Ashaway 100% Zyex monofilament

[corners]

Originally Posted by Torres

Not sure if I was imagining this but the stringbed seemed slightly stiffer this time round. I hoping that was just due to having removed a number of the crosses and re-pulled tension on them rather than the strings starting to go dead. The last cross above the gap also showed a bit of movement this evening without going back into the place. The other strings were okay.

I'm not one that subscribes to the "going dead" theory. Strings continuously lose tension and thus become less and less stiff as they age are are played with. I would be more inclined to think that the slightly increased stiffness you felt was related to the string movement you noticed. If the strings are getting stuck out of line it means they are starting to slide less freely. They could be dirty, scuffed, have lost too much tension to slide and then snapback. Hard to say. But if they aren't sliding and snapping back you'll get less dwell time and more impact shock. I actually think this is what happens when people say polys "go dead." But who knows?

I'm going to have restart this playtest with a new set. Bit annoying really because at various times, I was really enjoying hitting with this string/racquet combination. During my first set hitting with the ZX earlier today, it actually crossed my mind that I hadn't had this much fun with the 6.1 since the time I strung it with a Wilson NG / Alu Rough hybrid. The ZX/6.1 combo was that satisfying.

Sweet

[corners]

Originally Posted by travlerajm

Now this has me intrigued.

Only 20% stiffer than natural gut and max tension of 60 pounds. How would you use it in the massive sticks you play?

I was thinking it would be great in place of gut in the Lendl setup since it's more slippery than many copolys and seems to have good surface hardness, despite its low tensile strength.

[Buford T Justice]

Originally Posted by corners

I'm not one that subscribes to the "going dead" theory.

Im also not sure what going dead means.

Losing elasticity?

I would be curious to see some tests done which demonstrated what going dead actually signifies.

[travlerajm]

Originally Posted by corners

Only 20% stiffer than natural gut and max tension of 60 pounds. How would you use it in the massive sticks you play?

I was thinking it would be great in place of gut in the Lendl setup since it's more slippery than many copolys and seems to have good surface hardness, despite its low tensile strength.

Curious how it would play as a cross with Kevlar mains.

[maxpotapov]

Originally Posted by Buford T Justice

Im also not sure what going dead means.

Losing elasticity?

I would be curious to see some tests done which demonstrated what going dead actually signifies.

Yes, losing elasticity. I'm not sure why people talk so much about tension loss, even though I understand those are correlated. Loss of control and harsh impact is due to elasticity loss in my opinion.

[fgs]

in my understanding and playing experience, going dead can mean two different things, basically both related to a loss in elasticity, or better said resiliency.

1. a string that after a certain amount of time just gets like a board so you have to hit faster and faster in order to get the ball over the net. stringbed deflection is a minimum but recoil time is also delayed as in case no.2.

2. a string that turns into a slingshot, that is apparently still has elasticity left but responds with a certain time delay to the impact and makes the ball basically uncontrollable. in this case there is still enough stretch in the stringbed, but it has a very delayed response. it also seems that dwell time would be higher, but this is not beneficial in such a case.

[Buford T Justice]

Are there tests out there that demonstrate the loss of elasticty for different strings?

[maxpotapov]

Originally Posted by Buford T Justice

Are there tests out there that demonstrate the loss of elasticty for different strings?

Elasticity/resiliency - only indirect, I guess this can be derived from other tests,
http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~cros...tringTests.PDF

At the same time, this property describes best what we perceive.

[mikeler]

Originally Posted by fgs

in my understanding and playing experience, going dead can mean two different things, basically both related to a loss in elasticity, or better said resiliency.

1. a string that after a certain amount of time just gets like a board so you have to hit faster and faster in order to get the ball over the net. stringbed deflection is a minimum but recoil time is also delayed as in case no.2.

2. a string that turns into a slingshot, that is apparently still has elasticity left but responds with a certain time delay to the impact and makes the ball basically uncontrollable. in this case there is still enough stretch in the stringbed, but it has a very delayed response. it also seems that dwell time would be higher, but this is not beneficial in such a case.

1. Going Dead
2. Tension Loss

[fgs]

mikeler,

there is a certain "death" i refer to in no.2, which is rather related to the ability to recoil within a certain time. i have done this experiment several years back with kirschbaum pro line II, a string that "dies" as a slingshot and not as a board. by that time i was playing the 106 nblades and was usually strining the mains at 23kg. i played with one stick about 5 hours, as that was the time that second tension drop occured with that string and turned it into a slingshot. i strung a fresh stick much lower, ie at 19kg mains and 18kg crosses and took them to court. apparently the stringbedstiffness was comparable by way of the pinging sound they made when you struck them to each other. but they played completely different - the fresh one was soft but still very controllable, the launch angle was considerably lower than the "old" one and it had a completely different "touch".

so i assume, absolutely intuitively and anecdotal as our "beloved" cat would say, that we are looking at a loss of resiliency also in case no.2. as there is no scientific name for "the death of a stringbed", i just intended to make you understand what i meant. maybe my use of the word slingshot produced a wrong image in the sense of acceleration whilw i was rather trying to associate it with lack of precision/control.

[maxpotapov]

Originally Posted by mikeler

1. Going Dead
2. Tension Loss

As fgs reiterated, tension loss is less relevant to stringbed behavior, than loss of resiliency/elasticity.

Deadness has to do with dynamic properties of the string (such as dynamic stiffness). I think you can still control the ball with natural gut at super low tensions, as you still have that linear response and pocketing due to high elasticity/resiliency (even though power can become unmanageable). It's dead polys that become totally uncontrollable, afterall, why people can control fresh polys at 30s lbs?

[Torres]

Originally Posted by mikeler

1. Going Dead
2. Tension Loss

Agreed. .

[corners]

Hey guys, could we take the "going dead" discussion to another thread, either to a new one or one of the many existing ones, and leave this thread for primarily discussing Ashaway Monogut ZX?

[corners]

Originally Posted by travlerajm

Curious how it would play as a cross with Kevlar mains.

Definitely worth a try. Please post your results here if you do it. This Zyex monofilament seems to have created a completely new category of strings.

It's available now in 16g natural and red and 17g natural and red. TWU has only tested the 16g version, probably in the natural color.

[mikeler]

Originally Posted by corners

Hey guys, could we take the "going dead" discussion to another thread, either to a new one or one of the many existing ones, and leave this thread for primarily discussing Ashaway Monogut ZX?

I hate to bust you on technicality but we can also talk about regular Monogut since the thread title is "Ashaway 100% Zyex monofilament".

[corners]

Originally Posted by mikeler

I hate to bust you on technicality but we can also talk about regular Monogut since the thread title is "Ashaway 100% Zyex monofilament".

Reverse bust: Regular or original Monogut is 0%, rather than 100% Zyex.

[polytheist]

To really prove the dead poly theory, carefully remove some dead poly and restring it into someone's racquet (not mine) at desired tension.

[corners]

Originally Posted by polytheist

To really prove the dead poly theory, carefully remove some dead poly and restring it into someone's racquet (not mine) at desired tension.

What happens?

[maxpotapov]

Originally Posted by polytheist

To really prove the dead poly theory, carefully remove some dead poly and restring it into someone's racquet (not mine) at desired tension.

Good one
Or simply cut in the middle, it won't even move (well, almost). So it's not really stretched even though it's under tension.

[polytheist]

Originally Posted by corners

I'm not one that subscribes to the "going dead" theory. Strings continuously lose tension and thus become less and less stiff as they age are are played with. I would be more inclined to think that the slightly increased stiffness you felt was related to the string movement you noticed. If the strings are getting stuck out of line it means they are starting to slide less freely. They could be dirty, scuffed, have lost too much tension to slide and then snapback. Hard to say. But if they aren't sliding and snapping back you'll get less dwell time and more impact shock. I actually think this is what happens when people say polys "go dead." But who knows?

Dead strings don't snap back due to loss of elasticity. Not because they are dirty, scuffed, or tensioned lower. You could put gut in the mud and it would still snap back. You can cut gut out, restring it into another racquet, and it will still snap back. Why? Because it retains elasticity.

When polys lose elasticity, they stop snapping back, and the stiff feel gets compounded by both the strings direct lack of elasticity (in the direction of the ball impact), and the lack of string movement (again caused by no string elasticity sideways).