I will be honest about the trade before we go any further, because I am the last person who should be advising anyone to bring less. A drop-weight machine is slower than a crank and much slower than an electronic. You will not string a racquet in twelve minutes on this.
What you get in exchange is the one thing the faster machines cannot promise: the tension is set by a weight on a bar, and a weight on a bar does not drift, does not need calibrating, and will read exactly the same in five years as it does this afternoon. Gravity is the only component that never goes out of specification.
Six-point mounting with adjustable V supports, which spreads the load around the hoop and is what keeps a frame from warping while it is under tension. A linear string gripper, so the string is pulled straight rather than wound around a drum — easier to load, and no crushing of the string surface.
The Tourna 175-CS is the well-built version of that idea.
Two five-tooth slip, quick-action, rotating and adjustable swivel clamps on a cone-lock swivel base. A full 360-degree turntable with a brake, on an ultra-smooth track base, in an ergonomic space-saving layout.
And it arrives with a built-in ruler and the essential tools — pliers, awl and a wrench set — which is the part I care about most, because otherwise those are four more things I have to remember to pack. It measures 29 inches long by 6.5 wide, weighs 53 pounds, and carries a two-year warranty.
Kandariya Mahadeva rises in eighty-four clustered peaks, one shikhara built of many, and nobody was in a hurry. Lakshmana Temple has its entire plinth carved with marching elephants and armies — a frieze that had to be finished figure by figure.
Khajuraho is the right home for a machine about patient, unhurried accumulation.
Chausath Yogini is sixty-four granite cells on one raised terrace. This is a town assembled the slow way, and it has outlasted everything built faster.
Gravity is the only calibration that never needs recalibrating.
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