Also a German stringer?
     
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  20. mokomima

    mokomima Regular Member

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    I use the Yonex standard pattern. I think @Alex82 said this in another post that in Germany we lose warranty on Yonex rackets, if we use another pattern. In the past I got an answer from Victor that you can use any pattern on their rackets wothout using warranty, only make sure to stay within the max. tension that is allowed for the specific racket.


    Haha, funny story about that. She had 4 or 5 rackets to get strung, but I was too late upstairs so I didn't get a racket from her. But a few moments later a got 2 Mizuno rackets from a person that later became World Champion in mens doubles. So the "frustration" was gone:D

    And because there was only 1 guy who used your pattern I know who it was. It was someone from Scandinavia. I think you know him;)
     

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