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The Trouble With Tie-Offs!

I recently took in a racquet for stringing with a hybrid. After installing the mains I noticed that this particular racquet didn’t have anywhere to tie off the crosses at the throat, despite the Digest listing that showed two-piece instructions, including tie-off holes. After pondering my predicament for a moment, I used my grommet-grinding tool to remove the existing grommet where the tie-off hole should have been, popped in a larger individual tie-off grommet, and saved my string job.

5 sets of Pro Supex P.F. Blend 1.25/1.30 to:

Fred S. McWilliams, CS, Arlington, TX

Editor’s note: This will work, but if you’re thinking about grinding out a perfectly good grommet, you might want first to try enlarging the existing grommet with a waxed awl. You just need to stretch the grommet enough to admit two strings (the cross and the tie-off), and many times this technique works fine. If the grommet barrel splits or comes adrift, you’ve lost nothing because you were going to remove it anyway. If this does work, though, you have left the grommet strip intact. As with grinding out the existing grommet barrel, you have to do the enlargement before putting the cross string through.

See all articles by Fred S. McWilliams

From the November 2008 issue
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