Understanding tension differences between cross and main

[whodat]

When I first started stringing I used a soft multi such as NRG or Laser Supreme and would string the mains and crosses at the same tension. After logging into this forum and reading the advices of gurus like Gaines and Steve, I would decrease my crosses slightly (about 2-3#) to achieve a bigger sweet spot. Now that I have switched to hybriding with gut mains and poly crosses, I went back to keeping the tensions the same because polys tend to lose tension quickly. I would like to reverse the hybriding and go with gut crosses. I went to racquetmaxx.com and read that I should string the gut at 5# higher than the poly mains. What is the rationale behind this? Moreover I should prestretch the poly prior to using it. How do you prestretch by hand if you don't have a high end stringer that will do it for you?
Thanks in advance.

 

[Gaines Hillix]

When I first started stringing I used a soft multi such as NRG or Laser Supreme and would string the mains and crosses at the same tension. After logging into this forum and reading the advices of gurus like Gaines and Steve, I would decrease my crosses slightly (about 2-3#) to achieve a bigger sweet spot. Now that I have switched to hybriding with gut mains and poly crosses, I went back to keeping the tensions the same because polys tend to lose tension quickly. I would like to reverse the hybriding and go with gut crosses. I went to racquetmaxx.com and read that I should string the gut at 5# higher than the poly mains. What is the rationale behind this? Moreover I should prestretch the poly prior to using it. How do you prestretch by hand if you don't have a high end stringer that will do it for you?
Thanks in advance.

IMO, they are recommending this 5# increase in tension on the gut to try to equalize the contributions of the mains and crosses to the stringbed assuming that you've dropped the poly mains below your normal tension. I just put ALU mains and nat gut crosses in one of my PK Laver Type S frames and I strung both at 58 lbs.

 

[jbs24]

How do you prestretch by hand if you don't have a high end stringer that will do it for you?
Thanks in advance.

clamp the whole length of string off at one end with a starting clamp or other means, and get something to pull the other end with. Pull hard. I pull with a stick attached to a string tension meter so i have an idea how much tension i'm putting on the string.