I bought myself a home stringing machine, the Gamma Progression 200, because I wanted a more convenient solution for restringing and testing out squash strings. I’ve strung rackets occasionally on crank-type stand-up machines, but this was my first time using a drop-weight machine. I made tons of mistakes and actually cracked my M-140 a little in the process, but now I’ve got the hang of it (I think) for the future.
Tjeerd says
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Hi Pierre!
You did well buying your own stringing machine, welcome to the club! 🙂 I think you haven’t made it easy for yourself getting a floating clamp machine, but I am sure you’re able to get good and solid results with it in time. Just keep practising and you’ll eventually get good at it, no doubt.
Just a little tip: what helped me a lot in getting a hang of it, was keeping track of the rackets I strung; like racket brand and model, stringing pattern, date of string job, string and tension used and how the combination of it all felt when playing. And in the beginning I used some of the cheapest squash strings I could get my hands on, so I didn’t had to bother cut them out prematurely.
Good luck and have fun!
Pierre says
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That’s a good idea, I’ll start a log!
Mike says
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Hi,
I totally agree with recording things (in a simple Excel table works for me). Last year I bought a drop weight machine with automatic clamp bases so no floating clamp issues, which does make it easier! KlipperUSA has some info on the stringing patterns for various rackets. Another potential tip, for those rackets with main strings that end up causing you to string the crosses from bottom to top, it’s generally considered better to develop an around the world (ATW) pattern you are comfy and consistent with, in order to string from top to bottom, which should reduce the stress on the top of the frame as the tension increases down the racket. Once you’ve done it a few times it’s not an issue at all, just good to try a few ways and see what works. At the end of the day it’s about consistency.
I love being able to try different strings and tensions to see what what tweaks feel good or bad and get a better understanding of where the noticeable differences really are. I’ve got some cheap reels of string and it’s also interesting comparing differences between very high end string and cheap variants!