Getting wood racquets strung?

teachingprotx said:
That damn thing looks BRAND NEW !
Click to expand...
And here are the specs.

DBB-01.webp


DBB-02.webp


DBB-03.webp
 
Should I get these strings for $5 a set (it says on them "man made gut")?
They are 33 feet long. That should be enough to one-piece string a woodie with 70 sq in head?

blue_star_01.webp


blue_star_02.webp
 
Last edited:
$5 a set is pretty darn cheap. 33' will easily do a standard woody whether you want to do it 1 pc or 2 pc, and gauge on the packs I have - which looks exactly like what you pictured - is going to likely be 1.30 +, probably @ 1.35 to 1.38.

Also, expect it to be very "trampoline-y" like all of the early synthetic guts. They all seem like slinkies! Stretch and stretch and stretch.... ;)
 
He'll provide photos to me tomorrow, together with info about the thickness of 'Blue Star' strings (which I'll buy for sure).
 
Last edited:
Some of the best flat hitters in the day really enjoyed that Blue Star - played great at first, fell off a bit later on. Added great cupping and pop, especially for flat serves... nothing second class about Blue Star
 
"tis a crazy world, no doubt ... ( But I admit that in today's world a fully crafted wood frame finished by EU skilled crafters, who are well paid, would be beyond belief expensive - but, it would be a better world)
 
How much do your wood racquets weigh?

Strung weights (no overgrip) of some of mine:

Jack Kramer Pro Staff - 384g
Jack Kramer Pro Staff - 359g
Jack Kramer Autograph - 382g
Wilson Advantage - 403g

The lighter Pro Staff is easy for me to use, but the heavier one is a bit harder against heavy topspin and also when I am stretched out on the backhand side.
 
Frankc said:
"tis a crazy world, no doubt ... ( But I admit that in today's world a fully crafted wood frame finished by EU skilled crafters, who are well paid, would be beyond belief expensive - but, it would be a better world)
Click to expand...
Isn't Grays still making new woods in the old monoshaft style that are supposed to be very good quality? I haven't tried one yet but I think they're reasonably priced for a new wood racquet if they are indeed made in Britain; I mean, they're comparable to today's new 'wonder racquets' :laughing: in price and I'm sure more work goes into the Grays woodies than the racquets coming out of the asian contract factories. Grafil had a pretty good thread going on the Grays and he seems to be impressed.
 
Cerbo said:
@Frankc Did you ever play on this court at the Racquet Club Ranch in Tucson, Arizona?
(photo: Raul Ramirez - 1977 Davis Cup Competition)
An awesome shade of blue!

raul_ramirez_1977_davis_cup_competition.jpg
Click to expand...
OHHH - thanks, Cerbo - speaks directly to my love of the game... Everything about this image sums up the dynamic beauty of the all court wood game... Wowza...
(No, I have not had the pleasure of playing on that dazzling blue hardcourt, but I did then and still do wear 3 stripe Adidas...)
 
Last edited:
Cerbo said:
Should I get these strings for $5 a set (it says on them "man made gut")?
They are 33 feet long. That should be enough to one-piece string a woodie with 70 sq in head?

blue_star_01.webp


blue_star_02.webp
Click to expand...
The good news is, the seller says he has 4 sets of black 'Blue Star' string, but his storage space is overfilled, and it's going to take him a day or two to find them.
The not so good news is, he doesn't have the whole 200m reel of Prince syn gut. He has, I'm guessing, just 50m left of this 'Prince Synthetic Gut Soft 16'.

Prince_syn_gut_soft_16_01.jpg


Prince_syn_gut_soft_16_02.jpg
 
Last edited:
Cerbo said:
The good news is, the seller says he has 4 sets of black 'Blue Star' string, but his storage space is overfilled, and it's going to take him a day or two to find them.
The not so good news is, he doesn't have the whole 200m reel of Prince syn gut. He has, I'm guessing, just 50m left of this 'Prince Synthetic Gut Soft 16'.

Prince_syn_gut_soft_16_01.jpg


Prince_syn_gut_soft_16_02.jpg
Click to expand...
I did a bit of research. These 'Prince Synthetic Gut Soft 16' strings are 20 years old.
What are the chances of them performing well, If maybe they haven't been stored properly?

Prince_syn_gut_soft_16_03.jpg
 
I've been hitting my prince woodies exclusively for about 6 months now. Easy to string bc they're ~ 103 head size (so I've read). Nat gut mains at 40 lbs (crossed by soft poly or Monogut ZX). I've also played it w Iso axon multi and soft poly at 30. Max dwell time and touch.
 
ey039524 said:
I've been hitting my prince woodies exclusively for about 6 months now. Easy to string bc they're ~ 103 head size (so I've read). Nat gut mains at 40 lbs (crossed by soft poly or Monogut ZX). I've also played it w Iso axon multi and soft poly at 30. Max dwell time and touch.
Click to expand...
Are you playing on hard court? Hitting mostly flat shots? 'Cause, on a 103 sq in head, 40 lbs would definitely be too low for me (I play on clay).
Isn't the recommended string tension for that Prince woodie 70-76lbs!?

 
Last edited:
Cerbo said:
I did a bit of research. These 'Prince Synthetic Gut Soft 16' strings are 20 years old.
What are the chances of them performing well, If maybe they haven't been stored properly?

Prince_syn_gut_soft_16_03.jpg
Click to expand...
I strangely enough just used some prince synthetic gut from 1991 . It played just fine to me . But it was in a package don’t know if that made much difference.
 
teachingprotx said:
I strangely enough just used some prince synthetic gut from 1991 . It played just fine to me . But it was in a package don’t know if that made much difference.
Click to expand...
On another thread @mixtape said:
mixtape said:
Packaging doesn't look yellow, which usually means it wasn't exposed to direct sunlight. I don't think there would be too much issue with its performance. I found 25+ year old packages of PSGD & PSGO at thrift stores and they played normally.
Click to expand...
So, I guess it should be fine, plus I said:
Cerbo said:
I'll ask him about the way it was stored. If he accepts to sell those, let's say, 50m of 'Prince Synthetic Gut Soft 16' for less than $20, I'll take a risk. It would be a fun experiment to see how it performs after 20 years.
Click to expand...
 
ey039524 said:
I've been hitting my prince woodies exclusively for about 6 months now. Easy to string bc they're ~ 103 head size (so I've read). Nat gut mains at 40 lbs (crossed by soft poly or Monogut ZX). I've also played it w Iso axon multi and soft poly at 30. Max dwell time and touch.
Click to expand...

I have my Woodie strung with Pro Poly Plasma Pure 1.23 at 35 pounds. Hits beautifully when making contact with the low-center sweetspot, but is super dead near the top of the hoop. That's probably a disadvantage to poly and gut or a multi would help response up high.
 
Last edited:
That syn gut will lose some tension and life, but the small wood frame and nicely dense pattern will be very stable over time compared to todays large and loosely patterned frames.
In the day, many played syn gut in wood and restrings were only after much, much play.
 
Frankc said:
That syn gut will lose some tension and life,
Click to expand...
I'll keep an eye for the degree of tension loss, since I never played with freshly strung syn gut before.
Already have a match scheduled for Sunday. I'm playing against an inexperienced player. Coincidently, he and I were also paired this summer, when I beat him playing with Slazenger Black Dart for the first time. Don't think he'll be pleased to see me carrying a wooden racket again. He likes to run a lot, but does not have much pace on his shots. It'll be a good opportunity for me to really find the groove with my Black Dart.
 
Last edited:
Frankc said:
That syn gut will lose some tension and life, but the small wood frame and nicely dense pattern will be very stable over time compared to todays large and loosely patterned frames.
In the day, many played syn gut in wood and restrings were only after much, much play.
Click to expand...
I find a lot of the older syn guts in the small head woodies seemed to fall off in 'steps' like stairs. Lose some tension right off the stringer, of course, then hold for a while, then lose some more in another step once played, then hold ok for a while, then depending upon how hard you hit and how much you are trying to spin with these small suckers, another step that may be smaller or may be larger, then after a bit begin to fall off more steeply. Then they all seem to end up around 30 lbs tension regardless of where they were originally stung.
 
Moldyoak said:
I find a lot of the older syn guts in the small head woodies seemed to fall off in 'steps' like stairs. Lose some tension right off the stringer, of course, then hold for a while, then lose some more in another step once played, then hold ok for a while, then depending upon how hard you hit and how much you are trying to spin with these small suckers, another step that may be smaller or may be larger, then after a bit begin to fall off more steeply. Then they all seem to end up around 30 lbs tension regardless of where they were originally stung.
Click to expand...
Well, yes—but it depends on how tightly you strung it beforehand.
To say that only 30 lbs remain is very vague.
If you could measure the string bed stiffness, you wouldn't write something like that.
As I see it, that's just a pure guess on your part. :unsure:
 
I use either an ERT or racquet tune, but I am very doubtful as to how accurately either can measure a small head wood. The ERT of course is measuring DT and that is not really what I'm talking about. Racquet tune is measuring tension, and any woody that I have with syn gut - some 40+ year old syn gut, some vintage syn gut strung within the last year or so - always seem to end up somewhere around 30 lbs on racquet tune. You guys who are pros may have better ways of measuring but I definitely do not.

I have not strung any of my stable with new (as in not vintage) syn gut because if I'm stringing up a woody, I'm using gut and that holds tension one heck of a lot better. And I like it!

Edit: I guess the only point I'm trying to make is that I don't think old syn gut - first generation or 1980s material - holds tension very well at all, regardless of how high you string it if trying to use it now. Certainly does not hold tension anywhere along the lines of new, better-quality syn guts. Whether this is due to age, or due to the materials utilized relative to modern composition, I have no idea.
 
Last edited:
Cerbo said:
Are you playing on hard court? Hitting mostly flat shots? 'Cause, on a 103 sq in head, 40 lbs would definitely be too low for me (I play on clay).
Isn't the recommended string tension for that Prince woodie 70-76lbs!?

Click to expand...
Yeah, hard courts. Not just flat, I hit a sw forehand w spin.
 
Moldyoak said:
I use either an ERT or racquet tune, but I am very doubtful as to how accurately either can measure a small head wood. The ERT of course is measuring DT and that is not really what I'm talking about. Racquet tune is measuring tension, and any woody that I have with syn gut - some 40+ year old syn gut, some vintage syn gut strung within the last year or so - always seem to end up somewhere around 30 lbs on racquet tune. You guys who are pros may have better ways of measuring but I definitely do not.

I have not strung any of my stable with new (as in not vintage) syn gut because if I'm stringing up a woody, I'm using gut and that holds tension one heck of a lot better. And I like it!

Edit: I guess the only point I'm trying to make is that I don't think old syn gut - first generation or 1980s material - holds tension very well at all, regardless of how high you string it if trying to use it now. Certainly does not hold tension anywhere along the lines of new, better-quality syn guts. Whether this is due to age, or due to the materials utilized relative to modern composition, I have no idea.
Click to expand...
I don't want to lecture you, but I would like to tell you something about stringbed stiffness.
When you bake a cake, you can never tell which and how many ingredients are in the cake based on its total weight and taste.
Similarly, you cannot measure the weight you have set on the display of your machine in the finished frame.
You therefore have to say goodbye to the reference weight set on your machine and switch to DT.
But the ERT 300 measures the string vibration, interpolates this data, and converts it to DT.
However, since the ERT does not recognize wooden frames that are 420 cm² or 65 in², this measurement can only be inaccurate.
The same applies to Racquet Tune.
No matter what you try to tell me, this measurement method can never calculate the string vibration in a wooden frame to a weight that is supposed to be in the string bed.
 
@fritzhimself @Moldyoak
And what about taking into account the loss of elasticity due to material fatigue? If strings were only losing tension, wouldn't you be getting more and more power on your shots?
 
Last edited:
fritzhimself said:
I don't want to lecture you, but I would like to tell you something about stringbed stiffness.
When you bake a cake, you can never tell which and how many ingredients are in the cake based on its total weight and taste.
Similarly, you cannot measure the weight you have set on the display of your machine in the finished frame.
You therefore have to say goodbye to the reference weight set on your machine and switch to DT.
But the ERT 300 measures the string vibration, interpolates this data, and converts it to DT.
However, since the ERT does not recognize wooden frames that are 420 cm² or 65 in², this measurement can only be inaccurate.
The same applies to Racquet Tune.
No matter what you try to tell me, this measurement method can never calculate the string vibration in a wooden frame to a weight that is supposed to be in the string bed.
Click to expand...
I am certainly not arguing with you! I am positive you know far more than do I, so please feel free to lecture as I am trying to learn. I am merely relaying my experience based upon the tools with which I have to work. I think, in actuality, that we agree - I have never felt confident that either the ERT or the racquet tune app is accurately measuring what is going on with small wood racquets. I don't know if there is a way to measure that, outside of what the string machine says it's doing when the racquet is on the machine.

The only thing I am trying to say, since the OP was noting the use of old syn gut, is that I have found old syn gut whether strung 40 years ago or strung recently (meaning the use of old vintage string) to be much, much faster at tension loss than new-made 2025 syn gut. The old stuff seems like pulling taffy or a slinky - it just seems to keep stretching and stretching forever. Whether my tools for measurement of tension are accurate or not - and I agree, with these small woodies, they sure do not seem to be - I can certainly tell just via hitting that the tension with that old string has dropped off precipitously in very noticeable stages.
 
A small example: at the end of August, I strung three wooden rackets with at least 20-year-old multifilament squash strings (1.20 mm).
These rackets were used in a nostalgic tennis tournament.
Two rackets were strung with 23/22 kg and one with 24/23 kg, each with 10% pre-stretch.
With my RDC, I measured 61 RA, 64 RA, and 53 RA immediately after stringing.
Today, these frames have 48 RA, 50 RA, and 40 RA.
Each frame loses between 6 and 7 RA during relaxation – the rest seems to have been played down.
Converted from RA to DT, that would be 31 DT, 31.8 DT, and 27.5 DT.
With the ERT 300, I obtained the following measurements:
Since it dampens or restricts string vibration in such small wooden frames—37 DT, 35 DT, and 33 DT.
in DT are supposed to be kilograms – for stringbed stiffness.
 
Well, after a lifetime in the game and loving it - and almost a lifetime as a stringer, I have relied on my two thumbs and my left palm ( racquet tapped there) and my ears for gauging string tension. Works for me ( maybe add in that the hitting "feel" of the frame)...
( In the day, many of us went to the local stringer and asked for "not too tight, tight, or very tight"...)
 
Frankc said:
Well, after a lifetime in the game and loving it - and almost a lifetime as a stringer, I have relied on my two thumbs and my left palm ( racquet tapped there) and my ears for gauging string tension. Works for me ( maybe add in that the hitting "feel" of the frame)...
( In the day, many of us went to the local stringer and asked for "not too tight, tight, or very tight"...)
Click to expand...
I try that as well, but I am still working on training my ear!!! It is very noticeable, though, if you still have hearing enough to discern frequency differences. :)
 
Ha, ha, and I don't need those fancy instruments, 'cause I'm a human machine! Ten years ago, I had a stringer who told me that out of all the players who were bringing him their rackets for restringing, I was the only one who would bring in my racket exactly when restringing was recommended, based on tension loss.
 
I should have added that tapping one frame's strings with the head of another is truly one of the best tests for tension.
( Watch all the earlier pros tap away at the break for finding the tension of choice - effective and cool to do...
Cannot get outta my head an image of Edberg tapping away during his amazing matches at W to find the instrument in those moments for his "out of this world's" talents.. )
 
Frankc said:
tapping one frame's strings with the head of another
Click to expand...
That requires having two identical frames, right?
This whole year, I've been on a fun journey of playtesting vintage rackets. The closest I've got to purchasing two same models was when I asked my brother who lives in Germany to get me another 'Fischer Superform Open Lite' from a seller in Austria. But that seller seems to be too lazy to figure out how to send it.
 
Frankc said:
Was that because of slipping out of your hand on a hard serve?
Hopefully, not otherwise...
Click to expand...
Not a very hard serve. As I keep playtesting rackets with different handles, my grip while serving was getting looser and looser. Plus, towards the end of the match, I started rushing a bit, because another match was scheduled on the same court right after ours. And so I stopped wiping sweat off my hands. At that critical moment when I was serving, my ball toss was a bit too in front and low, and as I was basically chasing the ball, the racket slipped out of my hand.

Although, I must say, Slazenger Black Dart suffered a heroic death, as it brought me the victory!
Donnay Monte Carlo Björn Borg only carried the flag for the last two games.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

T
Davis Topspin Diagonal Strung Racquet
Replies
1
Views
2K
joe sch
joe sch
onehandbh
Recommended strings for wood racquets?
Replies
12
Views
1K
coachrick
coachrick
D
stringing wood rackets?
Replies
5
Views
4K
joe sch
joe sch
AtTheNet
Wilson Jack Kramer "Imperial"?
Replies
4
Views
3K
Hannah19
Hannah19
B
Question Kramer Autograph Wood
Replies
10
Views
4K
NLBwell
N
Back
Top