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Investing in Pre-stretching

Investing one minute in pre-stretching could be one of the most profitable and enjoyable investments a stringer can make. Our shop realizes big gains with pre-stretching:

1. It saves us at least 10 percent of the time it takes to string each frame;
2. It makes stringing more enjoyable; and
3. It slows tension loss by more than 10 times. This increases playability for our customers, which reflects well on us.

This is how we pre-stretch in our shop:

1. Mount the string on our Pre-Stretch Rack for a minimum of 10 minutes. Usually, we let the string pre-stretch while stringing another racquet. (See the photo of our Pre-Stretch Rack.)
2. Set the machine pre-stretch to pull 20% over reference tension. For example, if machine tension is adjusted to 50 lbs., the pre-stretch setting will be 60 lbs.
3. While stringing on our constant-pull machines, we allow the tension head to continue to pull tension while threading the next string through the racquet.

Because of this pre-stretching, our string jobs are unusually stiff compared to racquets strung with a more traditional method at the same reference tension without pre-stretching. Thus, we usually start with a lower reference tension than normal. Over time, our string jobs are tighter than those done traditionally because our tension loss is reduced (see the chart).

Another result of our pre-stretch regime is that during the first couple of hours after stringing, the stringbed tension actually increases.

5 sets of Wilson NXT 16 to:

Dr. Carl Love, Albany, OR

From the January 2008 issue
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