TW Brandography Week 2

[Rabbit]

I just finished watching the TW Brandography Week 2 dealing with Babolat. It confirmed something I have mentioned a few times through the years on the boards regarding natural gut. I played natural gut when my parents were footing the bill. Back then, of course, we all played wood. In college, I went to synthetics because, well my pockets weren't very deep then. I also made the move to the bigger frames. After college, I went back to gut and then left it again. When I started playing gut again, it just didn't feel as good. There was one exception, TW was looking at bringing in some generic natural gut, one of those now sold on the large auction site. I strung it up, played with it and quite honestly was wowed. The feel was back. I was really enthused. A couple of days later, I went to play again and the set had broken in my bag. I let TW know that it played great, but didn't hold up. Apparently some of the other lucky board members who received the string had the same experience. TW didn't pursue stocking it.

That natural gut was made from sheep intestines. In the video, Lucien Nogues with Babolat said that Babolat switched from sheep intestines to cow in the late 70's or early 80's. The reason was twofold, one it would have taken a lot more sheep to make a set of gut (it takes two cows) because the sets had to be longer, and two cow intestines were stronger. But.....at least for me, the feel of sheep intestines was/is sublime. To me, the new gut plays much deader feeling than the old gut.

I'm just happy to have a personal mystery solved and find out that I'm not crazy.

 

[StringGuruMRT]

I remember the first time I met one of the higher ups at Babolat, and they were talking about the heritage and manufacture of their gut, and he shared a similar story. He also told the story of how the myth of "cat gut" got started. Back in the day when disposal of materials wasn't as regulated as it is now, stray cats would hang around the manufacturing plant waiting for the workers to dispose of the scraps, and people just assumed that because a lot of cats hung around the place, that must be what they're using to make the strings... Kind of like the old Chinese food urban legends... Seems to me if these places were using cats for their products, the cats might not want to hang out there!

 

[weelie]

I think sheep is also what the use for musical instrument strings.

 

[mmk]

I wonder if the serous membrane (gut) of different breeds of cows, or differently fed/raised cows play differently. For example, would gut from a Tajima (the source of Kobe or Wagyu beef) be significantly different from a Guernsey or Holstein?

 

[Geoff]

I seem to remember some of the brands of natural gut such as VV (Vilalta Vich) and Bow Brand were lamb and came in sets of 22’x11’ back when I started stringing in the mid 70s. Not trying to derail the thread! More on topic, Babolat has had some interesting natural gut offerings through the years such as colors and textures.

 

[jim e]

I seem to remember some of the brands of natural gut such as VV (Vilalta Vich) and Bow Brand were lamb and came in sets of 22’x11’ back when I started stringing in the mid 70s.

Back in 1970's Bow Brand came in 2 - 17' sections per set. I still have a set from back then.. That set was purchased 1972-1973 period of time.
Victor Imperial gut also came in the 2- 17' sections.

 

[Rabbit]

I seem to remember some of the brands of natural gut such as VV (Vilalta Vich) and Bow Brand were lamb and came in sets of 22’x11’ back when I started stringing in the mid 70s. Not trying to derail the thread! More on topic, Babolat has had some interesting natural gut offerings through the years such as colors and textures.

Yeah, about the closest thing now is Pacific with their different grades of gut. For a time, they had two ultra-premium guts, the Orange and then the $100/set gut. I tried that gut and it was really nice.

 

[Geoff]

Back in 1970's Bow Brand came in 2 - 17' sections per set. I still have a set from back then.. That set was purchased 1972-1973 period of time.
Victor Imperial gut also came in the 2- 17' sections.

Thank you for the corrected info @jim e ! Remember stringing wood racquets with 15g gut? That was a challenge!

 

[jim e]

Thank you for the corrected info @jim e ! Remember stringing wood racquets with 15g gut? That was a challenge!

Strung a lot of gut back then, and all racquets were wooden, except for the T 2000's , and odd ball metal racquets that would pop up once in a while.

 

[Geoff]

Strung a lot of gut back then, and all racquets were wooden, except for the T 2000's , and odd ball metal racquets that would pop up once in a while.

Between all the shared holes, thicker gauges and tighter string patterns in comparison stringing is so much easier now (outside of specific polys).