The thin 0.90mm fishing line plays very soft. From what I know, soft strings pair up best with stiff ones. That's how hybrids like gut/poly or poly/syn gut became so popular.
Here's some pics...
This very thin fishing line is extremely difficult to string. So far, most occasions when I used it were troublesome. Rarely straightforward.
Right after the completed racket was dismounted, the fish mains snapped! Not the first time it happened, so I clamped near the snapped portion immediately and re-mounted the racket.
As there wasn't any fishing line already heavily pre-stretched, I used some leftover fishing line and patched the stringjob. The other alternative was to ditch everything, but since it was my own racket, I could accept a patch. (You can see two extra knots in the pic below at RM3 & RM4.)
In case you're unaware, string patch jobs were extremely common during wood rackets' heydays. Then, only natural gut was available, and whenever a string snapped, it was usually patched and re-used! (link) So much so, that it was common to see multiple knots in one racket, and even multi-toned natural guts from different batches!
Playtest:
- Played with a fit and fast lefty named BL.
- As usual, most of the younger folks I met were using the Babolat AeroPro Drive strung with RPM Blast in the mid-50s.
- BL tested this setup and liked the soft cushioning and string bite.
- At my receiving end, there was a lot more spin coming across with this setup. Most of his previously hip high topspin shots started kicking aggressively and offensively upwards to my ear height. My timing went haywire immediately and I frame-hit many shots, recovering only after I took two steps back.
- When I tested it, the patched area was soft but not uncontrollable. It was powerful, comfortable and very spinny.
- It played quite similar to another previous fishing line/poly setup (link) but this had much more "bite".
- Some notching was observed after just one session and only the patched strings moved.
01May2014 update:
- A friend borrowed this racket and snapped the mains! Couldn't blame him entirely since the strings were already notched from my first session.
- He managed to hit with it for about 90 minutes. So in total, the thin fishing line lasted only about 2.5 hours. (Both my friend and I are not hard-hitters anymore)
- The comfort impressed him the most, followed by spin and then the controllable power.
- This chap is quite well-to-do. He liked the string enough to "sponsor" my hunt for a more easily available fishing line instead of from Japan.
- Despite the hassle of pre-stretching and re-stringing with the very delicate (and temperamental) fishing line, I couldn't shake it off my mind. It played too nice to ignore. I'll have to live with this very short playing life of the string!
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