The J011yroger guide to strings.

[J011yroger]

Originally Posted by crazy8tiger

Hey jo11y, is there a multi string you would recommend similar to NXT but a bit cheaper? I am going to add a leather grip to my Dunlop and now I want to move away from poly for the time being.

Nothing really springs to mind, but I am sure there is something out there.

I hate Regular NXT.

NXT Tour, and NRG2 are the ones I like.

J

[Mansewerz]

Maxim touch from Pro supex?

[Nanshiki]

I find that NXT is kind of bouncy even when it's prestretched at 65 pounds... rather poor spin potential too.

I want to try some Xcel Premium, which I hear has better control and softer feel.

[talock]

jo11y, i just started playing consistently again after an 8 year layoff (was at about a 4.5 level back then, but haven't been rated since coming back to the game), after about three months back in the game i seem to finally have my spin and power/racquet head speed back where it was when i stopped playing. When i started again, i picked up where i left off -- POG Mid, PSGD 16 at 58# -- so i would have a baseline to judge any changes. this is the string i played then, but i was in high school/early college and i needed things for cheap, so i would by syngut and have my coach string it for me. I've never been a huge string breaker, but have been looking to maybe test out a higher quality of string, and preferably something with a bit more control. My new coach immediately recomended i get a hybrid with poly in the mains. this doesn't sound right to me, since i'm not breaking the PSGD consistently anyway. I seen you've reccomended NRG2 several times to people who seem to be in a similar situation, but what about a full gut job?

I guess i'm asking, if i have the money to spend, would a full gut (like VS) be preferrable to full multi (like NRG2) for both durability AND playability? Would there be any advantage to hybrid in this situation?

[Djokovicfan4life]

Originally Posted by Nanshiki

I find that NXT is kind of bouncy even when it's prestretched at 65 pounds... rather poor spin potential too.

I want to try some Xcel Premium, which I hear has better control and softer feel.

Xcel is pretty sweet. It's one of the best feeling multi's out there, no doubt. Definitely the closest to gut that I've tried so far. Not too high powered either, at least for me. But then again, nothing's too high powered for me. I use full Babolat VS at 50 lbs, and I'm considering going down to 45 on my next string job.

One of the OSU coaches gave me a free set of NXT, so I'll let you know how it feels as well.

[Djokovicfan4life]

Originally Posted by talock

jo11y, i just started playing consistently again after an 8 year layoff (was at about a 4.5 level back then, but haven't been rated since coming back to the game), after about three months back in the game i seem to finally have my spin and power/racquet head speed back where it was when i stopped playing. When i started again, i picked up where i left off -- POG Mid, PSGD 16 at 58# -- so i would have a baseline to judge any changes. this is the string i played then, but i was in high school/early college and i needed things for cheap, so i would by syngut and have my coach string it for me. I've never been a huge string breaker, but have been looking to maybe test out a higher quality of string, and preferably something with a bit more control. My new coach immediately recomended i get a hybrid with poly in the mains. this doesn't sound right to me, since i'm not breaking the PSGD consistently anyway. I seen you've reccomended NRG2 several times to people who seem to be in a similar situation, but what about a full gut job?

I guess i'm asking, if i have the money to spend, would a full gut (like VS) be preferrable to full multi (like NRG2) for both durability AND playability? Would there be any advantage to hybrid in this situation?

Yes, a quality gut string is just better than any multi out of there. It's that simple.

P.S. Wow, over 2000 posts now. I'm starting to enter the no life zone.

[J011yroger]

Originally Posted by talock

jo11y, i just started playing consistently again after an 8 year layoff (was at about a 4.5 level back then, but haven't been rated since coming back to the game), after about three months back in the game i seem to finally have my spin and power/racquet head speed back where it was when i stopped playing. When i started again, i picked up where i left off -- POG Mid, PSGD 16 at 58# -- so i would have a baseline to judge any changes. this is the string i played then, but i was in high school/early college and i needed things for cheap, so i would by syngut and have my coach string it for me. I've never been a huge string breaker, but have been looking to maybe test out a higher quality of string, and preferably something with a bit more control. My new coach immediately recomended i get a hybrid with poly in the mains. this doesn't sound right to me, since i'm not breaking the PSGD consistently anyway. I seen you've reccomended NRG2 several times to people who seem to be in a similar situation, but what about a full gut job?

I guess i'm asking, if i have the money to spend, would a full gut (like VS) be preferrable to full multi (like NRG2) for both durability AND playability? Would there be any advantage to hybrid in this situation?

Wow, POG mid, my old frame. The string eater of all time. Cant imagine PSGD 16 lasting more than 15-20 mins in that sucker for me.

Anyhow, now that the nostalgia has passed.

The NRG2 is a fine string, if you are looking for something with a bit more muted feel and a bit more pop Prince Premiere is a pretty darned nice string too.

And well, you have just got to try gut once.

How long does the PSGD last you?

If more than a couple weeks, then give the gut a shot or one of the multis. If a week or less then you might want to try a softer poly hybrid.

J

[Nanshiki]

I've got PSGO so old that it's labeled just Prince Synthetic Gut in my Spectrum, which is the same pattern as the POG and I still can't break that junk. But it's dead and I'm going to replace it with some Isospeed I got.

Regular NXT gets pretty gross after a few hours... just feels nasty, plus it loses control and never really had any spin potential to begin with.

[J011yroger]

Regular NXT is garbage.

NXT Tour is a good string.

I pity those who mistake the two.

J

[talock]

Originally Posted by J011yroger

Wow, POG mid, my old frame. The string eater of all time. Cant imagine PSGD 16 lasting more than 15-20 mins in that sucker for me.

Anyhow, now that the nostalgia has passed.

The NRG2 is a fine string, if you are looking for something with a bit more muted feel and a bit more pop Prince Premiere is a pretty darned nice string too.

And well, you have just got to try gut once.

How long does the PSGD last you?

If more than a couple weeks, then give the gut a shot or one of the multis. If a week or less then you might want to try a softer poly hybrid.

J

yeah, probably move to a more dense string pattern at some point, but i wanted to start with the familiar...

i can break PSGD in about two to three weeks, BUT i am not playing consistently yet; i'll play one day one week, three days the next, and one day again the week after that, i plan to play more consistently in the coming year, but haven't taken that step yet. i guess my point is that although i'm only breaking every two/three weeks, it's really after probably 4-6 hours of actual hitting...

I'm intrigued by trying full gut, maybe i should take this opportunity to do so before it becomes cost prohibitive. but there is also the option of going for gut or multi mains with a poly cross to add a bit of durability and spin (or will the poly crosses just cut the softer mains?).

[J011yroger]

Originally Posted by talock

yeah, probably move to a more dense string pattern at some point, but i wanted to start with the familiar...

i can break PSGD in about two to three weeks, BUT i am not playing consistently yet; i'll play one day one week, three days the next, and one day again the week after that, i plan to play more consistently in the coming year, but haven't taken that step yet. i guess my point is that although i'm only breaking every two/three weeks, it's really after probably 4-6 hours of actual hitting...

I'm intrigued by trying full gut, maybe i should take this opportunity to do so before it becomes cost prohibitive. but there is also the option of going for gut or multi mains with a poly cross to add a bit of durability and spin (or will the poly crosses just cut the softer mains?).

Poly crosses will just obliterate the gut mains. If you want durability and pop play gut crosses and poly mains.

I myself prefer NRG2 crosses to gut crosses, but the gut lasts twice as long in a poly blend.

If you want economy with gut, run gut mains and a cheaper multi cross. You get like 85% of the benefits of the gut with less price.

J

[NoBadMojo]

Originally Posted by J011yroger

Poly crosses will just obliterate the gut mains. If you want durability and pop play gut crosses and poly mains.

I myself prefer NRG2 crosses to gut crosses, but the gut lasts twice as long in a poly blend.

If you want economy with gut, run gut mains and a cheaper multi cross. You get like 85% of the benefits of the gut with less price.

J

Disagree w. all of this.

Gut in the crosses is a total waste w. poly mains. the poly dumps tension, the gut holds tension and you have a very expensive setup which plays well for less than 2 hours. pros dont care..many switch to a freshly strung frame every 9 games and certainly dont play more than one match w. any stringjob. also most of all the feel and response benefits of gut is wasted by using the gut as a x string. might as well just use a cheap syn gut if you want to ease the harsh hit of poly...most cheap syn guts have more ball feel than poly anyway

also, multis dont usually make a very good match in a hybrid w. gut because of the tension holding issues and also because the multi tends to shred quickly when coupled w. gut...if you are gonna go cheap, might as well just put a basic syn gut as a x string w. gut mains and call it a day. I like the duraflex because it matches well to the crispness of gut and holds it's tension a bit better.

NRG2 as a x string shreds in an instant and also dumps tension quickly and quickly loses it's playability..i wouldnt use this string in any other way than straightup and be prepared to restring often even if you arent a string breaker

I really like the Mojo setup and have been using it for maybe 3 years now and am not interested in even experimenting w. anything else

[Koz]

Originally Posted by J011yroger

Different racquets, different tensions, same number on the stringing machine

If you string a 90" frame at 60lbs, and a 115" frame at 60lbs, the 90" frame will be strung tighter. The longer the strings, the more there is to stretch and the looser it will become. Kind of like taking a shoelace and a 30' rope and tying them to a fixture. It doesn't take much to pull the shoestring taut, but you need to pull pretty hard on the rope to make it taut.

I have a different view on this.

Tension is tension. 60 lbs on one string is 60 lbs on another string. 60 lbs in one racquet is 60 lbs in another. What you're talking about is effort required to deflect the string. I think your view of 'taut' is not how much tension is in the line, but how much the line resists deflection if a force is applied to it (like a tennis ball hitting the middle of the string).

You take your shoelace and your 30' rope and you tie a 10 lb weight at the end of each of them and hang them both from the ceiling, they will both have 10lbs of tension. That's physics. -Now, you take that string and that rope with 10 lbs of tension on it, and apply a force in the middle of the string/rope, perpendicular to the tensile force (same as when you hit a tennis ball), you are exerting effort to deflect the string. In this case, different lengths, cross sections, and different string materials will affect the deflection. Naturally, the 30' rope will deflect a LOT more than the shoelace...but that does not mean the shoelace has more tension than the rope does.

Warning! Science content and reasoning

Originally Posted by Koz

The length affects deflection because a given deflection will correspond to a certain amount of strain in the material. Strain, which is usually expressed in units of length/length, is related to stress, which is usually given in terms of force/area, through a famous engineering and materials science relationship, Hooke's Law. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hooke%27s_law)

Say you have two strings: one 1' long, and one 5' long and fix the ends of them, so they can't become shorter (like in a racquet). Additionally, both strings are identical in material type and thickness/cross section. Now displace each string 1" in the direction perpendicular to the length of the string. The strain (deflection/length) in the short string will be 1"/1', or 1"/12", where as the strain in the long string will be 1"/5', or 1"/60". Since these strains correspond to stresses (Hooke's Law), and stresses correspond to forces, the force required to deflect the short string will be higher, because 1/12 is bigger than 1/60.

HOWEVER, relating this more to tennis. Say you have a 90" headsize and a 130" headsize. The amount of force on the strings from a 50mph ball contact is the same no matter what racquet you use. Since force is the constant, stress is fixed (assuming identical strings with the same thickness or cross section!). Since stress is fixed, strain is fixed (constant). Since strain (deflection/length) is the same for both racquets, but the lengths of strings are different, deflection will have to vary!

(in the above example, deflection was constant at one inch for both string lengths, but the strains varied because the lengths varied).

This, I think, is what you were getting at in your original post.

Originally Posted by Koz

In my 50mph ball impact scenario, force is the same for each racquet size (assuming each racquet is hitting an identical ball, at identical speed/acceleration, etc.). Since force is the same, the strain must also be the same (this comes from Hooke's Law)!

Now, since strain (string deflection divided by string length) is fixed, a small headsize with a short string length will only allow for a small string deformation, since strain is fixed. A large headsize, with a large string length, will allow for a larger string deformation, but the fraction of deformation/length will be the same for both racquets, if the force exerted on both is the same.

Since we instinctively say a string is 'tighter' if it deflects less than another string, we (somewhat erroneously) associate string deflection with tension.

I know when I use my 'push your thumb into your stringbed to see how tight the tension is' test, I'm pretty much applying a fixed amount of force to the stringbed, no matter what racquet I'm doing this with. So, since my force output into the stringbed is fixed, no matter what size the racquet is, the strain I can induce into the stringbed is also fixed, as long as the string is the same.

This example shows what I'm talking about:
Say racquet A has a small headsize, with a string length of 1 ft, and racquet B has a big headsize, with a string length of 1.5 ft.
Say strain = 0.1, which is the same for both racquets. This means the force applied to both racquets is also the same, (we're assuming identical strings!)

Racquet A (small headsize)
Strain = 0.1 = deflection/length = deflection/1ft
=> deflection = 0.1ft

Racquet B (big headsize)
Strain = 0.1 = deflection/length = defleciton/1.5ft
=> deflection = .15ft

In this example, we deflect the large stringbed ONE AND A HALF TIMES as much as the small stringbed. Surely the large stringbed must be looser! Actually, no, the tension is the SAME!

Now, that being said, there are tones of things that will affect what the strain on the strings will be. The string composition, thickness, tension, temperature, etc. all play a part. However, the above examples are pedagogical, these things don't matter to us, as long as they're kept constant in our examples.

Ok! Enough reasoning!

So...back to my original point. I don't agree with the OP's quoted statement. If you set racquet A and racquet B on a stringing machine at 60 lbs, they'll both come out at 60 lbs. The string beds may deflect differently, but tension is tension! Deflection is NOT tension.

All THAT being said...deflection plays a huge part in how well a string performs for an individual, so I think the meaning behind JR's original post comes through, but IMO it was technically inaccurate.

Your point at the end of the quote though, about stretching is also true. However a good stringer will prestretch and allow time for the string to settle. My post concentrates on strings that are already settled in.

[J011yroger]

Here is the deal, you fail in your examples to take into account the elasticity of the string and consequent tension loss due to the fact that the string once clamped off is no longer being pulled on.

Let us take this theoretical example.

Take 20 feet of tennis string, attach it to a fish scale at one end, and to a pole at the other. Pull one end of the string to 60lbs, and clamp it off. Take a reading on the fish scale after an hour.

Now repeat the example but with only 1 foot of string, and check the tension on the fishscale after an hour, it will most certainly be higher.

The same theory applies when using a constant pull electric machine as compared to a spring lockout machine.

Ie. A star 4 vs a Neos.

The Star 4 will keep pulling until the string is clamped off and thereby leave you with a higher initial tension than the neos which stops pulling once the machine reaches the tension and locks out.

This also explains why different stringers will string differently even with the same racquet on the same machine set at the same tension. The longer you wait before clamping the string the tighter your initial tension is.

Your examples are correct in a theoretical land, where tension loss does not exist, and strings are either inelastic, or perfectly conserve their spring energy in that they always return 100% and do not elongate after returning from their defelection upon impact.

J

[Koz]

I agree with what you're saying; I just interpreted your original post differently. For some reason I thought you were saying 60lbs is 'different' on one racquet than it was on another. Naturally, when you take the racquet off the machine, anything goes; and of course, 52 lbs will be less than 56, or whatever the tension will be after stretching This is why I ended my above post as I did, with the stretching and pre-stretching tidbits.

[J011yroger]

No problem bud, I love, and understand physics quite well.

And like discussing things like this as I usually find new ways to look at things.

But for most of my guide stuff, I basically tell it how it works out on court, and let the people either go by what I say or not by their own choosing.

I never try to force my crap down peoples throat, I try very hard to just say, this is my opinion, what I believe and how I feel, if you respect me, you are free to take my advice, if you don't respect me, or you disagree with my thinking, I am certainly not going to expend any energy arguing with you.

But if you care to discuss in a logical and inteligent manner, I will gladly partake.

(By you, I mean, people in general not you Koz)

J

[davidahenry]

^^^ Very respectful and cordial discussion between J and Koz. Very cool to see. Take care.

DH

[raygo]

Originally Posted by J011yroger

No problem bud, I love, and understand physics quite well.

And like discussing things like this as I usually find new ways to look at things.

But for most of my guide stuff, I basically tell it how it works out on court, and let the people either go by what I say or not by their own choosing.

I never try to force my crap down peoples throat, I try very hard to just say, this is my opinion, what I believe and how I feel, if you respect me, you are free to take my advice, if you don't respect me, or you disagree with my thinking, I am certainly not going to expend any energy arguing with you.

But if you care to discuss in a logical and inteligent manner, I will gladly partake.

(By you, I mean, people in general not you Koz)

J

Very helpful thread, guys. I wish I'd known more about the physics side of this game when I was younger. "Technical Tennis" was a good read from an engineering/physics point of view.

Also nice to see mature posts as opposed to the typical 'OMG Luxilon is teh greatest string of all time in my APDC lolz' type of post.

[J011yroger]

Ya, the physics is fun to know, but I think it is also helpful that I actually am a player aswell.

Because some stuff that works in theory. . . not so much on the court.

J

[raygo]

True. Learning these principles gets rid of some lingering questions about the game, but it disappoints me to see so many players looking for some magical formula. This message board is great to learn about products that may or may not be worth your hard-earned money, but you can't buy game.

My ball machine and two hundred balls was the best game-improvement purchase ever.

In my humble opinion, sub-4.0 players should stick with a proven synthetic gut, work on their GAME, and worry less about equipment.

Normally, I'd say to each their own, but I just had to give up the court to a bunch of rich guys with pro gear playing suckball (at least it's still a three day weekend). Rules are rules, but sheesh.

To get on topic, I do have a hybrid string question. Poly and many multis lose tension quickly, but is the tension loss as pronounced when paired with a string that DOES maintain tension well? I imagine the higher tension would dominate and so the poor tension maintaining string would be playable longer...but like you said, reality doesn't always jive with theory.

Just thinking of possible combinations since I just found some unexpected free time...