Relubricate.IT – String gripper on WISE 2086 Tension Head

As some of you might know, I string racquets – predominantly badminton racquets. I was stringing a racquet yesterday for a client and noticed that the sliding action of the string gripper was a bit rough. The string gripper is the part that grabs the string and allows the tension head to pull the string to the required tension. Since the action was a bit rough, it would sometimes take a moment to release the string after I had tensioned and clamped the string.

This morning, I decided to restring one of my racquets so that I could try it out with a different string when I play badminton later today. I usually play with Babolat badminton racquets, but had bought an Apacs racquet a while ago. The Apacs Z-Slayer racquet had been pre-strung by the supplier. When I played with this racquet, I wasn’t comfortable with the play of it so had left it. I usually string my racquets with Yonex Nanogy 98 string, but after another client asked for Yonex BG-66 Force, I had tried that on one of my racquets and actually liked it. I thought I should string this Apacs racquet with this Yonex BG-66 Force string.

I started to string the racquet, then could see that the gripper was still jamming a bit. The string gripper has two horizontal roller bearings which appeared to be a little dry, i.e. lacking in lubrication. It is likely that the bearings need a bit of oil. The WISE 2086 was nearly 8 years old, and having strung 660 racquets, I think I had only ever lubricated it once – some years ago, so was probably overdue.

I held the gripper closed without a string so that I could get to most of the bearings, and put a drop of 3-in-one oil on each bearing. Then I released the gripper. It stayed closed for a moment, then released. I closed the released the gripper a number of times until I could see that it was no longer staying closed and was opening immediately.

This photo shows the gripper in the closed position, holding a string at tension. Previously, the roller bearings were not lined up neatly in a row – now they were.

When the tension is released, the gripper will release the string once the string tension is relaxed. When I release the tension, as the string starts to slacken off, the gripper should release and hit the end stop. The snap sound that is heard when it hits the end stop should be very prompt and indicates that the bearings were no longer jamming.

Now I can continue stringing this racquet and the string gripper is as good as new.

Re-lubricate.IT – Silencing a quartz clock

Just last week my mother had moved into a nursing home.  She is in a room where there is no clock, so my sister initially thought about buying a new clock that was less noisy than the clocks already at home.  She found an article on the internet that talked about oiling a clock to make it silent or close to it.  She brought over two cheap wall clocks, that I remember and could hear – each tick could be heard if you were within 10 feet of the clock.  I was skeptical as I could not understand how a little bit of oil would make a clock mechanism go quiet, but was prepared to try it out.  Worst case is that the clocks no longer work and since these are cheap, like $5 – it was worthwhile to use them as guinea pigs.  It was time to “Re-lubricate.IT“.

I placed the clock face down, and one clock was held by little clips, so I just rotate the clock insert anti-clockwise, and it would unclip, then lift it out of the glass and surround.  Pull the hands off – they are just press-fits, and if they get bent, just straighten them.  There is a nut holding the clock mechanism to the clock face.  Then the mechanism can be taken out the back.  A few little clips hold a cover on, and then we get to the mechanism.  Essentially there are a few gears, like 5 or 6 – just remember in what order they came out.  Put a tiny drop of oil on each spindle or swivel point, then put it back together and voila!, much to my pleasant surprise, the clock was much quieter.  It was unbelievable!

I did this to the other clock, which we had put on a table with a cushion on top to mute its ticking.  This one, the back was held on with six small screws, but then after removing the hands and retaining nut, the mechanism refused to come off.  After much fiddling with a knife to go into the gap, it finally came off, it had been glued in.  Anyway the same process of “Re-lubricating.IT” and we ended up with another clock that was so quiet, it was hard pressed to hear which one was the louder one originally.

One thing when reassembling the clock hands, is to make sure that the second hand and the minute hand does clash – just bend slightly one of the hands to make them more parallel.

Just imagine, if this was done in the factory, a lot of us would not be trying to sleep at night listening to the ticking of a clock.  This is worthwhile to do for those that don’t have digital clocks.  Now, I hear that Ikea has $2 kitchen clocks, so if you manage to make a mess of this, a cheap replacement is available.  Also, the mechanism in most cases are compatible as they are usually copies, so your favourite clock can be rejuvenated, by replacing the mechanism – and if you are lucky, you can even use the old hands.