Stringing "old school; leather bits under center mains

[coach]

Hey all you 40+ year olds, recall the old wood racquets, they had about 3 little 1/4 inch piece of leather under each of the center mains in the throat area after exiting each grommet. I assume this was to soften and enhance feel for the mains. Anyone try anything like this recently with a graphitetitaniumliquidmetalturboncoded "modern" racquet?

[Swan Song]

I assume that you are describing power pads. Stringers today still use them when they are stringing natural gut.

[Steve Huff]

I use them when stringing wood rackets. They don't look too good on most modern rackets because most of the grommet strips today have a raised area and groove for the string to stay in. I have used them on the Wilson PS 5.0 a lot on the first main loop on the outside of the frame at the throat though, as it is an extremely sharp angle. Generally, that's what they were used for--to reduce the angle at which the string had to go around. Martina Navratilova used them at the top of the frame in her Yonex to protect the string. The string would sink into the leather pad, so when she scraped the racket head on the ground, it wouldn't get to the string (this was before rackets had bumper guards).

[NoBadMojo]

andres gomez had those on both the top and bottom of his yonnies. but just like steve sez they were used where the string had to make an severe bend thru the frame. they also have/had those in plastic too. ed