Anyone tested the newer Bab VS Team gut in prolonged wet conditions?

[speedysteve]

I am enjoying my full Team VS beds and now Hybrid (mains) with VS Team 17g.

I know there is a lot of talk about nat gut and damp / wet but is it VS Team really that fragile?

I found a couple of threads about the previous VS Team incarnation being pretty durable in the wet
So what's the new stuff like?

My experiences so far:
I have played a couple of times light rain / damp (always hard courts), and can feel or see no change whatsoever.
So far after ~4 weeks of gut play I can feel virtually no loss in tension in my racquets.
I'm checking the tension every week with racquet tune (have been for 3 weeks now) - tiny loss shown there.

I will continue to use the hybrid when damp / wet and see where it leads.
I don't mind restringing a hybrid as often as I need really... Arm before wallet

Any other folk have experience please chime in.

 

[Fintft]

I ocassionally play in a light drizzle with full bed VS Team 17 gut, but just to stay safe, I use a spare raquet with multi in harder rain.

Having said all of that it looks that definetly the new coating has improved the protection of the VS gut.

Also:
a) I do wax my strings (as reccomended by TW) before each hit.
b) My certified stringer also declares that the new gut is not as sensitive to moisture anymore, due to the new coating.

 

[speedysteve]

I ocassionally play in a light drizzle with full bed VS Team 17 gut, but just to stay safe, I use a spare raquet with multi in harder rain.

Having said all of that it looks that definetly the new coating has improved the protection of the VS gut.

Also:
a) I do wax my strings (as reccomended by TW) before each hit.
b) My certified stringer also declares that the new gut is not as sensitive to moisture anymore, due to the new coating.

That's good to know.
I soft wax the strings when I am home after a hit (once dry). Thought it better to do after as they will naturally dry out more after being moist but before is prob good for sliding affect.

What sort of wax do you use?

 

[NDtennis_Williston]

To clarify

That's good to know.
I soft wax the strings when I am home after a hit (once dry). Thought it better to do after as they will naturally dry out more after being moist but before is prob good for sliding affect.

What sort of wax do you use?

So to be clear, you only wax before playing in moist conditions. Say an indoor player, like me half of the year, who uses VS Gut, would I need to wax?

 

[speedysteve]

So to be clear, you only wax before playing in moist conditions. Say an indoor player, like me half of the year, who uses VS Gut, would I need to wax?

I wax (oo-er, that sounds so wrong!), after playing!
I got into doing after every session...

Fintft said he did it before an outing (I guess it's either already raining or drizzling or overcast so he does it as a precaution?).

I think in my tiny mind that it's good to wax every now and then anyway to feed the natural material?!
It can't hurt to help lube the nice slippery poly crosses most seem to use for hybrids either
That said, perhaps the nice clever people at Babolat have already covered all this with their coating and the strings would work just fine for a reasonable time, but I do it just in case...

 

[Fintft]

I wax (oo-er, that sounds so wrong!), after playing!
I got into doing after every session...

Fintft said he did it before an outing (I guess it's either already raining or drizzling or overcast so he does it as a precaution?).

I think in my tiny mind that it's good to wax every now and then anyway to feed the natural material?!
It can't hurt to help lube the nice slippery poly crosses most seem to use for hybrids either
That said, perhaps the nice clever people at Babolat have already covered all this with their coating and the strings would work just fine for a reasonable time, but I do it just in case...

Clean and wax not only for lubrication, but to remove chips that would, otherwise, fray the gut.

I'm surprised nobody notices the TW "Natural gut 101":

http://www.tennis-warehouse.com/LC/NaturalGut.html

"As well as keeping moisture out, cleaning the strings down with a cloth and rubbing wax on the stringbed prolongs string life by reducing friction and notching between strings. During play on clay, and even hard courts, dirt and grit lodged between the strings can increase friction. Friction creates notches on the surface of the string, leading to premature breakage. A little care taken to keep the strings waxed-up and grit free will lead to a much longer string life"

 

[speedysteve]

Clean and wax not only for lubrication, but to remove chips that would, otherwise, fray the gut.

I'm surprised nobody notices the TW "Natural gut 101":

http://www.tennis-warehouse.com/LC/NaturalGut.html

"As well as keeping moisture out, cleaning the strings down with a cloth and rubbing wax on the stringbed prolongs string life by reducing friction and notching between strings. During play on clay, and even hard courts, dirt and grit lodged between the strings can increase friction. Friction creates notches on the surface of the string, leading to premature breakage. A little care taken to keep the strings waxed-up and grit free will lead to a much longer string life"

Amen to that.

 

[jim e]

I have a number of racquets with all nat. gut mostly VS and Wilson nat. gut and I usually use the most frayed one for outdoor wet conditions. Never had an issue and the gut still holds up and hits very well. Very possible the string may last longer, but the strings are meant to be used and as such if used no string lasts forever anyways.
I do not wax them at all, and when I hit in wet weather, I typically wipe down the racquet and strings as dry as possible and sprinkle baby powder in the racquet cover to absorb any moisture. Todays strings can take this compared to the last generation gut strings of years ago, as last summer we had a # of wet days to hit, and usually if the courts got too wet, then they were not safe to run on them anyways, but strings got wet and no issues
. A good friend of mine has his own red clay court on his yard, and he wets it down good as he is a drop shot and lob style player and prefers a slower surface and with the wet clay the strings still held up nice.
Most people over exaggerate about wet weather and gut as far as I see it.
Another poster on these forums posted a while back that he poured a soft drink over his gut strings with no problems as well. Although he did not specify if it was diet or not.
As long as you do not soak the strings in water for a period of time and take care of them, there is no issues.

 

[udonman]

Could anyone please tell what type of wax to use and how to wax the gut strings?

Thank you.

 

[speedysteve]

Could anyone please tell what type of wax to use and how to wax the gut strings?

Thank you.

I use soft bees wax or canning wax as suggested on one thread or was it another forum.

 

[Fintft]

Could anyone please tell what type of wax to use and how to wax the gut strings?

Thank you.

Allen's bow wax from Wallmart, affordable and being like a chaff stick cleans the strings as well.

 

[volusiano]

Could anyone please tell what type of wax to use and how to wax the gut strings?

Thank you.

I use Turtle Wax brand of Carnauba cleaner wax which I bought from Target.

I just dip my fingers slightly into the wax to get some (not much) on my fingers then spread it on the string in small areas and rub on the string until the wax disappears, and I repeat for other areas on both sides of the racket face to cover the sweet spot of the rackets. I don't go heavy on the wax, only a light surface of wax will do.

I use Babolat string savers liberally in the sweet spot area to prevent the strings from cutting into each other. I don't rely on the waxing for that. What I rely on the waxing to do is to fill in the pores on the string caused by dirt upon ball impacts that leads to fraying. So I use a mini/small pair of scissors to cut out any frayed strands first before I wax. It seems to help slow down fraying a bit.

The string savers are not cheap if used liberally and discarded when the string breaks, but I've tried before to reuse them once the string broke and found it not too hard to reuse. Call me cheap but I immediately put my racket with broken string in a plastic bag to keep the string savers contained to be reused later. You'll need a little tweezer to pick them up and put them in the slot of the device to reattach them again on a new string bed one by one. Once I got a hang of it, it went pretty quickly for me. So I don't mind applying as much string savers as I can now on a new string bed because I can reuse them.

 

[Cerps]

Just a question guys...: How can you play in rain? In a light drizzle on clay I understand but on hardcourt as mentioned earlier? Thats slippery, even dangerous?! You would have to stand completely still to not slide all over the place.. And Fintft mentioned that he have a spare racquet strung with multi for harder rain, how do you play in harder rain? You wouldn't even see the ball!

 

[volusiano]

Just a question guys...: How can you play in rain? In a light drizzle on clay I understand but on hardcourt as mentioned earlier? Thats slippery, even dangerous?! You would have to stand completely still to not slide all over the place.. And Fintft mentioned that he have a spare racquet strung with multi for harder rain, how do you play in harder rain? You wouldn't even see the ball!

On hard court yesterday when I played it sprinkled a little bit then stopped so I was able to squeeze in about a little over an hour before it starting raining badly enough that we had to stop. But we stopped as soon as we deemed the court to be wet enough to be unsafe.

I brought a synthetic gut strung racket with me and as soon as it started sprinkling even just a little bit, I put away my natural gut strung racket and used the non-gut one. When it stopped raining temporarily I took back out the natural gut racket.

But i don't think any would be crazy enough to play when the court is totally wet. At least I wouldn't.

 

[speedysteve]

Just a question guys...: How can you play in rain? In a light drizzle on clay I understand but on hardcourt as mentioned earlier? Thats slippery, even dangerous?! You would have to stand completely still to not slide all over the place.. And Fintft mentioned that he have a spare racquet strung with multi for harder rain, how do you play in harder rain? You wouldn't even see the ball!

It can get pretty slippery on some courts.
Painted ones are the worst. Look nice but less grip. We have a local free court near me that is quite an open tarmac and not painted. The grip is amazingly good even in wet conditions.
For the love of tennis I play on

In general I'm finding the VS team to be up to the task and lasting very well.
I have decided to use the same racquet whatever the conditions and see how it goes.
Partly cos I need to groove with this racquet for a while and as a test of how long the gut will last me.
It's only a halt set of gut anyway! I string myself so £20 every so often for the hybrid, it's no problem, regardless of how long it lasts TBH.

I'll report back...

 

[speedysteve]

Forgot to say and edit update not working...

With the right shoes it's ok. Certainly not standing still same for both players...

 

[m2nk2]

In wet conditions I break my full bed of VS in about 40 min. In damp conditions they last for a couple of hours tops.

I always carry a spare PS85 with full poly. courts are usually wet in London for 8-9 months of the year so I tend to only play with that racquet. And Brits hate clay courts for some reason. Though, they never played on them. They don't know you can actually play on them when it's raining.

 

[speedysteve]

In wet conditions I break my full bed of VS in about 40 min. In damp conditions they last for a couple of hours tops.

Interesting. How long does it last you in the dry?

 

[QuadCam]

i've played in light rain with gut/poly hybrids and the strings held up.

I use Black VS gut though. the black coating may help in moist conditions. also, I wipe the string bed down with coconut oil after a hitting session. The gut seems to last quite awhile with this technique.

Plus, I live in South FL.... and it's always high humidity here.

 

[Fintft]

Just a question guys...: How can you play in rain? In a light drizzle on clay I understand but on hardcourt as mentioned earlier? Thats slippery, even dangerous?! You would have to stand completely still to not slide all over the place.. And Fintft mentioned that he have a spare racquet strung with multi for harder rain, how do you play in harder rain? You wouldn't even see the ball!

I play mainly on clay during the summer and that's not too bad in light rain.

I can only serve on hard courts when it rains, if that...

I love a multi as a spare, especially for serve practice, rain or shine.

 

[bigdaddyps]

This is like seeing how many times you can walk out in traffic before you're launched into a dirt nap. Sooner or later it's gonna happen.
When it's raining, use another racket that is not strung with gut! Gut is not gonna last very long if you keep exposing it to water.

 

[Sparkyovcov]

In wet conditions I break my full bed of VS in about 40 min. In damp conditions they last for a couple of hours tops.

I always carry a spare PS85 with full poly. courts are usually wet in London for 8-9 months of the year so I tend to only play with that racquet. And Brits hate clay courts for some reason. Though, they never played on them. They don't know you can actually play on them when it's raining.

Brits hate clay? I am British, I like clay....8-9 months rain is a slight over exaggeration too

 

[speedysteve]

Well, I'd love to play on clay courts if there were any easily accessible to me.
Have played on them in Sweden a fair bit.
The most expensive club in our area is apparently putting in 3 clay courts now so they have all surfaces covered...

So far in the sort of damp rather than wet conditions I've played in, there has been no degradation or tension loss of the VS Team BT7 (I'm measuring it with racquettune each week).
I don't expect strings to last forever...

This morning I would have to be playing in snow! Might melt away by the afternoon and leave a damp court conditions here though

 

[speedysteve]

Ok, an update to this one.
I had a practise session in prolonged and pretty hard rain - the things we do for tennis. Both of us wanted a hit and we could see better weather was coming to dry us out. Baseball cap is essential gear

Anyway, after about 25 mins I noticed the VS team BT7 starting to look a bit well, gooey is how I'd best describe it.
I had forgotten my 'wet' stick so played on.
The BT7 mains were moving around much more and needed putting back after each rally. I did see one or two tiny frays appearing too.
The weather improved so we and the racquets dried out. The balls remained damp and needed drying out on coming home.

On getting home and after a rub down with dry towel (the racquet silly, not me!), and a wax on the strings, I measured the tension.
Sure enough, 2lbs had been lost. Normally I'm losing about 0.3 or 0.4lb per week with mixed play 3 times a week. But sometimes with the odd racquet switch though.
I then checked the tension again the day after and things were back to normal, well down by 0.4lbs but bounced back.

Now I've not had Racquettune vary that much ever, so I don't think it's Racquettune. So the gut lost tension and then recovered?

It also recovers from the slight clamping marks when stringing up - Lovely natural, resilient material!

I will probably not push it next time and would have switched to wet stick had I remembered it.

Still, interesting experience.