Beginner's questions - counting grommets and tying knots

[Pavlos]

Hello,

Well, I'm trying to grasp the basics of stringing, since it looks like I will be getting into it in the next few months. I have a few basic questions for the very helpful people in this forum.

OK, so, I have a few Wilson K90s at home, and they are strung precisely as the pictures on this (http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showpost.php?p=4896436&postcount=1) post show, at least as far as a two-piece string job and the positioning of the knots is concerned.

I also have the stringing instructions for this frame as follows:

Start M’s: At head. Mains skip 7T,9T, 7H and 9H. Tie off M’s at 9T.
If one-piece stringing: Start X’s at bottom at 7T. Tie off X’s at 5H.
If two-piece stringing: Start X’s at top at 7H. Tie off X’s at 5H and 11T.

OK, so, to make this easier, I took one of the pictures of the above post and added a few lines and numbers on it to make sure we are all talking about the same thing.

http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/2852/k90y.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/163/k90y.jpg/)

Questions..
1) Have I got the numbering right?
2) If I do have the numbering right, why does it look to me as if the mains have been tied off at 8T and not 9T as per the instructions?
3) Similar question about the crosses, to me they look as if they have been tied off at 9T, and, if you see the other pics in the post I linked to above, at 9H.

It could be just my stringer, but those pics are from Fed's match-used racquets, and I would highly doubt that these are not following the manufacturer's recommendations. So I guess I'm simply not reading something right. Please enlighten me...

Then, please enlighten me as to whether "tie off at (insert no.)" means that the knot should be at the grommet so numbered, or that the string should pass through that grommet and be tied off at the immediately adjacent grommet.

Lastly, from a few instructional videos I've watched online, it looks to me that even in two-piece jobs, you use a main as an 'anchor' string to tie off your crosses. In this picture, it looks like the crosses have been tied off to themselves. is there any advantage to this?

Thanks!

[Irvin]

Start mains at throat not at head
Mains tie off at 6T not 9T
Looks like crosses tie off at 8T

Roger's racket has gut mains and P1 does not tie the ALU rough on got so they used different holes.

Your numbering is right.

EDIT: I assume the reason P1 tied the mains off at 8T is so there would not be two strings covering up 7T. Because they are gut if there is a problems there is a good chance of breaking a string. I would do the same thing and tie off the bottom cross at 6T.

EDIT: If you use 9T as a tie off like they did you will need to widen out that grommet hole and that will weaken the grommet. If it were my racket I wouldn't do that. If you do make sure you open up that hole before you put a string in it.

EDIT: If you had shown the top of the racket I bet you a dollar to a doughnut they did not tie off the poly cross string on a natural gut main.

[Pavlos]

OK, interesting. The above stringing instructions were from the racquet's brochure back in the days of the K factor line. I just looked it up on Wilson's website, here (http://www.wilson.com/wilson/racq/string_instr.jsp), and this is what I got:

Start Main : at Throat. Mains skip 7H, 9H, 7T and 9T. Tie off M's at 6T.
One Piece : Start X's at bottom at 7T. Top X: 7H. Tie off X's at 5H.
Two Piece : Start X's at Top at 7H. Bottom X: 7T. Tie off X's at 5H and 11T.

Sounds better, but still different than what we see in that picture.

I guess my main question is whether there's an inherent advantage in tying off elsewhere.

[Irvin]

...I guess my main question is whether there's an inherent advantage in tying off elsewhere.

See the post above yours

[Pavlos]

Thanks. And yes indeed, they did not tie off the poly on a gut main, see here (http://i813.photobucket.com/albums/zz58/Fabfed/RogRacq2.jpg). They tied it on another cross. (at 9H).

So, from all this, can I assume that manufacturers take care to provide widened grommets at the tie-off holes?

[Irvin]

Thanks. And yes indeed, they did not tie off the poly on a gut main, see here (http://i813.photobucket.com/albums/zz58/Fabfed/RogRacq2.jpg). They tied it on another cross. (at 9H).

So, from all this, can I assume that manufacturers take care to provide widened grommets at the tie-off holes?

Yes they do. They have a larger inside and outside diameter to accommodate both strings.