Even before I start, the bad news is, the package containing the natural gut was found folded and squashed into my letterbox. When I inspected the natural gut, there was already some white spots where the strings were folded. I'm keeping my fingers crossed...
After cutting out and removing the old strings, I inspected each grommet hole carefully and felt for any rough edges. The few sharp corners I found were gently sanded down to make sure it posed no danger to the natural gut.
To remove some of the coil memory, I wrapped the gut around a pole and pulled gently. That made it so much easier to work with.
At only 32 lbs, I'm surprised that natural gut does not stretch much. It's very similar to poly. The only difference is when I "ping" the mains, the sound is so melodious! I can understand now why musicians like natural gut in their string instruments. The tune is totally different from syn gut and poly.
Here's a close-up look of Klip Legend Natural Gut. It's a beautiful string.
Weaving the crosses really slowly to avoid string burn.
To cushion the sharp grommet turn at the throat area, I inserted a few small pieces of leather.
Playtest:
- Ball impact is very soft and comfortable. It feels much more crisper than syn gut. However, I prefer the ELT syn gut feel more.
- The stringbed feels quite responsive and powerful but there are absolutely no hints of any trampoline.
- I noticed that when I really go after the ball for hard shots, I get a feeling of loss of control and then see the ball go long. With ELT syn gut, the harder swings are often well rewarded with extra spin and power with precision.
- The slightly "gummy" coating of the string really "grabbed" the ball very well for topspin shots. I can feel the "bite" during the upward brush motion and then see the ball kick up high and fast after bouncing.
- Spin levels clearly loses out to the previous 17g syn gut. Not by a lot, just slightly. Maybe 20-30% less?
- From the first hit, there is a strange vibration and pinging sound that could not be dampened. It remained even after about 45min of rallying.
- Volleys are good but felt a little too firm for my liking. I still preferred the ELT syn gut as it feels more consistent and predictable.
- Somehow, this stringbed feel reminds me of the Wilson Sensation NXT 16g multifilament that I used to prefer (in the late 1990s). I used to string that in this racket at 65-67lbs.
- I still don't understand how to maximise the potential of this stringbed. I'll let the string settle-in and try it again.
- Below pic shows how little string movement there is after play.
- Took this out for a spin again...
- I can feel the stringbed has softened a bit. The pocketing feels much deeper than the last session. In fact, the pocketing is probably the deepest among all the ELT strings I have tried.
- The thing I don't like about such deep pocketing is that sometimes I clip the frame on the inside when hitting topspin shots. Also, I noticed with deeper pocketing, the ball tend to depart from the stringbed on a higher trajectory than with shallow pocketing. So I have to aim much lower with this.
- Power is in abundance. No surprise since it's natural gut. My lady playing partner totally LOVED this stringbed. With normal tensions, she always had problems hitting it deep. But with this, the stringbed and racket did all the work for her! At the receiving end, most of her shots landed low and deep, just before the baseline.
- Spin and directional control seems to still lose out to ELT syn gut.
- Unfortunately, the vibrations are still there.
- There's not much string movement but the natural gut is starting to fray very very slightly.
23Mar2013 update:
- My partner liked these strings very much so I let her use this racket almost the entire two hour rally session.
- With the few hits I tried, the vibrations seem to have reduced very significantly.
- Strangely, the stringbed felt a little firmer and tighter and gave me better directional control this time.
- Spin is almost the same as ELT syn gut.
- If I were to try this same string at this tension again, I'll most likely prestretch it a fair bit, or maybe pull tension twice for every string. That will probably help the string to settle-in faster considering how low I am tensioning it.
- Compared with ELT syn gut, I still think the difference is marginal, with natural gut offering slightly more pocketing and power but less spin.
- After this session, the strings would have clocked about 6 hours of use.
29Mar2013 update:
- The vibrations are still there and I do not like it at all.
- I can see the main strings starting to fray.
Strings:
Klip Legend Natural Gut 1.30mm @ 32 lbs
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