Cat Gut ...... Not!

A firm in Norfolk collects cow intestines by the bucketful from local abattoirs and turns them into the kind of natural gut strings favoured by many of the world's top tennis players.

"It takes about four cow's guts to string the average racquet," production manager Rosina explains.

To produce the strings, the cow guts are cleaned and cut into 40ft strands before being chemically treated to preserve them.

Each string is made up of 15 individual strands which are spun very tightly together to coalesce them, before being dried out in a humid room to prevent cracking.

It is a painstaking process that takes six weeks from start to finish, but according to Rosina, it is worth the wait.

"With synthetic string, once it's in the racquet and is hit by a ball, it will stretch and stay stretched, but because gut has a natural memory, it always tries to return to its original form, therefore absorbing the shock a lot more and reducing the risk of tennis elbow."

The company, which has been plying its unusual trade for more than 100 years, also uses the same techniques to produce gut strings for harps and other early instruments.

BBC