Reuse string by using only one knot

treo

Semi-Pro
This works on my Prince Speedport Black but probably won't work on others unless you wrap string around frame. For one piece job, start a with knot but don't tie off at the end. Leave enough string to clamp and wrap string a few times around the support beam between the O ports then use a zip tie to secure. Do it again on another set of ports.

I use a hybrid and end up with 4 zip ties on top and 2 on the bottom. It will add some weight. No knots on mains and one to start crosses. To reuse string, cut the zip ties and string again.
 

THESEXPISTOL

Hall of Fame
909263d6_2291482-not_sure_if_serious.jpeg
 

Tamiya

Semi-Pro
what's main reason for reusing string?

meh, have heard of ppl washing & reusing tinfoil too... yeah it's
Wasteful just throwing it away after 1 use, but hey it all goes to landfill
 

drgchen

Rookie
There are people who sell used tennis string on the major online auction site, and it appears that people are buying this used cut out polyester string (probably completely dead). If you are hurting that badly, just use the cheapest thick nylon- it used to last me forever.
 
Last edited:

treo

Semi-Pro
Reusing string is working for me. I was trying out 50lbs and found it to be too loose so I unwrapped and restrung same strings at my usual 54lbs and it plays like a fresh string job. Actually a little better since they are already broken in.

I use 15g syn gut mains and 18g poly crosses. After the mains are notched about half way through I will unwrap and restring. This will regain the tension lost on the poly and the mains will start notching in fresh spots. I'll keep using the expensive poly until it feels bad and use cheap syn gut twice. I usually get 8-10 hours before syn gut breaks but now can get 16-20 and don't have to waste the usable poly crosses.
 

The Meat

Hall of Fame
Only works for a full bed, lazy people like myself who string two piece to save time can't salvage our strings when we break them in one session...oh the costs...
 

Tamiya

Semi-Pro
Only works for a full bed, lazy people like myself who string two piece to save time can't salvage our strings when we break them in one session...oh the costs...

ex mains recycle as cross, then into smaller frames & squash... :shock:
 

struggle

Legend
maybe if i lived in a third world country, played barefoot amongst wild things and strung my rackets bare handed....
 

The Meat

Hall of Fame
ex mains recycle as cross, then into smaller frames & squash... :shock:

Not possible for me, midsize 16x19 requires me to have at least 15ft of string to barely finish the crosses. I always break mains, never crosses.

I would have to get the big bubba and break on the very end of the mains to get that 15ft.

Lol who plays squash, badminton/platform tennis is where it's at. :)
Badminton helps with lobs and smashes, platform tennis is pretty good if you play with friends at the service box, great volley battles.
I don't really see the fun in squash, it doesn't really help in tennis.
 
Last edited:

Torres

Banned
^ Its not something I've tried very much. I suspect that the only string that would cope with being restrung / reused would something that has high elasticity (dynamic stifness?) properties ie something that can stretch and stretch back again.

Natural gut may work, but by the by the time that you reuse it, I would have thought it would be already be pretty frayed, which would defeat the point of reusing it.

Poly I suspect would be dreadful given that the most/all of its elasticity would already have been pulled out of it, and restringing it would probably make it worse and even harder on the arm. Even prestretching a poly too much kills its elasticity and makes it play horribly.

Nylon I don't know about as I've never tried restringing it. Also once nylon stretches, it doesn't stretch back, so over time, I suspect you would end up with a stiffer string with less and less elasticity as well as high string friction (ie less spin) due to string wear. Given the cost of synthetic gut, I'm not sure that there's much point in reusing it.

Monogut ZX (a unique material that's not poly nor nylon) worked very well when the mains were reused as a cross with fresh poly mains but it would be something I would have repeat a few times to verify the results.

Overall, I'm pretty sceptical about trying to reuse the same piece of string from a complete full bed as another full bed again.
 
Last edited:

The Meat

Hall of Fame
Deleted to save space, look at post 16 for quote.

Ah, thanks.

I was asking more about how the stringbed felt with the same string in the mains and part of the crosses, compared to the feeling of a complete hybrid.
I've always wanted to try the Lendl setup with gut in the center surrounded with poly.
 

Torres

Banned
It felt pretty good. Maybe slightly softer and less crisp, but comfortable and sufficiently powerful. Then again that Monogut ZX is made from quite a unique material, so I thought it might be different to poly or nylon when reused (as a cross). I doubt you could reuse it more than once or twice though.
 
Last edited:

zaskar1

Professional
i guess if you are that thirifty, that is your business to reuse string.
when i would break the xcrosses in my hybrid string job, i would just due the broken softer string, and leave the poly, but the poly went dead. so i wasted my time.

string is kind of cheap anyway, if you want save, buy a reel
but to each his own

z
 

treo

Semi-Pro
I strung my racquet 3 times with the same string and it still plays well. I don't like the added weight at the top of the hoop so I won't be reusing the mains anymore and will just tie them off. For the crosses I will start off with a knot and end with a few wraps on the bridge, zip tie, run the extra string down the throat and wrap the extra string around the top of the handle, and keep reusing my poly crosses.

I might also go back to using full poly, one piece and retighten the strings every 4 hours. I think poly tension stabilizes after the first stringing so I probably can go longer the second and third time.
 

Torres

Banned
Strange that you haven't mentioned anywhere in this thread what the actual string is that you've supposedly been reusing several times....
 

ricardo

Hall of Fame
what's main reason for reusing string?

This is actually a very effective way of pre-stretching a string.

After hitting with it for few days , re-tension it.

You will feel a much improved performance.

I did this with NG mains. Playability improved after re-tensioning after about 10 hours of play.

NG mains usually last me about 100 hours.
 

tennisbike

Professional
I did this with NG mains. Playability improved after re-tensioning after about 10 hours of play.
NG mains usually last me about 100 hours.

Read this again, and seems to make a lot of sense. I do notice the tension drop with SM of gut/poly. So this would help bring back the tension. (hmm... though it played softer as it aged, then the ref. tension need to be adjusted down.)

Do you trim the end of gut main after this re-tensioning?

I wonder if you have developed a different knot since.

Currently I am thinking about reusing the cross, since I have so much SG I want to try using it on the main, to reuse the poly cross. Do you do starting knot on the cross or do you use starting clamp and clamp as usual on the top of the hoop?
 

Shroud

G.O.A.T.
Read this again, and seems to make a lot of sense. I do notice the tension drop with SM of gut/poly. So this would help bring back the tension. (hmm... though it played softer as it aged, then the ref. tension need to be adjusted down.)

Do you trim the end of gut main after this re-tensioning?

I wonder if you have developed a different knot since.

Currently I am thinking about reusing the cross, since I have so much SG I want to try using it on the main, to reuse the poly cross. Do you do starting knot on the cross or do you use starting clamp and clamp as usual on the top of the hoop?
No need to do either a starting knot or starting clamp. At lease with fixed clamps though I bet you could do it too with floating clamps. For fixed clamps Pull both top crosses (double pull). Then clamp the lower cross furthest from the tie off hole. let the tension go and now pull the top and clamp. Now tie off the top cross using whatever knot you do. No need for a starting knot or starting clamp, though you could use a starting clamp I suppose.

Also its possible to reuse the poly and skip the bottom cross or just add a 2nd piece of string for the remaining crosses if you don't want to have string and tape wrapping the racquet.
 

mpournaras

Hall of Fame
NO NO NO NO NO NO.

Pre-stretch the gut 10-15% 2 times if you want. Or hell, pull it a second time each time you you pull tension if you want to stretch the ever living life out of the string.

But this saving string thing needs to stop. I am glad its like 5 people on a tennis board and not an actual established practice. Especially with syn gut. Yeesh
 

Shroud

G.O.A.T.
NO NO NO NO NO NO.

Pre-stretch the gut 10-15% 2 times if you want. Or hell, pull it a second time each time you you pull tension if you want to stretch the ever living life out of the string.

But this saving string thing needs to stop. I am glad its like 5 people on a tennis board and not an actual established practice. Especially with syn gut. Yeesh
Hitting does a much better job of stretching than anything...

People still use syn gut. Yikes
 

1HBHfanatic

Legend
NO NO NO NO NO NO.

Pre-stretch the gut 10-15% 2 times if you want. Or hell, pull it a second time each time you you pull tension if you want to stretch the ever living life out of the string.

But this saving string thing needs to stop. I am glad its like 5 people on a tennis board and not an actual established practice. Especially with syn gut. Yeesh

im with you on this, its crazy how many NEW people think this is ok, its not!!
just look at the stress the string goes through, at the first time stringing, and then taking it out to restring a second time!!??, is a sure way to snap!! while stringing and/or in mid play, soon after

lets also say, you don't remove 1/2 of the string the second time around you wanna reuse it??!!, you just cut out the mains or the crosses (take your pick),,, in either case, the string left on the racket is going to be so loose, it would be ridiculously umplayable, I know this because I tried it myself 1x time,, NOT WORTH THE EFFORT

and never mind the racquet stress of just having 1/2 of the pressure cut out, regardless if its mounted properly or not
 

Shroud

G.O.A.T.
G
im with you on this, its crazy how many NEW people think this is ok, its not!!
just look at the stress the string goes through, at the first time stringing, and then taking it out to restring a second time!!??, is a sure way to snap!! while stringing and/or in mid play, soon after

lets also say, you don't remove 1/2 of the string the second time around you wanna reuse it??!!, you just cut out the mains or the crosses (take your pick),,, in either case, the string left on the racket is going to be so loose, it would be ridiculously umplayable, I know this because I tried it myself 1x time,, NOT WORTH THE EFFORT

and never mind the racquet stress of just having 1/2 of the pressure cut out, regardless if its mounted properly or not
It depends on the strings. If you are using kevlar or monogutzx or a poly like 4g, they will survive the restringing. I recall max power making it too.

Not sure I get the so loose it would be ridiculously unplayable comment. Sure if you just have half the strings, but the idea is to restring, so when you restring you end up with all the strings installed and well the tension comes back up.

Racquet stress is just not an issue on most modern racquets. I do it all the time and at much higher tension than are recommended and no issues. Actually had a stick that was unstrung for 4 years, brand new. Strung it and couldnt tell any difference between that new stick and the 3 used ones. And have you ever seen some one break a string and just leave the strings in the racquet and keep playing with a back up. That broken string racquet goes HOURS with reduced tension which is more stressfull than cutting out strings while a racquet is mounted on a stringer. And no one worries about cutting out the broken strings. (sure I do but how many hear have broken a string and just left the racquet in that condition? Lots).

If you have gut or an expensive string and can reuse it just makes sense. Or kevlar mains that are fine and have already lost tension why start over? Just redo the broken crosses.
 

1HBHfanatic

Legend
@Shroud
I KIND-OF see your point about the frame distortion and new more stringer frames,, but uneven stress is still there
but, and this is a big "but" = its your racquet! so its ok. I experiment with my stuff all the time
I do like seing you trying big differentials and such, its good to have people try different stuff
1 thing, I don't have a lot of experience with Kevlar, so this could be something different you are seeing, since you do use it a lot more and have more experience with it,,

these are my experiences with polys, synthetics, multis and some nat.gut,,
I have tried just restringing half the racquet before, as a personal experiment and being a bit cheap and trying to save some of the string job
the string that stayed on the frame, was LOOSE!!, very loose, no tension on it at all, maybe I played with it too long and it stretched out too much?!,; but at the time I felt like removing the knot and re-tensioning would have caused more issues for the following problems:
1 the knots would have worn out and provably snapped in those places while retying or during play,
2 the length of string needed would have been "too short ", even with "bridging",,

sooo I decided to trudge-on and finish the string job; ime, the tension for the already installed string, "did not come back", in-fact it stayed loose
I had to straighten the string every time while playing, not good
I also snapped the string while playing, soon after, when I re-used a poly string; I guess the poly got stressed too much at both restringing times and created a bad spot for little pressure to break it, (I don't snap strings normally),,

my conclusion on this experiment, 4ME!!!, it was not worth the time invested and/or the uncertainty of the reused string failing, while re-stringing or while playing.
I rather buy a cheaper string and restring more often!

BTW if you goal is to use the cross string as your main string the 2nd time around!?, your gonna be short!!, by 2x mains
if you wanna use the mains as your crosses next time?!, its gonna be tight in length, not much room for error, but also remember that the mains get stress the most, so condition of the string is a big factor the 2nd time arround
 

Shroud

G.O.A.T.
@Shroud
I KIND-OF see your point about the frame distortion and new more stringer frames,, but uneven stress is still there
but, and this is a big "but" = its your racquet! so its ok. I experiment with my stuff all the time
I do like seing you trying big differentials and such, its good to have people try different stuff
1 thing, I don't have a lot of experience with Kevlar, so this could be something different you are seeing, since you do use it a lot more and have more experience with it,,

these are my experiences with polys, synthetics, multis and some nat.gut,,
I have tried just restringing half the racquet before, as a personal experiment and being a bit cheap and trying to save some of the string job
the string that stayed on the frame, was LOOSE!!, very loose, no tension on it at all, maybe I played with it too long and it stretched out too much?!,; but at the time I felt like removing the knot and re-tensioning would have caused more issues for the following problems:
1 the knots would have worn out and provably snapped in those places while retying or during play,
2 the length of string needed would have been "too short ", even with "bridging",,

sooo I decided to trudge-on and finish the string job; ime, the tension for the already installed string, "did not come back", in-fact it stayed loose
I had to straighten the string every time while playing, not good
I also snapped the string while playing, soon after, when I re-used a poly string; I guess the poly got stressed too much at both restringing times and created a bad spot for little pressure to break it, (I don't snap strings normally),,

my conclusion on this experiment, 4ME!!!, it was not worth the time invested and/or the uncertainty of the reused string failing, while re-stringing or while playing.
I rather buy a cheaper string and restring more often!

BTW if you goal is to use the cross string as your main string the 2nd time around!?, your gonna be short!!, by 2x mains
if you wanna use the mains as your crosses next time?!, its gonna be tight in length, not much room for error, but also remember that the mains get stress the most, so condition of the string is a big factor the 2nd time arround
You might be right that its a kevlar thing. Kevlar lasts the longest and as a main its still going when the poly crosses are done, so restringing works. Kevlar doesnt stretch like other strings. But I recall restringing crosses for gut mains with no issues. I played gut for a bit but it broke really fast so I switched back to kevlar. So I am comfy saying that restringing kev and gut is ok and works. The times I used poly mains things were too notched to even think of reusing but that probably has more to do with 86lbs. Maybe I am conflating things somehow. FWIW I think reusing a poly cross is ok if its in good condition. Replacing a poly cross is ok. Reusing kevlar/ gut mains is ok. Those strings seem to play best before breaking anyhow. Monogut zx if you are careful can be reused.

I often would take mains from my 110" and put in the 100" or 95". Often there would be enough. Sometimes I was too mains short so the cross string made up the last two mains. I do recall reusing crosses but more with mains.

If you have syngut or multimains its probably not best to reuse as they are probably notched and well I can see that reducing tension enough that it might play loose or just break. Same with poly if its notched.
 

coolo118

New User
I strung my racquet 3 times with the same string and it still plays well. I don't like the added weight at the top of the hoop so I won't be reusing the mains anymore and will just tie them off. For the crosses I will start off with a knot and end with a few wraps on the bridge, zip tie, run the extra string down the throat and wrap the extra string around the top of the handle, and keep reusing my poly crosses.

I might also go back to using full poly, one piece and retighten the strings every 4 hours. I think poly tension stabilizes after the first stringing so I probably can go longer the second and third time.

Could you possibly post a picture of how you use the zip tie? Thanks!
 

Ihatetennis

Hall of Fame
Could you possibly post a picture of how you use the zip tie? Thanks!
If you need cheap string, buy Clarke strings. They aren’t literally 20-30 for a reel which is like $3 a set.

This practice is ridiculous. Club players amaze me sometimes but this is not it.
 
Top