I’ve been known to extol the numerous awesome qualities of traditional stringing. That’s no secret. And since I’ve got the ULax NYC box league coming up, I wanted to have traditional in a really stiff stick that can take a beating in the cold.  I brought out my trusty Mohawk Mission and went to work.

Yellow waxed tip hockey laces make great shooting strings.

Nice little bag on the spoon.

Notice anything different?

It’s a pretty basic traditional with 4 shooters and a nice channel. The biggest difference from most of the tradish stringing out there is how I attached the bottom of the leathers to the throat.

Looks normal more or less.

Instead of pulling the leathers through, I tied a knot in the crosslace, cut a slit in the leather near the throat area and pulled the crosslace through.  Then I took the crosslace and pulled that through the throat holes.  The pocket floats a bit more than a normal traditional pocket would and makes for very easy depth adjustments.

There we go. Nice. Like Gary Gait does it!

The leather takes a while to break in and is still pretty stiff. Got to hit the wall a bit more! PRACTICE!

I also wanted to try something a little different. So when STX and Nike sent over a Nike Elite 10 Chrome Head, I obviously went tradish on that bad boy.

It's almost TOO shiny. Ha. Not possible.

Instead of using normal sidewall or crosslace, I got some super thick venetian blind cord and used that.  I even used it in place of leathers.  The thick string gives great hold and a smooth release with a shallow pocket.  I may be converting to this full-time after some more experimentation.

Thicker crosslace = awesome hold.

A lot of string at the bottom. Pure truth.