Nope. Nothing special really. Just have to look at how the non-shared holes at the top are set since that is a bit different from other 76-hole pattern like Arc11 or VT80. But if you look at the real racket, you can hardly go wrong even without counting the grommets each time. Not on the first go maybe, but you will get a feel for it over time.
Dropweight has a scale on it you slide the (just one weight, tennis uses both) weight for more or less leverage. Buy a cheap fishing scale as my PP pulled 4lb over. Which obliterated my first job. "24lb" top down with bad support placement on an old carlton. £30 carlton cannot take 29lb on the last crosses. Buy a stringer mover! Shared holes become easier. Good luck. Put 3 hours aside for your first job...
So I changed my order to the Penta Premium 3600. I have awls and tools available. I've been warned about the 3 hour thing, but I'm hoping I can crack it out faster than that.
Good choice! The overall quality of the Premiumstringers is from a different planet compared to the PP. One tip regarding awls: Don't use them! The only time I snapped a string while stringing was because I tried to somehow work on a shared hole with an awl and I stabbed the string inside the grommet with it. Using a string mover to thread shared holes is by far the better solution. And who cares if you need 2 or 4 hours for your first stringjob? As long as you finish it without major faults and without a cracked frame, everything is fine. You can start to speed up with racket #2 and following.
Yeah don't rush. Speed trials are for racquet 50+ I think. Do you know what soft weaving is? Just checking....
Nope. Is that the thing where you use two fingers on the cross strings and like, push it up and down a little to weave the string?
Didn't want to create a new thread on a similar topic but would a Klippermate M140 do the job? I am asking as there is a long shot that I might get one just to string my own racquets (stringer is about 30 minutes drive away and costs a bit dear to my liking). I am strictly setting my budget very tightly (i.e. about Klippermate M140 range) due to high shipping costs to Australia. The other consideration is the Gamma X-2 but even that is 1.5 times higher shipped as compared to the Klippermate. Charlie - I know you have made your decision but just out of curiosity did you consider the Klippermate? Justin
No, you weave one string ahead so that the cadence of the tensioned string matches the one you weave so the string slides in easier. I remember it by "always tension a loop".
I only looked at machines with a 6 point mounting system. So I want a load spreader on both the top and bottom of the racket right? But I'm finding if I try and mount like this it obscures some of the bottom grommets.
As Exert says, it's no big deal if you only use the load spreader at 12 o'clock position since that is the weakest spot of the racket. However, I have never had an issue with mounting any racket with a second one at 6 o'clock. But you should make sure that you have enough room to fit in the load spreader with the support post between the frame and the top cross string at 12 o'clock (before you start stringing it!). I had the issue especially with the JS10 which has and extremely high position top cross that there was not enough room left for both to fit in. So it wasn't possible to tension the top cross since it had to be bent around the post + load spreader. I had to remove the small plastic bit on the support post to make it fit - that was the same on the PP Challenger and on my new Superstringer machine.
So for starting out, is the Klippermate M140 the best one to go with? And what's the cheapest one could get to Australia shipped?
Yeah I'm getting the hang of it. I haven't tried stringing anything yet, I'm not 100% sure how the tensioning mechanism works on this machine as the gripper doesn't seem to have a hand ratchet to look it in place.
Take your time to play around with the whole mechanic to get a feel for it before you mount a racket. Actually, the only machine I know that has this ratchet mechanism is the PP Challenger 1 and my first mod ever was to remove it. If the tensioning bar goes down below horizontal when you tension the string, you just hold the gripper in place with your left hand and raise the bar again a bit and let it go down again. Repeat until it ends up in a horizontal position. That's it.
I'm also waiting for my cheap string to show up so if I mess up it's no big deal, might even cut it a few times just for practice.
Again, that sounds like a good plan. And until the strings will arrive, you can start practising to mount some rackets and moving around the clamps. Also just to get an overall feel for it. And if you want to sacrifice a couple of inches of your precious No. 1 reel, you can also start to adjust the clamps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-ck2YCJ9RA and with that also have a first trial of the whole gripping and tensioning mechanism.