How's the 900B? On paper it's even-balance bordering on headlight and medium stiff. Is it stiffer and head heavier than advertised?
After the Bladex 200 turned out to scratch the 40g of headweight as 3U version I'm not interested to get any Bladex. Is the N50 really that head light? The feel of the Bladex is excellent. Much much better than on a Turbocharging. My sweetspot of a racket is between 41g-42g headweight wet. Actually thinking to get an Axforce 80, but the 3U will be too heavy, and the 4U too light in the head. Anything else with old school pattern is dismissed. I'm sorry but that feels like playing back in 2005.
can't see your image anymore which racket are you talking about? Could you please post again the image or mention the name?
Tried another browser but same issue only 3 letters "IMG. All the other iamges I am able to see. I guess it might be blocked by the company firewall if you linked to an external disk space. However thanks for your reply and posting the name of the racket
btw regarding Bladex I have observed the following this week: Three days ago a club mate broke a one week old Bladex 800 at the 5 o'clock position through the grommet hole. It was not the result of any clash with the racket of another player or any other impact aside from the shuttle. Tension was 22lbs rather 1lbs less
Is it exactly on the hole of a knot? Maybe a butcher stringer who pulled the **** out of it because the string twists on the knot? My impression on the both Bladex 200 I strung is solid. The frame don't flex much. Let's observe if there are any more reports of breakage. Would be very unusual because quality-wise I never heard anything bad about Li-Ning and some users use even 10 year old rackets...
Going to check if I can get a picture because I saw that he took one. I'll post it here then. I never have broken any Li-Ling racket only a Yonex Voltric FB.
I'd say you are damned right it's a hole with a knot but do the pics prove that it's caused by the stringer?
Your friend (as far as I know he got it strung by the shop where he bought it) should contact the shop. Within the first 6 months the magic word is "Gewährleistung" and the shop is responsible for that. Also, they strung it wrong (top), so who knows what else they did while stringing. Also, tell him to order rackets unstrung and go to Simon.
Unfortunately the racket was delivered unstrung and then strung by another club mate Whether the asymetrical stringing or a material defect was the root cause we probably will not figure out but the wrong pattern is not really helpful. To be honest I'd better should NOT have mentioned the wrong pattern. Nevertheless warranty check is still in progress and maybe he will be lucky and gets a replacement. And you are right first adress regarding stringing for me is Simon. I have never been disappointed! The last racket I ordered already strung was with Aerobite because he does not have it available and I wanted to give it a try. But meanwhile I am again the opinion nothing beats Li-Ning No.1 but this is a different story and actually off-topic here. btw: Now at home I can see ucantseeme's image
When comparing to a 3u Bravesword 12, the N50 is roughly one gram heavier but with pretty similar headweight. Have enjoyed rackets with more headweight in the last few years but it just feels right. Especially with less time on court atm Looking at your preferences the Halbertec 8000 (or that series in general) may be an option when it comes over here. Should bring more headweight than the Bladex and less than the Axforce80/90 rackets. The users over on BadmintonCN haven't posted anything regarding frame weakness on the Bladex 800. These folks have been pretty fast at uncovering the frame weakness of the Ryuga II and poor quality on the Auraspeed HS. On a sidenote, there have been reports of the N90 IV having an unusuably weak frame for a LN racket. Also the Aeronauts and Airstream rackets were (at least somewhat more) prone to breaking around these vents.
Why? It's not the most convenient result for the stringer, but at least the owner of the racket has a full picture of what might have gone wrong. And for the stringer, it's a wake up call and an opportunity to improve. A mistake like that can happen very easily, although I'm pretty sure that you have to notice that something is off once you reach the top cross strings there. Apart from all that I'm still a bit hesitant to blame the breakage on that mistake alone. We are talking about ~21 lbs. tension and a relatively minor asymmetrical shift in the load distribution on the frame. I'd expect that doing the mains side-to-side for example will have much more impact in that regard - and we all know how commonly this is done. Bottom line, this is just a very, very unlucky situation from all perspectives. I'm really curious to see how the shop or Li-Ning respectively will handle the warranty claim.
You are right, if you look at it objectively but people do not always consider things objectively. At the end I just wanted to help but blamed the stringer and might have caused a quarrel between people and end up being the fool. Sometimes one better minds his own business.
IMO there could be other reasons apart from the stringing (but the guy who strung it should really learn to respect the work when I also look at the popped out grommet). I don't know the owner but on breakages some players also tend to become the innocent sheep. The racket never ever touched anything on badly chipped rackets is something I observed and they all just hit the shuttle. I also broke a mint racket in the past during a crouch defence and hit the floor and it broke at the same spot at a grommet hole. This also don't leave any chipping. I don't want to exclude any faulty product, but the situation is not easy to judge.
The popped out grommet I recognized yesteraday when I was reviewing the racket, too. I didn't want to add more fuel to the fire because it was already clear that the racket was not strung by the shop.
It is around 5 years ago (or even more) when I tested a BS12. Maybe I was thinking about the Arc10 because N50 looks quite similat. Must be around 10 years ago when I had a few hits with it. Actually I play more XD than MD but I enjoy both disciplines. A 3U Axforce 80 is for XD okay, but in MD I will struggle, a 4U seems too light in the head for both. I think I will wait until next year, but the actual prices are really tempting to buy an Axforce 80.
To be clear, just like Simon, I do not think that the stringing error was the cause. The forces at the bottom of the frame shouldn't have changed a lot, especially at that tension. Mistakes like that can happen, even easier on new rackets where the direction of the grommets doesn't hint where the string has to go. However, the stringer should not have given the racket back like that. At some point during the process he should have noticed it and corrected the mistake/started over. If he didn't notice, he wasn't focused enough for stringing. If he did notice and still didn't change it... well, that would be bad. I also cannot really imagine anything else he could have done to cause a breakage in that spot, to be honest. He did give the shop and Li Ning a reason to void warranty though. The situation sucks. I think the most likely reason is a material defect, so I hope with some goodwill he'll get a replacement for free. I have my doubts though.
