I happily accepted it and offered to post my review.
It was in a transparent plastic bag. No names nor labels. Just a type-written sticker pasted over the sealed bag, saying "Naturel Gut".
The gut looks very smooth and had a translucent glow, something like Klip and Babolat VS. Other than the packaging, it does not look like budget stuff to me.
After clearing most of the backlog of work and stringing requests, I thought maybe it's time for my annual pilgrimage with the ProStaff 6.0 again... (link1)(link2)(link3)...
All the standard steps were strictly adhered to. Things like cleaning clamps, prestretching gut to remove coil memory, checking grommets for sharp edges, etc.
However, the natural gut snapped during tensioning. I had only completed 6 mains when it happened. All at a modest tension of 55 lbs.
Fortunately, the snap point still left me enough gut to fill only the centre mains in the ProStaff 6.0, like in the "Lendl Pattern" (link).
So I filled the outer perimeter with poly first, then started on the mains very very carefully and slowly...
But just when I was tensioning the second last main string, the natural gut snapped again! Somehow, the first snap point triggered a second snap point in the natural gut!!!
Of the three snaps so far, none occurred at the clamps.
Could installing budget natural gut into the ProStaff 6.0 be disrespectful and blasphemous? Was that why the gut kept snapping? Because the ProStaff 6.0 rejected it?
After one hour, two failed attempts, with three snap points, I was beginning to understand why my friend was so "generous" to give me that pack.
Since I had gone so far, I decided to continue with the remaining half-set in the pack and be done with it. Successful or not!
At last!
Ended up with so many short pieces of snapped natural gut!
It played very well, but I doubt I would use these budget stuff again. Really a waste of time!
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