I made two strings today. My first attempt, and I am really impressed with them. I picked up some poly thread from walmart. They were 1.50 each, one blue and one salmon. I picked up a variegated blue and white nylon from Jo-Anns for $8.
I followed Airetic instructions via youtube. I set two hooks 12ft apart in my workbench. I used 6 wraps for each and twisted clockwise until I had 15in of shrinkage. The folded it and twisted counter-clockwise until it no longer stretched.
I am really please with the results. I think I could have added one or two wraps for the nylon. But I actually like the thinner feel right now.
Fun isn’t it! Been a while but Coats & Clark dual duty and XP were nice threads to try. Also the embroidery pure poly. That stuff will whip like mad and last. At Joann’s. There’s an old string making thread discussion here that should still have some good info in it.
Try different thread tension too. It will effect play and string behavior. Also after the fold letting it go at once or pinching it down a few inches at a time seemed to make a small difference too IIRC. A fishing swivel was handy for the twisting. A dremel with a hook in it works wells for twisting (haven’t seen Airetic video).
I think I’ve got some notes of many string combo’s in pictures if you would be interested let me know and I’ll message them to you.
It is just the beginning for me for sure. I would love to ha e some notes. It would be great to understand how each adjustment or tweak affects play. I originally watch Doc Pop make his first using the same method. After watching the airetic method I used those steps. I figured it would give me a good base to go from.
Looks good. I saw I used ‘trilobal’ & maxilock too among others. Trilobal is good stuff for stiffness and speed but won’t give much bounce. I prefered ‘Dragon’ string when I played years ago which had no real bounce either so it’s all preference but really fun to test out and try.
I did a multi thread holder to carry around my hooks. 10 to 12 threads in one lap that way. Thread layout mattered too. If I bunched up 3 trilobals on one side it created a different wind so I kept them evenly spaced and got better string from it imho.
