ProStaff 6.0 85 with Gut/Poly

Now that the weather in Singapore is turning dry, I thought it might be an opportune time for my second "pilgrimage" with the ProStaff 6.0 85. The first was completed here.

Gut/Poly hybrid is a holy grail all ProStaff 6.0 owners must try. It is touted to open up the sweetspot, add controlled power, offer incredible comfort and maximum topspin anyone can muster.

This racket has a drill pattern with skips at 7 & 9, top and bottom. With natural gut in the mains, the blocked holes can create problems for the crosses later. Using an awl or even a scrap piece of string to "unblock" the holes can stress or easily snap the completed natural gut mains.

Since I had about 20 ft of natural gut from the half-set, I calculated there was more than enough for the mains. 

So, while doing the mains, I filled the top 2 and bottom 2 crosses before completing the last mains. That solved all the blocked holes problem.

Specifically (T=Top, B=Bottom):
- Complete mains 1 to 6 for both left and right sides,
- Fill 7th main on right side but do not tension,
- Using left mains, complete crosses 7B & 9B,
- Fill and tension 7th main on left side,
- Tension 7th main on right side, then complete crosses 7T & 9T,
- Complete both outer mains and tie-off at bottom.

(Or you can complete mains 1 to 6, then box the rest. However, you may need to open up a new tie-off hole.)

Other than preventing problems with blocked holes, any tension loss from tie-off is isolated from spreading to the inner mains. This offers better tension stability. 

Instead of discarding the excess natural gut, using it the fill the outermost crosses helps to soften the dead spots a little, reducing vibrations. A little shorter length, maybe 3-4 ft less, of cross strings was needed to fill the rest of the crosses too.

Another advantage was having an easier time weaving the dreaded final poly cross string since there was more space away from the 6 o'clock mounting. You can see the difference immediately from the pic below!

Natural gut is a beautiful string to look at. That golden translucent glow is mesmerizing. Here's a close-up pic.

For those who think it takes a lot to wield the 85 square inch racket, know that the difference between an 85 and 95 square inch is very minor. You can see the comparison here.

Compared to syn gut, multi, or poly, gut/poly is definitely more expensive. Probably by about twice or thrice. However, most users, who were not chronic string breakers, were able to eke out at least double the playable string life, compared to their non-gut setup. 

Some even claimed their gut combos lasted more than 50 hours! If you do the sums, paying twice the amount for five times as long durability, isn't gut cheaper?


Playtest:
Here's how it looked after about 2 hours of ball bashing. No need to straighten strings and absolutely zero notching.

- Comfort --> Extremely Good
- Spin --> Extremely Good
- Power --> Extremely Good
- Control --> Extremely Good
- Durability --> Still testing
- The greatest difference was how much easier gut/poly made the game. There were so many shots that I could not execute with other strings that were easily achieved with this. It's almost like legalized cheating!