el sergento
Hall of Fame
New and improved way of stringing Prince O3 racquets (with pics)
Love your O3's but hate stringing them? Well here's my method of doing the crosses. I only just figured it out, but with all the guru's around here I'm sure someone has already thought of this.
So, as you all know, to do the crosses properly on an O3 you need a special tool or you either need to hold the racquet in place or lock the swivel. I don't have that fancy tool and my Silent Partner doesn't lock well so I came up with the following solution:
Using a flying clamp to straighten the cross string before pulling tension.
Here's what the problem is when pulling tension on the crosses of an O3:
As you can see, the cross is off to one side and pulling tension this way is not recomended. My solution is to straighten out the cross string before pulling tension by using a flying clamp. To do so, you'll need a flying clamp, obviously (although fixed clamps would probably work too), and to follow these simple steps:
1) Place an open clamp as follows using the adjacanct cross string to keep it in place:
2) Pull tension, slowly at first, and you'll notice that the tension will keep the clamp in place and that the pulled string will be straight instead of off at an angle:
3) Once you obtain your desired tension, remove your first clamp, as usual, and simply close the clamp you used to keep the cross string in the right position:
Wash, rinse, repeat!
There you go, it's quite easy, the method doesn't really take more time than a normal racquet and there's no fooling around with home made tools or strange acrobatics to hold the racquet in place while you pull tension.
Quick note:
Depending on the location of your mains, you might notice that the clamp isn't flush against the frame. If you think this can affect your tension simply increase the desired tension by 1 pound.
Hope this helps!
Love your O3's but hate stringing them? Well here's my method of doing the crosses. I only just figured it out, but with all the guru's around here I'm sure someone has already thought of this.
So, as you all know, to do the crosses properly on an O3 you need a special tool or you either need to hold the racquet in place or lock the swivel. I don't have that fancy tool and my Silent Partner doesn't lock well so I came up with the following solution:
Using a flying clamp to straighten the cross string before pulling tension.
Here's what the problem is when pulling tension on the crosses of an O3:
As you can see, the cross is off to one side and pulling tension this way is not recomended. My solution is to straighten out the cross string before pulling tension by using a flying clamp. To do so, you'll need a flying clamp, obviously (although fixed clamps would probably work too), and to follow these simple steps:
1) Place an open clamp as follows using the adjacanct cross string to keep it in place:
2) Pull tension, slowly at first, and you'll notice that the tension will keep the clamp in place and that the pulled string will be straight instead of off at an angle:
3) Once you obtain your desired tension, remove your first clamp, as usual, and simply close the clamp you used to keep the cross string in the right position:
Wash, rinse, repeat!
There you go, it's quite easy, the method doesn't really take more time than a normal racquet and there's no fooling around with home made tools or strange acrobatics to hold the racquet in place while you pull tension.
Quick note:
Depending on the location of your mains, you might notice that the clamp isn't flush against the frame. If you think this can affect your tension simply increase the desired tension by 1 pound.
Hope this helps!
Last edited: