How much does prestretch poly lengthen?

[Wolfessis]

I've had a reel of volkl v-torque tour 1.25mm that I've never really gelled with. It's a co-poly.

Always great for like 20-30 minutes before massive tension loss and soon has way too much pop, even strung in 60s.

My thoughts are to ask stringer to do maximum prestretch (20%) with longest possible pulls, to stretch it as much as possible. Going to try it at 57/53. I've never tried it prestretched but from all I've been reading, it seems like an excellent candidate to actually transform it into a much better actually usable string, by taming its crazy pop.

My question is... would anyone have an estimate of how much longer this will could make the string (if by much at all)?

Just curious if max prestretch would actually thin the string out so it's actually closer to 1.20mm. cause that would actually be pretty cool haha.

Going to try it in a beefed up vcore 95 2021

 

[Injured Again]

I did not have a good experience with V-Torque Tour. I wrote about it in this thread:

http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/index.php?threads/v-torque-tour.647861/

it never lasted long enough for me to know if tension loss ever slowed. I think I broke it in an 18x19 racquet in just over four hours.

Slow pulling with a 20% over tension should remove some of that springy feel but I would guess tension loss would still be a problem. Pre-stretching seems more effective with stiffer strings and V-Torque Tour is pretty elastic.

 

[LOBALOT]

If you pull hard enough you should be able to get another 40 feet from a 40 foot length of string. Just keep pulling and get some help if you need it!!!

 

[Wolfessis]

Slow pulling with a 20% over tension should remove some of that springy feel but I would guess tension loss would still be a problem. Pre-stretching seems more effective with stiffer strings and V-Torque Tour is pretty elastic.

Ok so you never actually tried it prestretched?

 

[esgee48]

You would be better off using 1.30mm cuz thicker hold tension better than thin. Machine pre stretch does not remove tension loss. You need to manual prestretch yourself. i install 16 ga 4G pulling until no adjustments at 44-50#. Generally takes 12-20 seconds. My clients say tension loss is fairly minimal ~20%. The string you like will take a lot longer to string and your stringer may not do it correctly. FWIW, you may add 1 foot to a 40 feet package if you do the prestretch.

 

[travlerajm]

I always prestretch manually by leaning and pulsing my body weight.

A 20-foot segment of poly will typically permanently lengthen by about 6-7”. If it’s factory prestretched, then it might only lengthen by about 5”.

 

[Injured Again]

Ok so you never actually tried it prestretched?

Typically when I try new strings, I do a light prestretch to minimize coil memory, and with more elastic strings like V-Torque Tour will double pull on my lockout stringer with about a ten second wait in between.

Mostly, I couldn’t tell if tension loss leveled off because the string didn’t last long enough. The softer Volkl strings were good for about five hours before notching through and breaking.

 

[Wolfessis]

Yeah I haven't made it to even 5 hours I don't reckon with the v-torque tour because of how wild the strings would become so quickly lol. Oh actually except an 18x19 too actually, tecnifibre t fight rs 305 from which it actually played quite well in, the only frame it has played well in for me. Maybe due to it being quite stiff and super low powered.

I got my stringer to do 20% prestretch with longest pull time and ended up going for 59/54 on a constant pull machine, so a significant amount of prestretch, and significantly more than it would've had on your setup.

So we will see what happens...it is a 16x20 95in so we shall see.

Bouncing a ball on stringbed it feels really good but as we know proper court time will be the true test!

 

[Wolfessis]

I should add that the string itself feels different with this amount of tension and prestretch than it has ever felt. It feels a lot stiffer but the edges also feel much much more pronounced

 

[Wolfessis]

Have finally managed to have some hits with this setup. It's been quite interesting.

First hit it was a little stiff but I didn't play with it heaps (only 15ish min) as I realised the frame itself needed a bit of tweaking with the weight and balance, via changeup of lead and grip stuff.

Had another pretty solid 2.5 hour hit with it including serves and it's definitely the best this string has ever played. Is it perfect? No, but I'll get to that.

Good things to start; it didn't have that crazy tension drop off where it becomes launchy af and unpredictable. Ball bite was excellent. Had what I would describe as controllable pop; much much less than the excessive pop its had whenever else I've played with it (after that very quick initial tension dropoff), even when strung on low 60s on very low power frame (head radical pro 2021). But still enough to have power when you need it and not 'dead'.

It had great directional control and it was easy to aggressively change ball direction with incredibly high accuracy and consistency.

It felt like the tension dropped just a little at the start over 30 mins, but then it felt like it stabilized and didn't change much from there and it settled in a great place.

...Now for the negatives. I feel like the main string pocket snapback and dwell time isn't amazing. Thus spin can be accessed; especially on shots where ball grab adds a lot, but you really have to work your technique with more pronounced shaping, to get more shape and heavier topspin to produce that dip; it's much more noticeable for topspin than slice.

Not that you can't get it, but again same results require more aggressive shaping for topspin.

Still, the stringbed was actually consistent and predictable with a full bed of this string for the first time ever without crazy tension drop off, so that's a win!

Would I use it full bed? No. But depending how it continues to perform, I think it actually has amazing potential as a cross string when prestretched in this way. It's very slippery and despite the ball grab/grip, when you slide your finger along it the way the mains would slide against it, it's actually very smooth.

I think it has potential as a great cross string with something like diadem solstice power 1.20 in the main, where the lack of *excessive* string movement+snapback could actually stabilise the stringbed, and the main would give the ball better spin and shape.

Figuring out the tension of the solstice though would be the challenge!