top to bottom stringing of mains

[Anonymous]

I've noticed on the prince stringing site that is specifies top to bottom stringing of the crosses.
I'm confused, what is the top and bottom of the racquet?
Is the throat the top or the opposite end to the grip the top?

For one piece stringing of all the racquets I've strung the mains always finish at the throat end which means the crosses have to begin at the throat, is the throat the top of the racquet.

If two piece stringing, one begins in the middle of the x's and works towards either end, which end do you work to first?

[Anonymous]

The top of the racquet refers to the the part of the hoop that is at the opposite end of the handle--this is always the top. If the mains end at the throat you have two alternatives if you prefer to string the crosses top to bottom. The first is to do a 2 piece string job and the second is to do an around the world pattern.

Two piece stringing would typically start at the top of the racquet--not the middle. Hope this helps.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for clearing up what is the top of the racket. Have worked out the codes now.
Some have B and T, which is bottom and top
Others have H and T which is top and Bottom. Ehh!
Are all rackets best strung with the crosses top to bottom, or is this just a Prince directive?

How do I do a "round the world" Pattern? On the third last main do you do a cross and return complete the last 2 mains and end up at the top of the racket to do the remaining crosses?

[Anonymous]

:) My best advice to you is to join the United States Racquet Stringers Association or the European Racquet Stringers Association, whichever you prefer. Membership will include a stringers manual with patterns to all tennis, racquetball, squash, and badmiton racquets, a monthly magazine with tips and articles of interest, and free samples to members from time to time. For beginners there's no better way to get started. I joined many years ago and am now a Master Racquet Technician with the USRSA, one of only 400 or so of the total 6650 membership. I string for the ATP and was a member of the official team at Wimbledon this year. You can see some pictures (not now but soon) by visiting my site at www.baselines.net. (http://www.baselines.net.) As for the ATW pattern there are so many variations to this pattern that there is no good way to exdplain it. Suffice it to say that by using this pattern on a racquet where the mains typically end at the throat, you are able to string it in such a way that the crosses will be installed from top to bottom. Here's a heads up that may be of interest to you. I'm in the process of developing a new web site that will have a very good message board where you can get answers to all of your stringing questions. We've got a lot of work to do yet but once it's complete it's going to be a very nice site. I look for it to go active late in the fall, around the middle of November if we're lucky. It's a lot of work and I'm not throwing it up there until I'm completely satisfied with the content. I'll not be posting the name of the site here, but you can email me directly a little later on if you're interested. Hope this helps!

[Hawkeye2]

Hi there,

usually the crosses should be strung from the Head (Top) to the Trunk (Bottom).

While stringing, the racquet gets "deformed" a lot.

So, if you start stringing at the Top, you'll put a lot of pressure to the head and the racquet tends to get deformed in the trunk area as a reaction but the trunk itself works against it.

If you would start the cosses at the trunk, the racquet tries to "evade" in the head area and there's no support like in the stable trunk area.

So you could (and most probably will) damage racquets, when stringing the crosses from trunk to the head. The Racquet will not break at once, but the inner structure will suffer for sure.

Bye.