Does nylon go dead?

[dak95_00]

My normal setup is nylon mains 16 at 60lbs and Isospeed Baseline Spin & Speed crosses 17 at 60lbs.

I’ve never noticed them going dead but the last two times out I’ve struggled to get my normal power and control. I know it’s a super cheap setup but I play great with it. The string either went dead do to age or the fact I left my bag in my car for 12 hours during the workday on a very cold day.

I plan on cutting them out and restringing but I wanted to see what tt members think of the situation.

 

[esgee48]

Answer is "sorta." If you hit a flattish ball with maybe a max of 400 rpm, then you won't notice much difference as the string loses tension. However, your combo is OGSM/poly, which implies you are using more spin in your shots, or trying to. Loss of tension and elasticity means less snapback and this makes your combo feel like it is playing "dead." Playing in cold weather does not help since the stringbed will not have the elasticity to move/snapback/pocket the ball. Of course the ball is not warm either which contributes to the overall bad feeling. FWIW, all strings lose tension. Kevlar loses tension because the fibers align; everything else loses tension from permanent elongation. It only takes 1-2 mm for a noticeable tension loss.

 

[Muppet]

My normal setup is nylon mains 16 at 60lbs and Isospeed Baseline Spin & Speed crosses 17 at 60lbs.

I’ve never noticed them going dead but the last two times out I’ve struggled to get my normal power and control. I know it’s a super cheap setup but I play great with it. The string either went dead do to age or the fact I left my bag in my car for 12 hours during the workday on a very cold day.

I plan on cutting them out and restringing but I wanted to see what tt members think of the situation.

With strings that affordable, I'd just re-string every week and always have a fresh racquet. This is assuming you string your own. But it sounds as though you like to keep your strings in your racquet after they've expired ("went dead due to age"). It's best to only get 10 hours max from inexpensive strings like yours.

I don't think 12 hours of cold will harm your racquets as long as you bring them into the warmth 30 min before playing.

 

[Irvin]

http://twu.tennis-warehouse.com/learning_center/deadstrings.php

 

[1HBHfanatic]

a couple points im thinking for this
first - being winter, im thinking the cold weather being a factor,, dropping tension a couple pounds would help if thats one o the issues
second - the grip, winter grips become slick and twist in your hand at impact, adding to the feel of loss in power/control of your normal shot, getting a stikcy winter grip should restore better hand traction, and in turn better control/power tranfer to the ball

 

[fuzz nation]

My normal setup is nylon mains 16 at 60lbs and Isospeed Baseline Spin & Speed crosses 17 at 60lbs.

I’ve never noticed them going dead but the last two times out I’ve struggled to get my normal power and control. I know it’s a super cheap setup but I play great with it. The string either went dead do to age or the fact I left my bag in my car for 12 hours during the workday on a very cold day.

I plan on cutting them out and restringing but I wanted to see what tt members think of the situation.

I'm also a fan of cheaper setups. Hopefully I haven't become a miser in general, but I get the best combo of everything I want with simple syn. gut beds that are also really affordable, too. I string at home and it's no biggie to string with this or that among the more exotic options, but they not as good for me as syn. gut beds at the "right" tension.

I agree with our pals above - it's usually helpful to drop tension when playing in the colder weather. When I'm coaching my high school teams in the spring and temps are often in the low 40's or high 30's, I like to drop tension in my frames by five pounds to get some of the feel back. In recent years it's also occurred to me that poly might be even more susceptible to temperature swings than syn. gut - it seems to firm up more drastically in the cold and softens faster than syn. gut in the heat.

I don't think that storing your racquets in a cold car should make any problems at all if you take them into let's say an indoor facility that's not freezing cold. My strings only get more rigid for me when I'm actually using those racquets in a really cold environment. The general consensus is to avoid leaving your racquets in a hot car to bake for a while. That may age your frames a little more quickly, but it will likely accelerate the degradation and softening of the strings if they cook under tension.

 

[Traffic]

My normal setup is nylon mains 16 at 60lbs and Isospeed Baseline Spin & Speed crosses 17 at 60lbs.

I’ve never noticed them going dead but the last two times out I’ve struggled to get my normal power and control. I know it’s a super cheap setup but I play great with it. The string either went dead do to age or the fact I left my bag in my car for 12 hours during the workday on a very cold day.

I plan on cutting them out and restringing but I wanted to see what tt members think of the situation.

I play with Velocity/Cream. My strings seem to lose its teeth sometime around 20hrs of play. Just don't have the same bite on the ball, I seem to be a bit down on power as well. My guess is that Velocity coating wears out and I no longer have a lively stringbed.

 

[LocNetMonster]

In recent years it's also occurred to me that poly might be even more susceptible to temperature swings than syn. gut - it seems to firm up more drastically in the cold and softens faster than syn. gut in the heat.

I agree. I demo'd a new poly last August before a tournament on a relatively cool summer day (around 75º or so). I could miss with it. So I decided to play it in the tournament a few days later. By match time it was 85º and humidity was pretty high and both were climbing as we approached noon time. I was consistently overhitting everything - ground strokes, volleys and serves. When I finally switched to a different stick that was strung at a higher tension I started playing more competitively.

My observation over the past year is Kevlar followed by Synthetic gut seems to play the most consistent in a wider range of temperatures. It seems some polys, especially thin gauges -17/18g - are more sensitive than others.

 

[Dartagnan64]

Going dead as in losing resilience like polyester? No, nylon doesn't do that for a long, long time. But losing tension? Yes. And that will effect how they play.

 

[Steve Huff]

Yes, it does go dead. It just takes a lot longer.

 

[ewiewp]

I'm gonna complicate this issue: it sometimes depends on the string.

For example, Gamma synthetic gut with wear guard: I don't know what it is made of (outer shell, I assume, over nylon core) but it stiffens/die (almost like a poly) after a certain playing time(~10 hours for me).
On a similar note, although not as severe as the Gamma, Prince Synthetic Gut with Duraflex, will give you the grainny(?) stiff feel from its coating after the nylon core loses some tension (or stretched, in about 10 hours for me).