Pre-Stretching ALU Power Rough

NLBwell

Legend
In the TW video review of ALU Power Rough, Troy Lara said he pre-stretched ALU Power Rough. It played well after that and maintained it's tension (44lbs) for a long time. Has anyone else pre-streched their polys, especially the ALU Rough? Did it make the string dead from the outset? I though that you shouldn't pre-stretch polys - though Kirshbaum does it for all their strings.
 

pvaudio

Legend
I don't know what Kirschbaum does when they say they pre-stretch their strings. That never made sense to me. Nonetheless, prestretching poly will most likely increase its tension stability, yes. It will immediately have lower playability as well since you pulled the elasticity out of a very stiff string before you even got to hit with it.
 

rofl_copter3

Professional
Essentially you'll end up will poly that has gone "dead" in a brand new string job... Poly has very little stretch in it as you would notice when you pull it during the stringing process, and when you pre-stretch it you take that little bit of give away so you end up with a very firm stringbed with a boardy feel. Also decreased spin potential and an increase in chances of injury are likely...
 

fortun8son

Hall of Fame
Even a 10% prestretch @ 44lbs is not that drastic.
It's still in the under 50 range and probably will not stretch the life out of the string.
Prestretching @ 55 is a different story.
 

Torres

Banned
You wouldn't really want to pre-stretch Alu Rough, as you basically pull alot of the liveliness and crispness out of it.

The reason why Troy does it (and you'd have to ask him) is probably because:-

- he probably likes a dead(er) feeling/playing string

- pre-streching it reduces tension loss (Alu loses tension quickly and goes dead quickly).

- the negative effects of prestreching are mitigated to some extent due to the low(er) tension he's using.

It wouldn't be what I would do, but if that's what he likes and its works for him, then so be it.
 

pvaudio

Legend
Even a 10% prestretch @ 44lbs is not that drastic.
It's still in the under 50 range and probably will not stretch the life out of the string.
Prestretching @ 55 is a different story.
I don't think it's so much the actual tension of the prestretch, it's the dynamic nature of the overshoot that most machines do. I'd be willing to bet that prestretching poly by hand has minimal adverse effects.
 
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