Ok I'm sure this has not been mentioned. Before I go to sleep I wanted to ask... Does stringing your racquets at specific temperatures make a difference at all??? I'm taking into account what we know of heat expansion, and cold contraction. My area for stringing is a relatively warm space... roughly 28degrees celsius. I'm thinking when things get a little cold, even after I've pre-stretched the strings; they seem to contract a bit more... does this mean, that they are at an even tighter tension, than I wanted??? I guess the next time (this weekend), that I string a racquet, I will see if the application of heat to the string, does anything in terms of the quality of the stringing job... I'm hoping the experiment yields even better results. Only time will tell. -Kelvin
Moisture is another factor. On a rainning day, I can feel the tension drops, say at least 2-3lbs. With slight increase in shuttle weight (absorbing moisture in the air), the sound and feel of impact are all different. Playing in England most of the time (wet and cold), it is the hot and dry air during Beijing's summer, I cann't cope.
I have not tried myself. But if you are game, you could try to string a racket with a string pre-stored in a frig (around 4C).
The time I went to Toronto, my racquet strings (brought from UK strung in BG 65) broke very quickly. Restrung it in BG65, went back to UK, string broke almost immediately. I put the racquet in the suitcase with clothes packd around it. Maybe the extreme cold made the strings more brittle.
Yes Cooler, infact I call my work space "the dungeon" :lol: I'm going to try out Lau's suggestion, and refrigerate a pack for 24hours, and see how maliable, or not the strings will be. By the sounds of what Cheung has written, it appears cold may possibly affect the strings playability, or durability for that matter. I have also noticed on different days when the air is more humid, and when the air is dryer than "normal" that it totally affects the way the shuttle flys, as well as the way it sounds coming off the strings. Hmm... I guess I would honestly play in a warmer climate, but with relatively low humidity. Is there anywhere on the planet like that? or do I just ask the facility operators to crank up the heat in Calgary gymnasiums?? hehe I'll let you guys know the results of my toiling next week... for now I'm going to get some rest... have to wake up to watch badminton on TV, then go run some errands before I can begin my operations in the dungeon... well at least the first racquet with the "heat treated strings", and on Sunday the "cold treated strings" Just to see how things go, and if it makes a difference at all. Thanks for all the help here, much appreciated. -Kelvin
did u caught all the cbc's program on saturday? I woke up late and caught the tail end of it i thot it was 1:30pm but i know now it meant toronto time did u tape any of it? personally i don't care much about the sound of impact, as temp. and humidity changes all the time. Also, i prefer to play in a cool gym if 'm in calgary, the cooler the better, actually, the colder the better but not below 5 deg. C because of the racket.
if long as the racket is warm up to ambient room temperature before playing, it should be fine. I think your string failure it is related to else. bg65 is a very forgiving string
ok... with 1 week of playing, I have come up with some results. I have found with stringing, that I could not handle the colder set of strings as well. I also found after 24 hours (not exactly, but close enough), after the fact, there seemed to be a slight variation in the pitch of the tension when I gave the strings their plucking tests. (that's my way to test string tension). While not completely scientific, the strings played very much the same... I don't know why I would have suspected any different, it's the same string anways. The racquet doesn't change, just the player. So again... there was a slight variant in final pitch of the string. I'm not sure if this means that there is a variation in string tension or not, as the differences while playing are negligible if any at all. I would have thought that with the string temp. being different, the contraction/expansion heat characteristics would have applied, with more impact... guess my test conditions were not good enough. I will try again another time, using 88s on my racquets, with a warm room, warm string, and then turn down the temp. to make it a cold room, then cold string as well. Anywho... I just thought you guys would like to know the results of my little stringing experiment. Thanks for your time. -Kelvin
