Budget Natural Gut

If natural gut could be made more affordable, then there would be much less arm injuries.

Maybe, more than half of the current string brands could also close down due to poor demand.

Other than price, there is nothing to hold anyone back from trying or using natural gut. That string alone is capable of elevating anyone's game. Natural gut excels in power, control, spin and comfort like no other.

That's why the lure of cheap gut is irresistible... (Thanks to Cullin Kin for sharing his review here)

As with most new strings, I like to weigh them and check the exact gauge. It's 14 grams for half a set of this budget natural gut. That's very heavy.

Although touted to be 16 gauge, it measured closer to 1.50mm. That's about 14L or 15 gauge! Thick!

The string felt much stiffer and coarser than all other natural guts I had tried. Whatever coating it had appeared very little and somewhat inconsistent. There were many "weak spots" where the gut had no coatings at all.

Coil memory was minimal. It just expanded apart when the cable tie was cut.

From the packing, the string was downright oily! Probably had as much oil as my breakfast bacon. Did they deep fry the natural gut before packing it?!?

Took a few pieces of tissue just to wipe off most of the oil. If not cleaned properly, it would wreck havoc on the string clamps and gripper later on during stringing.

Despite that, more oil seeped out from the string during tensioning. So it became - thread, wipe, tension, wipe, wipe...

Compared to any other natural guts, this had very little elongation during tensioning. It felt stiff, like a poly.

Most of the whitish spots in the close-up pic below were weak spots with almost zero coating. Just plain natural gut fibres twisted together. It held up well after tensioning though.

Strung as a gut/poly hybrid in a 16x19 frame at 52/48 lbs, it played terribly.

The stringbed responded ONLY to all out 100% full swings. Shots hit softer felt dead, stiff and boardy. Nothing like natural gut at all. It resembled dead full poly more than a fresh bed of gut/poly.

Giving it a benefit of doubt, my friend clobbered balls against the wall to see if the string would "break-in". But it remained dead, even after several hours of play over a few sessions.

So we moved on to try another pack that measured thinner although all were labelled as 16 gauge.

Gauge was inconsistent throughout that same piece of 6.5 metres half-set. Some parts measured 1.25mm, other area about 1.40mm.

Fortunately, this second pack was overall thinner than the first pack we tried. However, 16 gauge would mean about 1.30mm, or 1.32mm at most. This 1.40mm diameter would still put it squarely into the 15 gauge category. So gauge wise, it remained unacceptably inconsistent to me.

Using about 3 feet from the end, I pulled tensioned at 52 lbs, marked and measured the elongation and let it stay under tension for about 10 minutes. The creep, frequency and string diameter all behaved close to other natural guts I have used.

To ensure consistency with the first pack, this was strung in another identical frame, with the same poly cross, at the same tension and with the same tie-offs. Literally ceteris paribus.

Even during stringing, I could tell this would play much better. The string no longer resisted stretching like a poly. It was much softer and pliable.

However, the inconsistent gauge seemed to affect elongation slightly. Within the 8 centre mains, which are very close in length (due to the Yonex isometric head shape), the same amount of slack provided for near the string gripper DID NOT allow the tension arm to be as near parallel as it should.

Translated, this meant there would be "hot spots" on the stringbed that may be exceptionally lively and powerful. And there would be "dead spots" where the gut would yield less and have less power. All within just the centre 8 main strings.

The chap whom I strung this for, M, seemed to enjoy this setup very much. While the performance could not be rated similar to better guts, the price/performance ratio was good enough for him to consider converting to this setup. It all depends how long the playability would last.

Exactly what I meant when I mentioned the lure of cheap gut earlier.




   

Badminton Racket with Fishing Line

Recently, there has been some requests for me to re-string badminton rackets. I have no idea how and why this happened. Those who know that I string just started asking.

To them, it seemed like stringing is just stringing. There is no distinction between different sports nor rackets.

So, on a hot and lazy afternoon, out of sheer boredom, and a tinge of curiosity, I ventured out to try stringing my first badminton racket. It's mine, so there's little risk even if damaged. 

After studying the old string pattern carefully, I cut out the three decade's old strings on my Yonex Carbonex 8.

This stringjob was intended for a little girl, so there is no better color to choose other than pink! The centre mains were threaded first since they would be obstructed by the mounting plates.

Most online sources recommended a string tension of between 16 to 20 lbs for this racket. And 20 lbs happened to the minimum tension this stringing machine could accomodate. So 20 lbs it was.

(Even with the minimum calibration at 20 lbs, it is possible to tension it lower by manipulating the angle of the tension arm. If I set the tension at 25 lbs, but only allowed the tension arm to lower to 45 degrees, the actual tension pulled would be only 17.7 lbs)

To prevent the string clamps from snapping the string, I inserted thin pieces of paper to act as a "cushion". This ensures the paper was squashed instead of the thin string. The paper fibres also added a lot more friction and grip. I experienced zero slippage throughout.

It was important to note that badminton rackets are strung bottom-up. Cannot recall the rationale but something alone the lines to prevent distortion I think.

Weaving was difficult. The very dense 22x23 string pattern meant my fingers could not push the strings through the gaps as well as on a tennis racket. I was slow, but got the job done.

The stringjob was far from ideal. But it was an enjoyable learning experience and perfectly playable!