Stringing our 20th Racket

Its a small milestone but what better way to mark it with a small present for Ryan. When the string on his weapon of choice, Yonex Nanospeed 990 snapped, I decided to give it a complete makeover with full epoxy treatment on the cracked segment of the frame and a complete paint respray and finished with clear coat. The grommets were replaced and strung with two lengths of recycled strings strung at 25 lbs (main) and 26 lbs (cross) at proportionate tension. Those using Taiwan Yonex will know the rated tension is no more than 24 lbs but I was risking it to test the strength of the epoxy glue. To my surprise, the racket held the tension well despite the cracked joint at 10 o'clock. Ryan gave me a sheepish smile with the new look of his racket asking me... "eh daddy, how you do it arr...?" For those who have been close to the boys may probably noticed Ryan has scaled down his training hours in favour of his ever increasing school homework in preparation for his "O" level exams. He still trains with Persatuan, the club and privately with Aaron and I. He has just broken his voice a few weeks ago and in transition of entering into teenagehood. I have started to inject 30mins of gymn exercises after their usual on court sessions. He certainly is growing up having a mind of his own. So the journey continues....

Aaron's First Title in 2016

With nothing to show for in the 2016 national junior circuit under 14 category, I enrolled the boys in a private tournament in May, Dr Pro-Aero Sports-WVN Jr Round Robin Badminton Championship which has a surprise coverage by the Badminton Unlimited. Aaron was in his element topping his group and went on all the way to win in the finals. The results are published here in the link..

http://www.tournamentsoftware.com/sport/draw.aspx?id=4A5309C6-7890-4D74-8527-FE3460CD88AC&draw=63

More from Badminton Unlimited here...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_iVrFJsKzm8&feature=share

DIY Grommet Inserts

Note the 3 string overlap at the bottom insert.

Before tensioning but the plastic is still too soft. 

Aaron has a Protech Tangerine which suffered a collapsed in the frame between the 8th & 9th hole both sides of the racket. This is the highest stress point in any racket because of the shared strings between the mains and the cross. Sometimes, depends on the weave pattern, both holes have to withstand the tension of 3 overlap strings. Wish racket manufacturers can design rackets with stronger material on these points. I have carved out simple plastic grommet supports inserts to help stiffen the bridge between hole 8 & 9 made from shuttle tube plastic cover because it is soft and easy to cut into shape with a sissors. However this plastic material is still not strong enough to hold the string tension. I may have to source for alternative materials around the house. Maybe a CD cover? Any suggestions from the readers?

Acquiring a Stringing Machine

Pre-weave from 200m reel-to min wastages

4 point Fleet Crank Type Stringing Equipment

My first racket strung was my daughter's beat up Yonex

Done! After more than 3 hours for a first timer.

I was just lamenting how easily racket string snaps nowadays. At the rate the strings were giving way, I might as well string the rackets myself and that was exactly what Aaron has suggested to me one day. I was warming up to the idea but only a used stringing machine was all I could afford at the moment. As I was sourcing around, I met coach Collins during one of the boys training sessions. A connoisseur on badminton subject matter, my chats with him has always been enlightening. When I brought up my desire to acquire a stringing machine, I hit the jackpot. Immediately he sold me his manual stringing machine just like that.  

Thanks to coach Collins, I have bought over his Fleet crank type stringing machine c/w all accessories. When I brought it home two days later, being a curious person he is, Aaron couldn’t stop fiddling with it. I immersed myself into the art and techniques of stringing rackets and I had to accelerate my learning curve because Aaron couldn’t wait to sting his first racket. Being a fast learner, Aaron can now fully weave a racket without supervision. There were loads of “how to” videos in Youtube and great stringing resource sticky pinned in Badminton Central forum which is easily available.

The good thing about stringing my own rackets is that I could experiment with different string types and string gauges and different combinations of string tension to meet the playing preference of the boys. It has become my SOP now to pre-stretch new strings (to reduce tension loss, post stringing) and have Aaron to fully local weave the racket first before I take over on the stringing machine to save time. Our rackets now get proportional tension treatment to enlarge the sweet spot on the racket. My first racket, Kiera’s Yonex took me more than 3 hours to complete. Since then, the time has tumbled down to less than an hour (including grommet adjustments). Perhaps there is no pressure for me to speed up the stringing process since I am a meticulous DIY person by nature and pride myself in the quality of work produced. Nevertheless, the duration will come down as I get to string more rackets. For the record, the rackets I have been tweaking so far are as follows :

Yonex Arcsaber 009DX - Kiera’s                               Main 20 Lbs / Cross 22 Lbs (2 knots)

Dr Pro Ultrapower 569 – Aaron’s                               Main 22 Lbs / Cross 24 Lbs (4 knots)

Babolat X Act 85 – Colin’s                                        Main 25 Lbs / Cross 26 Lbs (2 knots)

Yonex Nanospeed 990 – Ryan’s                               Main 24 Lbs / Cross 24 Lbs (4 knots)

Protech Legendary Platinum – Aaron’s                      Main 25 Lbs / Cross 25.5 Lbs (2 knots)

Yonex Nanospeed 990 – Ryan’s                               Proportional Tension 20 – 26 Lbs (2 knots)

Protech Legendary Grand – Kiera’s                           Proportional Tension 18 – 22 Lbs (10 knots)

Wilson Dynapower 9500 – Customer’s                       Main 25 Lbs / Cross 26 Lbs (2 knots)

Protech Racket Repair

This grommetless racket has 5 strings and 10 knots strung at 18 to 21 Lbs proportionate tension.

Protech Legendary Grand - has seen better days. Its duties now relegated from competition to recreational use by my 6 year old daughter.

The frame cracked right through a string hole.

Close up on the inside after the DIY glue job.

DIY the logo stencil for a good measure.

Hi. I'm back after a 6 months hiatus due to outstation work commitments. Secondly, my pc was infected by ransomware which resulted in all my data being encrypted. I had to recover and update all lost data from my backup. Im still updating as I write. 

Anyway in my absence here, I have acquired a used stringing machine. This has occupied part of my time learning how to string the boys rackets. There will be another post for this.

One of the rackets which I bought last year, a Protech Legendary Grand, developed a crack on the frame at 10 o'clock. I love the feel of Protech rackets. Although it is light headed but with the longer and slimmer shaft, it gives a whippy feel about it. Unfortunately these rackets are fragile and need lots of care playing with it.

So Aaron clashed this new racket during his doubles sparring and what a waste to toss it away. So I decided to repair it using industrial '2 in 1' epoxy glue. Then I strung it using 5 offrun strings at proportional tension between 18 to 21 Lbs. Yes you heard that right. Thats 10 knots.The result are as in the pictorials above.

I dont expect this battle weary racket to last long anyway. It will be for Aaron to hone his stringing  skills and knotting techniques.

WHAT A YEAR IT HAS BEEN FOR AARON

2015 has been a fabulous year for Aaron. Beginning with the National Junior Circuit Leg 1 in January where Putrajaya played host, Aaron finished as semi-finalist in both U12 singles and doubles category.

In March, Aaron became champion in MSSD Putrajaya district and qualified for MSSM which he finished a dismal quarter-final round. Then in April, the Leg 2 of the National Junior Circuit in Malacca saw him advance to the quarter-finals while in the doubles, he and Jie Yang lost in the first round. Despite this, he collected enough points to qualify for both singles and doubles in the penultimate National Junior Grand-Prix finals in Kedah. 

In Kedah, nobody would have expected little Aaron finished the way he did in the semi-finals. It was a feat that surpass all our expectations. The climax of the year was when Aaron has been selected by Kem Badminton Astro for an all expense paid trip to Tokyo Japan via a birthday treat recorded by Astro and aired in Astro Arena 801.

Aaron finished the year in a high for the PJba U13 ranking selection. He was unbeaten in all his 6 games to qualify for 2016 Putrajaya state team.

2015 Achievements

Jan 2015              : National Jr Circuit Leg 1 Putrajaya           Semi-final

Mar 2015             : MSSWP Putrajaya                                   Champion

Mar 2015             : TM Sports Klang                                      Champion

Apr 2015              : National Jr Circuit Leg 1 Melaka               Quarter-final

Aug 2015              : National Jr Grand-Prix Finals, Kedah        Semi-final

Aug 2015              : FLC Sports Day, Looi Academy               Champion

Dec 2015              : Team 16 Tournament, Cheras                  Runners-up

Dec 2015              : PJba U13 Ranking, Putrajaya                     Unbeaten in his Group

2015 Training Stats

In 2015 incredibly the boys had quite a hectic training schedule which both my wife and I had to put up with.

They have occupied 302 days out of 365 days for training.
That works out to be 82.7%. On average, they train 5.79 days per week. Average training duration per session is 2+ hours but this is difficult to measure because some duration could be 3.5 hours but they may be idling due to the large group.

The highest training days per month were 28 days during Jan, Mar and Jul. The lowest was 17 days in Jun and this was during the mid year school break where Aaron also suffered ankle sprain and was resting and holidaying for 2 weeks. Note that tournament hours are included in the stats but off-court physical training eg. Jogging, sprinting etc. are not included.

Who did they train with?

29% of their training were with my wife and I.
14% were with private coaches.
49% were with Putrajaya.
9% were others eg. Astro Kasih, MSSD/M, sparring etc.

What sort of training is best?

Corrective training. We shoot video clips to playback where they'd gone wrong and we take it on court to focus on these. For the bad habits which are beyond us, thats where the private coaches come in to assist. For Putrajaya, its more of a requirement than anything but its good to keep their physical momentum going.

At this age where most kids are undergoing the transition to puberty, its more challenging to keep them disciplined. We will be looking for quality sparring groups and continue to build their skills and court temperament.