How Synthetic Strings Are Made

Synthetic strings for racquet sports come in all shapes, sizes, configurations, and colors. String construction involves three basic steps:

1. Design;

2. Manufacturing; and

3. Packaging.

However, the manufacturing step itself can be broken down further into five key steps:

1. Selecting the raw materials and other ingredients;

2. Creating the filaments from which strings are made;

3. Multifilament construction;

4. Coating and sizing (in the case of multifilaments); and

5. Post-processing, if any.

Here’s a closer look at the basic five-step manufacturing phase.

Raw materials

All synthetic strings are made from polymers, which are essentially long chains of monomers. Monomers are small, single molecules. Bonding these single (mono-) molecules into long-chain (poly-) molecules is called polymerization.

For “poly” strings, manufacturers typically use polyesters comprised of ester functional groups— such as polyethylene terephthalate (AKA PET polyester), co-PET, and thermoplastic polyester elastomers (TPE). There are also “poly” strings made from polyolefins, which are polymers such as polyethylenes and polypropylenes, comprised of alkene functional groups, and which have different properties (including molecular weight) compared to polyesters. As with the ingredients for “nylon” strings, these ingredients can also be blended, as would be the case when mixing PET polyester cord factory with thermoplastic polyester cord factory elastomers.

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