well my friend told me that natural guts is a better string then synthetic guts... is this true?? he says natural gives a better sound but lasts only weeks.. seriously ive never heard of them cos i heard shops dont put them up cost its too expensive only if you ask. is this true? does anyone know about them?
Yes, natural gut is much better than synthetic gut, but they are very expensive. It also breaks more often, although you can minimize this by stringing 3-5 lbs lower.
I have used natural gut for about 3 years. It is the best string for touch and feel and arguably I get more power from it than any other string at the same tension although arguments with other coaches seems to indicate that gut is not known as being a power string. Gut is a semi-transparent natural product and is available in 3 gauges, the thinner the string the more feel it gives you. As soon as you hit with gut it starts to fray and you notice the fibres unravell but it is the characteristic of a natural product. As for lasting weeks it can be true depending how much you play but the norm is a couple of months, the downfall with gut is that it can suddenly loose tension without warning: one shot OK the next just fails. I have had a few restrings that have lasted just days opposed to months but this is because it is a natural product and has its own properties. I would say that if you slice a lot you will go through the string faster but in those 3 years I have never burst a string playing (althgough when I pick up the shuttle my string scrapes against the floor and splitts, so a bit of tape round the frame is advised if you get it) In the modern game the difficulty is that gut can be strung to approx 25 as it's maximum threshold and many players seem to need tensions above this so will never try it. Oh, and there is the cost at £20 a restring in the UK it is an expensive habbit although the stringer that does my rackets does not make as much profit on a gut restring as they do from sinthetics because of the higher cost price and it has to be imported from France as it is made by Babolat.
A price quote from www.badminton.net (locate in US): Babolat Natural Gut: $30 Yonex/Ashway strings: $5 - $15 So, the high price results into fairly low demand.
Natural Gut is excellent, but it only can support less than 8 hours. I have tried to use Babolat Natural Gut to be the main and BG 85 to be the cross. The result is also OK and the cost can be lower.
And I heard Natural guts will be greatly effected by the environmental factors, such as temperature, humidity, etc.
From hearsay, gut is very intolerant of knotting. I tried it once. It takes much longer to string a racquet and needs much more care to get a good result. This should translate into higher labour costs as well.
Being a past user of natural gut strings, I can say the following: up to now I can't find any synthetic strings that matches its feel and effects (say spinning the shuttle). I don't remember the brand names I used to string but they were either from UK or Australia. They were expensive (more than double of average synthetic strings) and in my case they usually lasted 2/3 weeks.
Wat do you think of natural gut string such as Babolat Vs touch and hi-life? Wat do you think of natural gut string such as Babolat Vs touch and hi-life? Will it be more advantages of using it? Does Yonex have gut string?