Natural gut always attract a lot of interest and attention. It is a pricey string, but it also plays second to none.
As soon as I posted my second "pilgrimage" (link), I received a barrage of questions on how the setup plays, how long it lasts, is tension holding really that amazing, how much it costs, etc.
To save myself from becoming a broken record, I compiled some observations in this post.
Stringing
- Before opening the pack of natural gut, every grommet hole must be carefully inspected for sharp edges. Any found must be gently and smoothly sanded down. Then checked again.
- New grommets or new unstrung rackets should not have natural gut as their first stringjobs.
- Gut kinks easily. Previously, I accidentally dropped the gut after snipping off the cable tie and the entire 40 ft tangled up in a huge mess! (link). A light prestretch is a must. Not optional.
- After the prestretch, I always inspect the gut for any kinks or bad patches before stringing. If found, photos were taken and sent to the owners to decide if they want to proceed at their risk.
- To prevent friction burns, either with the grommets or the crosses, waxing is a must. I do it twice - before and after stringing.
- All clamps, including the string gripper, should be cleaned and adjusted before stringing. Too tight and the gut flattens or snaps. Too loose and it slips.
Playing
- Some claimed gut needed a break-in period. Mine played well from the first hit.
- Gut/poly was very lively, crisp and pocketed the ball very well. The string rebound was fast and powerful. The long dwell time allowed me to execute a lot of strokes I usually could not. Even late hits or last minute saves sometimes became offensive shots!
- Spin was very easy and serves were effortless. Mid-game, when I swapped back to my full syn gut for a test, I had to swing so much harder for my serves. And I lost a lot of control and double-faulted!
- Visually, my partners and I noticed my ball speed was much slower with syn gut. They could chase and return what would have been winning passing shots with natural gut.
- Comfort was supreme! The ball must have enjoyed the hits! It probably felt more like landing on a plush pillow than being bashed by a tight stringbed.
- Even with the small 85 square inch frame, I felt gut/poly opened up the sweetspot larger than on a 100 square inch frame with other strings. It inspired confidence to just let go and rip the ball back. And most times, it turned out perfectly, just like on TV! So much so, that at times, I believed I could execute some of those shots-of-the-day by the touring pros.
- Instantly, just by using gut/poly, it gave me about a 30% improvement in my overall game.
Tension Holding
- Tension stability was impressive. Nothing comes close.
- Stringbed frequency measurements below:
| Total Usage (hours) |
Frequency (Hz) |
|---|
Strung
|
659.0
|
1.5
|
648.0
|
3.0
|
643.8
|
4.0
|
640.9
|
6.0
|
639.3
|
8.0
|
637.0
|
- As a comparison, most other strings usually drop about 30 to 40 Hz overnight after stringing without play. This setup lost only 22 Hz after 8 hours of play.
- Playing conditions (in Singapore) for the 8 hours was in the low 30s degrees Celcius. New pressurized balls were used, sometimes new Wilson trainers.
- Being excited with the setup, I stood slightly further back from the baseline than usual and swung much more freely than with my usual syn gut. In other words, I bashed the ball much harder than usual.
Poly String Death
- Since I restring myself, and none of my strings were used beyond 10 hours, I am very sensitive to flat strings.
- Somewhere around the 4th or 5th hour of use, I started struggling with this stringbed. Initially, I thought I was not performing well that session. Felt sluggish, lacked power and sprayed some shots wide. I stepped up and swung harder.
- Then, the tennis balls felt a little flat. So I changed to new balls. Immediately, control dipped. Shots flew long.
- The rebound timing of the stringbed was off. When fresh, the ball pocketed deep, then came off the strings enthusiastically, powerfully. Now it felt tired. It pocketed, but returned much slower and weaker. This longer dwell time meant a later part of my follow-through was now determining the ball trajectory.
- By the 5th session of use, which was going into its 7th and 8th hour, the sweetspot almost completely disappeared. Most of my impacts felt more like framed-shots with some light string buzzing.
- My serve lost so much pace and control. Volleys were so weak the ball kept dropping into my side of the net.
- The racket became very difficult to use and dragged me down. Shots that previously could be pulled off all fell flat.
- For the first time, the kevlar/graphite composite PS6.0 felt stiff with jarring vibrations! Both my wrist and elbow felt very uncomfortable too.
- As a simple test of resiliency, I pulled several gut mains apart and released. All snapped back very quickly. Pulling the poly crosses aside was so much easier. Less strength was needed and less resistance encountered. Not a single cross string snapped back when released. (See crosses 3 to 11 above, all pulled aside)
- Clearly, the gut was still behaving very well, and was supporting the bulk of the ball impact. However, the huge tension loss in the poly created too much "slack" for it to be of any further use.
Replacing Only the Crosses
- The beauty of a gut/poly hybrid is, you can restring ONLY the dead poly!!! (If your stringer would not do it, find another who would!)
- Beware! Hybriding poly with gut WILL NOT insure you against wrist pain nor tennis elbow. Mine hurt after merely 6 hours of use. The poly "died". Use poly safely. Always replace them after 8 to 10 hours, or less.
- While removing the cut poly strings, a sharp edge caught on the gut and snapped the 7th main. Fortunately, the tension loss was contained within the top 2 and bottom 2 crosses due to the way I had strung earlier (link).
- I clamped the 4th main on both sides, re-worked and re-tensioned only the 5th and 6th main strings. Thus converted the gut to fill only the centre 12 mains. The centre 8 mains were completely untouched from its initial stringjob.
- I smeared some coconut oil on the gut strings to lubricate it. Then filled all the rest with synthetic gut and saved a snapped gut string job!
Playtest
- The stringbed came to life again!
- All the earlier felt components - power, control and comfort came back in full force! Only spin was slightly less than before.
- At my first session after this re-work, my partner, "F", commented via a sms message after our game:
"Actually today your shots were pretty accurate, percentage higher than all other times. Strings or skill?!"
- It had to be the natural gut! How could I improve so fast?
Countless have restrung only the crosses of a used stringbed successfully.
But I have yet to hear about successful restringing of mains only. A previous post (link) explained why it could not be done.
Then I thought, instead of anchoring the main supports at 12 & 6 o'clock of the racket hoop, would it be possible if mounted at 3 & 9 instead?
That would prevent the crosses from compressing and distorting the frame width once the mains are cut, wouldn't it?
From this perspective, doesn't it seem like the "crosses" were being strung instead?
First 2 pics below was width measurement before the above mains restring. Next 2 pics below was after.
Before:
After:
While the frame width maintained its exact measurement after the mains restring, it is important to note that the width still compressed about 6-7mm from an unstrung state. (The most extreme distortion I witnessed for this frame was a narrowing of about 11-12mm).
Even though the mains did not snap, this warp occurred because tension loss and string creep caused greater elongation in the main strings than the crosses.
Nevertheless, if this works out, I believe there could be huge implications on how rackets could be restrung, as long as one understands and accepts the risks.
Playtest:
- The first impression was how much tighter the mains felt compared to how it last played.
- The mains dominated the feel of ball impacts. It was nice to feel it pocketing and supporting the ball as the stringbed depresses before rebounding accurately.
- Although this sounds odd, but compared to the more commonly felt feeling of the crosses supporting most of the impact, having the mains do the bulk of the work was way better! I enjoyed this tremendously!
- For this to happen, clearly, the crosses have lost a fair bit of string tension. But still, there was no instance of any odd rebound angle nor trampoline.
- If you try to imagine a freshly strung racket with the main strings about 10-15 lbs tighter than the crosses, that's probably how this felt like to me.
- Control and confidence improved. I felt more at ease just taking full relaxed swings instead of holding back with the previous worn main strings.
- String bite, feel and spin improved significantly over the old mains.
- For second serves, both sidespin and topspin curled the ball down much faster than anticipated, causing many to land short, almost right in the middle of my opponent's service box, before kicking up. So we knew spin increased.
- Sweetspot size felt the same. Likewise, shots hit off-sweetspot did not feel more or less harsh, nor extra low-powered.
- Frame width maintained the same after an hour of play.
All the times that I restrung only the mains did not end up well. Either the stringbed developed heavy vibrations, or there was a sense of loss of control.
Now that I am testing fishing line fervently, and that the thin fishing line snaps so frequently, the question that kept popping up was, "Why not restring only the main strings after it snaps?"
The sole reason is racket warp. Once deformed, a lot of other variables are affected, such as, length, width, swingweight, sweetspot size, sweetspot location, pocketing, and feel.
Take a look for yourself...
On the left below was the freshly strung fishing mains with syn gut. On the right, the fishing mains snapped at two locations after about an hour of play. Compare the shape, length and width of the racket hoop.
In the right picture, the racket hoop has narrowed and lengthened. Since the mains snapped, there was no tension holding together 12 and 6 o'clock anymore. The crosses compressed the hoop at 3 and 9 o'clock together, narrowing the frame.
As soon as I got home, I measured the frame width.
Just like that, the hoop narrowed by 9mm, which was huge!
I tried. No amount of re-tensioning on the mains could restore the frame back to its original shape.
So re-stringing mains only cannot, and should not be done.
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.
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.
During odd stringing experiments, sometimes the mains snap after the crosses were done. Usually, that meant re-doing the entire stringjob since the crosses were tied to the mains.
After some thought, I decided to modify my racket's grommets to allow tying crosses to crosses. Some modern sticks already have this "feature" in stock form.
I'll let the pictures do the talking...
After the mod was done, I strung the racket to test it out. It worked out pretty well.
However, barely an hour later, the mains snapped!!!
I ran through my mental checklist:
1. Is this a precious racket to me, expensive or hard to find?
2. Am I prepared to risk breakage or warping this frame?
3. Will I get injured?
Then I took the plunge... and did some taboo stuff...
Well... the frame remained intact. No cracking nor warping. And weaving the mains was not any more difficult than weaving the crosses.
I guess this meant another tick for my unorthodox to-do list...
Playtest:
- The racket played a little strange though. The feel of the crosses seemed to appear more dominant than the mains. It could be due to poor mains tensioning from the crosses' frictions? On hindsight, I should have pulled tension twice for each main string.
- There's huge string movement in the mains too.
- It's playable.
05Nov2013 update:
- There must be some string-hungry gremlins running amok... The mains snapped again!!!
- This would be the second time that only the mains were re-done.
Playtest:
- I think this is the second time (link) I tried a fullbed of fishing line and it played very well.
- The feel is much crisper than when hybrid with syn gut. But not as stiff as full poly. Probably crisper than a fullbed of Solinco Tour bite but softer than most polys.
- I would rate this as primarily a spin setup. I could curl the ball anyway and anyhow I wanted.
- Comfort and power were good.
- Despite the very thin (0.9mm) mains line, I was surprised that both flat and spin serves held up so well. Placing the serves were not any more difficult than with my kevlar / syn gut hybrid. So control was very good indeed.
- The sweetspot felt a little smaller than with the syn gut hybrid (link). Or it could be due to the different racket?
- When I examined the strings after about an hour of very hard hits, there was zero notching. Just abrasion marks where the mains and crosses intersect.
- String movement was minimal and there were no huge gaps that caused odd rebound angles.
- When I measured the tension by frequency, the total loss was only about 13% compared to almost 40% when I first tried using fishing line.
- Costs aside, this is a very enjoyable and playable setup for me. Just hope the string gremlins wouldn't chew up this one!
