A playing partner with unusually large hands was complaining of how the handle kept twisting in his hand during play.
Despite new tacky overgrips and adding lead to 3 and 9, it did not solve the problem. So we suspected it was the grip size. (We should have thought of it first!)
A quick measure (link) found that he should be using 4¾ inches! The grip size on his racket stated 4⅜, which meant it was undersized by a whopping ⅜ inches! Goodness!
Other than re-molding the grip, the next best alternative would be to beef it up. Heat shrink sleeves are most commonly used, but they add too much weight and rounds the feel of the bevels.
Overgrips add about 6g each and wrapping three would add too much weight as well.
A quick check online showed balsa wood to be extremely light and strong for its weight. It's the same material used to make model aeroplanes and quite a few reported good feedback with it.
I'll let the pics do the rest of the talking...
Measurements before.
And after.
Playtest:
- He commented the fit became so much better and incredibly snug! Much less pressure was needed to grip it.
- Several gaps previously found between his palm and the grip have diminished or disappeared. Those skin folds were responsible for the racket twist and wobble.
- With a greater part of his hand now in contact with the grip, there is much better traction.
- The number of racket twists from off-centred hits have reduced significantly. Not that he was hitting any better, but the racket became more stable.
- He felt more confident when going for tight shots or corners as the racket was more connected. Serves improved.
- There was also an unexpected positive change in ball contact feel. Both the ball and strings felt a lot more crisp and lively, just like how a new stringjob would feel.
- The previous cushion grip and layers of overgrips muffled the impact too much and made the strings feel old, almost like hitting wet balls in the rain.
- Some "noise" or vibrations could also have been filtered out by the balsa wood. Impacts felt very "clean".
- Because of the larger grip and buttcap, less strength was needed to hold it firmly. This looser grip allowed him to swing more freely and power increased from the momentum. He was muscling the ball less and looked more effortless from my side of the court.
- Two downsides were, the addition of about 10 grams in weight, and a slightly slower grip change between strokes. It could just be a habit issue. Not a huge price to pay considering the incredible payoffs.
- Now I know why Nate Ferguson's first tip is to start with the grip! (link)
Over a cuppa with my fishing line "sponsor" (link), we discussed how to further improve fishing line's playing characteristics.
Since both that thin fishing line and poly have high tension loss, we had to pre-stretch and string both at very high tensions.
That led to racket warp and poor string durability. And poly STILL lost heaps of tension.
We liked the slick poly for the fish mains to slide and snapback. So we couldn't eliminate it. Then we thought, how about reducing a few poly crosses and filling them with something else?
That's how this quad-brid came about! Yep, four different strings with eight knots!
A thick fishing line, leftover from some previous stringing experiments was used. After some planning on where to tie the knots and estimating the tension adjustments, the stringing started.
The frame narrowed by only 1mm to 26.2cm this time, so the tensioning was quite evenly balanced out.
Playtest:
- After hitting for 15 minutes or so for the strings to break-in, I started wondering if tension holding was too good.
- It felt more like a board than a set of strings. But this was a good problem to have since we wanted to lower tension to increase durability!
- The only two things I did not like about the "boardy feel" was the extremely low power and reduced spin. Control and ball feel remained very good.
- As usual, a centre main string was snapped by a flat serve.
Up till now, fishing line remains the most challenging string I have worked with.
Many friends and playing partners dismissed me as crazy until they had a go with my rackets. Then some got hooked as well!!!
If you have not tried it, don't start. Once hooked, it is very difficult to accept any other strings.
Maybe some of my failures below could act as a deterrent?
The initial problem was poor tension holding, which was solved by some ridiculous pre-stretch before stringing. Then the line kept snapping during tensioning or tie-offs.
So I tried using fishing crimps instead of tying knots. Unfortunately, that did not work well. Some crimps slipped, some snapped the string, some did not sit down well after crimping while others slid through the grommet hole.
To overcome the constant snapping, I tried a "divide and conquer" strategy. The 12 centre mains were divided into 3 pieces of 4 mains each, resulting in 6 knots, hopefully, to mitigate the amount of re-work if/when each line snaps.
However, the tension loss during tie-offs was more severe than anticipated, despite adding 15 lbs per tie-off. This, in turn, caused uneven pressures between the mains and crosses.
Above, the left racket (note the six orange knots) width was 25.3cm and the right, 26.3cm. The sweetspot disappeared for the left racket, just like this case (link).
This is why flexible hoops are a little more difficult to string well compared to stiff hoops.
The line was cut out immediately and re-strung. Back to a more conventional two tie-off knots this time.
There's some parallax error in the pic above, but the width read 26.3cm after the restring. It took me just two attempts before succeeding this time. Not too bad.
All in all, about four hours was spent pursuing this.
Still keen to try fishing line?
20May2014 update:
- The racket in the last picture above was strung with fishing line mains and a shaped-poly cross.
- It was a bad decision as the mains snapped in just 30 minutes of play, severely notched by the sharp poly edge.
I could neither afford the time nor the money to keep restringing the fishing line after every 2-3 hours of play. Neither could I drop the idea after experiencing how well it played.
So a compromise need to be reached... I decided to convert two normal grommets to tie-off holes to faciliate greater ease of restring.
The pics below explain some of the what's and how's...
Note that each string's tie-off was anchored onto itself and not on another string.
Lest you are still wondering, this same string tie-off would allow me to restring ONLY whichever string that breaks...
Playtest:
- For this session of tennis, I pushed this stringbed very hard, trying to see if I could muscle it enough to snap it in an hour. Despite the four consecutive sets I played, the string prevailed.
- With proper pre-stretch, tension holding was very nice and string movement was very minimal. (Crosses 9 and 10 were pulled apart by me to check for notching)
- Notching was slight. About 1/4 of the diameter of the fishing line. If this lasts 6-8 hours, I would be more than satisfied!
- Comfort, spin and control remains excellent!
12May2014 update:
- A flat serve snapped the mains. Total play time was only about 5 hours.
- Despite the notching, the mains did not move much. All aspects like spin, control, power and comfort remained intact from first hit. I could not detect any deterioration in performance.
- Compared to the other fishing lines with syn gut (link), spin was still slightly better with this. Several serves and groundstrokes which my partner thought were long curled down in the last minute.
- Another prominent difference was that this premium Japanese line felt so much more softer and comfortable. Ball feel was better than the rest too.
Two different brands of poly strings snapped while stringing. They could not handle the tensions I wanted.
My original intention of creating another tri-brid (link) was shelved. It was a pity because I found the fishing/poly/multi tri-brid to play very well. Syn gut was used instead.
That explained why I strung the outer mains with syn gut first in the pics below. Otherwise, I would have just done it up as a straightforward two-piece hybrid.
This string was not made in Japan. It's 1.0mm thick and felt stiffer than the Japanese version.
For some strange reasons, the flying clamps kept slipping and literally flew off the strings today. So I used two together with a starting clamp on the outside of the frame during alternate tension pulls.
Playtest:
- Actually, this setup played not too bad compared to the poly cross.
- I felt the sliding of the fishing mains was not significantly reduced. Just slightly.
- Comfort and power levels were better than with poly in the cross.
- With this different fishing line, softer impacts felt a little too quiet and dampened. My partner M felt it was a little "dead", but to me, it was not that bad.
- No harsh vibrations were felt at any point, even off-centre contacts.
- Harder hits felt soft, good and very controlled.
- The most surprising thing I discovered was that there was almost no notching even after about 90 minutes. I'm pinning some hopes for durability on this line.
- Take a look at the before (above pic) and after close-up view of the strings. The darker patches on the black syn gut were abraded by the fishing mains, evidence of free sliding and snap-back of the mains. The black round syn gut now looked like a shaped-poly!
- String movement was very minimal. No adjustments were made to the pic below after play.
- I would award this higher marks than the fishing/poly/multi (link) tri-brid.
09May2014 update:
- The string snapped in the bag overnight. Total playtime probably added up to 3 to 4 hours.
- I tried to re-do only the mains with yet another fishing line, but that line snapped while tensioning, whipped across my arm and left a cut. Got to wear long sleeves next time!
Since there was a "sponsor" (link) for me to hunt for a local equivalent of the premium Japanese fishing line, I would be accelerating the search and test for fishing lines.
Many combinations would fail right off the stringing machine. Some may not even survive the stringing process. Neither would there be enough time for me to write and post every single attempt, so only selected ones may be posted.
This would be yet another brand of fishing line with poly in the Black Ace 98. (link1)(link2)(link3)
Playtest:
- Huge vibrations were sensed during ball contacts. Even just from bouncing a ball on the ground.
- The stringbed felt very comfortable and soft, but it was too powerful. Strangely, not in the trampoline sense as control was still very much intact. Just too much power for us to take full unhindered swings at the ball.
- Spin was very good. Much better than any full poly I have tried in any racket.
- M, who was testing this with me, enjoyed the spin, power and comfort. If the power could be tamed slightly, he thought this carried great potential in his preferred Yonex RD-7. The vibrations did not bother him at all, probably since he never liked strings with dampeners in the first place. (link)
- To speed up the string search, three ProKennex Black Ace 98s were used together with one strung very traditionally using syn gut as a reference racket for comparision.
- So far, the bottom racket (link) is leading the race in all aspects.
When I mentioned to some folks about how two of my ProStaff Classics (RA72 stiffness) distorted after stringing, few believed me. They thought it was impossible and that I was crazy and just being picky! It was a pity I did not take pics then.
One racket lengthened by 9mm and the sweetspot totally disappeared. When I brought it back, the stringer simply dismissed it as "manufacturing tolerances". That was one of the first few brushes that drove me to buy my own stringing machine.
History keeps repeating. Names withheld, two matched ProKennex Black Ace 98s suffered the same fate as my ProStaff Classic.
The chap (named DL) met up with me and asked why was one of his racket totally unplayable.
Let the pics below speak...
The top racket had yellow mains, bottom one had blue mains.
Both DL and myself tested the rackets. The hoop length of the racket with blue mains was compressed 12mm shorter. Take a look at the last pic above, near the words "Precision".
That's why I usually measure and check the hoop length and width before and after stringing (link1)(link2). If the difference exceeds 5mm, I usually cut and re-do everything from scratch.
