tips on gut in the mains

[wmoore]

For the most part I string only for myself and a couple of friends - maybe 50 string jobs or so a year. I like to string with 15L or 16g VS Tonic in the mains at about 62#and thin poly (17 or 18g) in the crosses at 52#. I play with a Dunlop AG100. So far, so good.

Problem is, if I cut a full set of gut in half, the 20' of string will barely make it through the mains and I have a heck of a time getting tension on the last pull before tieing off. I do like to pull the last pull tight and use an awl to keep tension on while I tie the knot. I use a drop-weight machine.

How do you all handle this? or do you just not use gut in the mains?

[dancraig]

If you come up too short to reach the tensioner, there are a few tricks. You can use a starting clamp or a floating clamp to make a bridge to the tensioner. Place a piece of scrap string in one side of the clamp and the too short string in the other side.
You can just tie a scrap piece to the too short piece, but there is a risk the knot won't hold long enough for you to pull tension and clamp.

weird that's a 90. 20ft should be way more than enough....I string mid plus frames and have always had string left over after cutting 20ft.

[Lakers4Life]

+1 what Dan said!!! Here are a couple of picture to show what Dan's describing.

[wmoore]

Originally Posted by decades

weird that's a 90. 20ft should be way more than enough....I string mid plus frames and have always had string left over after cutting 20ft.

This only happens when stringing gut in the mains. If I'm stringing multi, there's no problem.