Wednesday 10 April 2013

Yonex RD7-SL3 + Natural Gut/Syn Gut @ 35/33 lbs

This is the other RD7 I am doing up for M. (link1)(link2)

Having tried an extremely low-powered strings setup, I will swing to the other extreme and give this a high-powered strings setup.


What else can it be?




Natural gut is a very beautiful string. There is this translucent golden yellow glow when light shines on it. It's absolutely captivating!


If you like kinky stuff, try stringing natural gut!



After the usual unravelling and pre-stretch to lessen the coil memory, it's off to work.



Halfway through, the gauge seems to feel quite thick for a 17g. So I measured it and it came out right at 1.25mm. Klip Legend is a very good quality, consistent and high-end gut for an affordable price.



The melodious tune from pinging the completed main strings cannot be ignored. When a string is plucked, the resonance stays and the beautiful sound reveberates around the racket! Kind of makes me think I'm stringing a harp sometimes!



I don't have perfect pitch. But only with natural gut, the centre few main strings share a very similar frequency when compared to other strings. This demonstrates the impressive tension stability of natural gut over synthetic strings.




Playtest:
- At low tensions, even with pre-stretch, there is a break-in period needed for natural gut. I haven't found the exact mark yet, but it definitely plays better after 15min. At 30min, the pocketing feels deeper. And comfort at 45min exceeds levels at 30min.
- Power levels are very good and there is absolutely no trampoline.
- When "whipped" deliberately, adding huge amounts of offensive topspin is no problem. With ELT, spin can be stepped-up at will.
- One impressive feature about ELT natural gut is the ease of "returning the power" from a hard-hit ball back to the opponent. No hard swings needed. Just a firm hold and a tap on the sweetspot and off it goes.
- The few deep corner shots which I thought were clear winners were "tapped back" to me with almost full power. My power!
- We are still fine-tuning and matching both RD7s. Some very unorthodox work involving drills and grinders may be carried out.




Strings:
Klip Legend Natural Gut 1.25mm mains @ 35 lbs
Pro Supex Synthetic Gut Titan 1.25mm crosses @ 33 lbs

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