On April 16th, 2012 Riley Portera-Camp was diagnosed with AML, an aggressive form of Leukemia. Riley is a third year defensemen for the U-13 Knights and a 7th grader at Eastern York Middle School, York County PA. Eastern Knights Lacrosse Foundation has launched a fundraiser that will directly benefit Riley and enable him to receive his WISH through Make-A-Wish Foundation®.

Starting on May 6th up until half time of the NCAA Division 1 Championship Game on May 28th on ESPN, you may purchase as many raffle opportunities as you would like at $9 a piece. The winning raffle ticket will receive one of the Custom Lacrosse Heads you see here strung & dyed by us at Stylin’ Strings Lax. The other head and WISH will be given to Riley.

The heads shown are STX Stallion’s. This was fitting with the Eastern mascot being a Golden Knight on a horse. Once in the dye lab we did a Navy to Orange fade. The Navy represents Riley’s school and Orange is the ribbon color of Leukemia. You see here we popped out Score For A Cure & the customized Eastern Knights font in white on the outward faces of the head.

We partnered with Make-A-Wish® through Bob Rhein, Eastern’s Club president, and lacrosse activist. Here you see the logo customized on the top of the head.

This angle shows the all navy hard mesh pocket we threw in it to accentuate the dye. The shooting strings have a white striker, sidewall and top-string are all navy as well.

This angle show Riley’s name in white. The font was matched from the Lacrosse in the Eastern Knights logo.

Make-A-Wish® Greater Pennsylvania and Southern West Virginia grants wishes of children like Riley with life-threatening medical conditions to enrich the human experience with hope, strength and joy. Special Thanks goes out to them, Eastern Knights Lacrosse, & especially Bob Rhein. Bob has been coaching for 13 years in York County and has been an integral part in helping the county grow from 1 team to over 2000 players with a PA sanctioned status 2 years ago.

At Stylin’ Strings Lax we were excited to do our part to support Riley’s Wish, and now we ASK FOR YOUR HELP. To Make-A-Wish and a Raffle chance at one of these sticks go to http://www.hometeamsonline.com/teams/default.asp?u=EKL&t=c&s=lacrosse&p=registration

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For this issue of Stylin’ Strings Customs we solidified a creative marketing partnership with RipNet, a new lacrosse technology that is like no other. We wanted to take their logo and make a stick that matches how unique the platform of RipNet is. Here is a look at the two complete chopped customs and a lacrosse technology that has the potential to change the game.

We did an STX Super Power (top right) and a DeBeer Rapture, custom themed heads to match the RipNet brand. We modified the logo just a hair to fit the top of each of the respective heads. We decided to do one of our 3 color glue dyes but constrain in to just the outside of the head which elevated the complexity of the dye. On the inside of the heads we repeated different sizes of the RipNet icon in white and red.

This picture shows a close up of the Super Power dye job with our staple Stylin’ Strings Mesh-X pocket with half diamonds. Both of these themed options are available for sale as exact replicas to what you see in this article. The top right shows a nice angle of the pocket.

RipNet decided to pair up these two one-off-customs with high-end shafts to model these shooter sticks after the base principal their lacrosse technology stands for. This men’s head was put on an STX Alliance 85.

This close up shows the Stylin’ Strings Gripper Pro Girl String pocket in a RipNet theme.

The DeBeer Rapture was paired with an all black composite TRX shaft.

Here is just a cool picture of the twins in the photography studio at the Strings Headquarters. Next you will read and see a quick look at the RipNet lacrosse technology.

RipNet is everything lacrosse. It’s a web and mobile tool that helps players focus and develop their offensive skills, an extensive social network for lacrosse players, and a life style. Lacrosse is a game of respect, and in order to respect lacrosse a player must understand his game.

RipNet lets you manually track your shots, goals and assists, and then break down your stats to learn your offensive tendencies and abilities. It provides weekly instructional videos that don’t just teach you how to shoot, but how to beat a goalie from one of the best to play the game. It puts the game in your hands and molds you into an offensive weapon.

The lacrosse community is becoming flatter and RipNet helps players connect with that community. Check on all your lacrosse friends across the country and see how their season is progressing in their profiles. Get all the lacrosse news you can handle, bring up topics that are important to you in the first-ever players only forums, and view leaderboards and players of the week to find out who is the largest offensive force in lacrosse.

Although a player technology first, RipNet branches out to coaches, parents and recruiters also. The ability for a coach to view their team’s analytics as a whole, a parent’s contribution to goal, shot and assist tracking for their children, and the understanding a college recruiter obtains of a specific player’s offensive game all come together to create the ultimate lacrosse experience in RipNet.

So that’s a wrap, a Stylin’ Strings Lax & RipNet collaboration. Check out www.rip.net

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For this issue of Stylin’ Strings Lax Customs we wanted to capture the holiday that has past in an article. We had a unique project in the dye lab for Great Falls Lacrosse Club in Virginia. The project was for the girls programs from U-9 to U-15. They wanted some custom dyed heads to spruce up the goalie position.

Our contact Mairin Kuligowski wanted to use a combination of STX Eclipse & Gait Sentinal lacrosse heads to do a few different Poka dot dye jobs. The colors as you can see here ranged from Pink w/ white, Pink on light Pink, Pink on Purple, & Lime Green on Black.

The pockets were also strung with neon green, pink, purple, white or black mesh. These colors were also mixed up throughout all the shooters, top strings, and sidewalls.

Stay tuned for more customs on www.stylinstrings.com and on www.facebook.com/StylinStringsLacrosse

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This issue of Stylin’ Strings Lax Customs is Part 2 of our UVA stick series. This round of heads came in after our first consultations with some of the players over their Christmas break. Grab Two Saber’s, Get some Flow, and Twice the Showtime in this five stick rundown special.

When we met with the players our Inside Out Dye was very popular, this snapshot has the full V/swords logo peaking bottom right. Front and center is the debut of our version of the famous Rotunda with a Two-Color Fade. The middle was a special request out of our stock line of dyes, a Camo in UVA colors. The top right sneaking in the frame was our first Two Color Argyle with a little flare of an Inside Only Fade. Back left is for the clean-cut guys, and simple ballers out there.

The first up in the lineup is a Gait Showtime Inside Out Dye with a navy to orange fade highlighting the full V logo, and swords two color on the lip. This is a very difficult dye. It is strung with our Stylin’ Strings Trax pocket with ½ diamond outer channels instead of our coils. This allows the whole pocket to expand quicker.

This side view shows a nice deep pocket placed in the middle of the head. We raised the degree of difficulty by having just one orange saber on the back of the top lip on the white side of the head.

This next stick isn’t called the Gait Flow for no reason. If anyone has watched any Virginia games in HD this season you will see this thing scoring goals live and direct. Our version of the famous Rotunda replica has been a player favorite. The stick then fades to orange with a nice clean V/Sabres at the bottom of the head. These fit nicely into the Flow & Showtime heads.

This detailed close up shows how intricate the Two-Color Rotunda on the lip really is. The orange areas are supposed to represent the brick areas of the actual Rotunda on campus. See more of these complex Rotunda customs in Parts 3 & 4 coming soon.

This side view of our staple Mesh-X pocket was also strung with ½ diamond outer channels. It really cuts weeks out of the break in time by going with half diamonds over coils. We figured after the pockets 10th birthday we could start offering some tweaked options to mold it to any individual.

This Sabre was quite the challenge. This player wanted an Argyle Lip Fade, which is cool until we realized the lip on these have a groove that weaves up and down between every two top string holes. This made it quite the task, not to mention he only wanted the orange to white fade on the inside and the outside all navy.

Our traditional Trax pocket was strung with ½ diamond outer channels, which seems to be a common request. You can see rather than slicing the Argyle clean we let it wrap over for a different look.

The company favorite of this article is this Showtime that debut’s on defense. We will let it up to the imagination to figure out the rest. This is one of our favorite heads out of all the UVA customs so far.

The pocket is just a mesh replica strung to exact player specs. The pocket has orange top string, sidewall, white hard mesh, and white shooters with a striker.

Don’t be alarmed; we do work on simple sticks. Some players like to be more reserved with a simple number with a One-Color dye. He gave us the go ahead to make it just a hair different. We found a cool indent we chose to pin out with the bodyline in the side of the head.

This side view also shows a mesh pocket replica all white. Here you also get a better look at the simple pin job.

So there you have it Part 2 is over, at the time this article has published we are shipping Part 5 to UVA so stay tuned to more sweet wands. Again, Stylin’ Strings Lax would like to thank The University of Virginia for the opportunity and the contract naming us The Official Stringers & Dye Artists for 2012. Stay tuned to our facebook page http://www.facebook.com/StylinStringsLacrosse for un-posted content.

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For this issue of Stylin’ Strings Lax Customs we chose a Green Chrome STX Revolver. St. Patty’s day was months away but we needed a new clover demo for in the shop. The U.S. Lacrosse Convention was coming up so we decided we would take it there as well to show off. We weren’t sure if chrome was a fad that came & gone or if it was here to stay. We keep our eyes open in the industry and have only read how difficult it is to mess with dying chrome. We figured this Green Chrome would be perfect for a trial of one of our signature Clover dyes.

Brie (part time art teacher) and new Dye apprentice under Dustin, had been working for Stylin’ Strings for over 6 months so this was one of her first full custom jobs after she was off of the creative leash. She is also Dustin’s 23 yr. old niece so good chance dyeing sick sticks are in here genes.

As usual dying over chrome was a little tricky but this four-color chrome job revealed a true piece of art. It was only fitting to drop this article a few days after what we call St. Patty’s Chrome. The stick was picked up by one of our buddy’s from Pro Lax Shops at the convention and taken home to the UK to help spread Stylin’ Strings Customs across the seas.

Stay tuned for more customs on www.stylinstrings.com and on www.facebook.com/StylinStringsLacrosse

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For this issue of Stylin’ Strings Customs we are showing the cart before the horse. If you are too young to understand that than enjoy the article anyhow. This stick idea came from Trice Crawford from Alexandria Virginia. His brother Witt had given us a Fighter Jet Dye theme to do a month or so before. So in an effort trump his younger brother he wanted us to Unleash the Beast.

Trice wanted to have The Beast written in red on the back of the scoop, yellow eyes from the Jet Theme (yet to be released), and the entire outside of the head covered in hair. Other than the pink and black snakeskin we did, this was by far one of the most challenging requests we have ever received.

Dustin knew to pull this off it would take over 700 strands of hair and that was to just cover the outside of the head. You can see here a close up of how tedious of a job this was.

Every face of the outside of the head was covered, even the insides of the sidewalls of the head. The head had to be finished with Black to show the contrast of the brown hair. From 5 feet away you can’t appreciate the fine detail revealed when the sun hits this thing or “Beast”.

This STX Xcalibur was a great base for us to work with all the flat surfaces. This close up also shows the detail work under the right lighting.

Dustin thought this open angle was a great way to capture the infinite teeth & mouth vibe Trice wanted around the entire inside of the head. The over ambitious hair outside may overshadow how difficult it was to get the teeth around the whole inside of the head. The end product looks amazing but the hours on this head tally in the top 5 ever come out of Stylin’ Strings Lax and one of Dustin’s most impressive to date.

The mesh pocket was strung with white Top string & sidewall to flow into the teeth. The all red mesh and shooters disappear into the mouth of the dye. After a full season of play “Beasting” on a D-pole at the U-13 level Trice’s dad Tom Crawford followed up with SSLax and said Trice loves his stick. Stay tuned for more customs on www.stylinstrings.com and on www.facebook.com/StylinStringsLacrosse

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For this episode of the new season of Stylin’ Strings Customs we wanted to come out of the gate swinging to trump the sticks of last season like the Goalie Houndstooth/Flag & the Inside Out Clover for Jake Byrne. We had some correspondence with someone inside the UVA organization. This developed into trading emails with head coach Dom Starsia. After he viewed the SS Lax website and understood what we do he invited us down for a very anticipated special day with the team.

Dustin & Justin decided to make three heads prior to making the trip to show the guys what the possibilities when it came to personalizing a stick for each individual. With the blessing of the University we were supplied the official logos to make this job legit. Our contact at UVA told us the guys like the Torque, the Flow, & the Showtime the best from their sponsorship with Gait Lacrosse. With our inside out dyes becoming popular we decided to do one of those with a navy to orange fade, with the full two-color V and swords logo at the top of a Torque 3. The second head design was an all orange inside, navy outside on a Show time. The last head was a Flow that we decided to make a special gift for Dom for his office wall that commemorated his 2011 National Championship, the roster, and his accolade of the coach of the year.

On the Torque 3 you will see from the side view that we snuck reversed orange swords on the top of the head just to increase the level of difficulty in the dye. The pocket Justin strung in it was our Pin Hybrid Traditional. You will see in the next photo Dustin decided to ghost Virginia on the inside of the head where it fades from orange to navy, and Cavaliers on the other side.

The Showtime all orange inside is highlighted at the top of the head with the Serif Virginia as tall as the head goes. The circle indent on the bottom face of the head was also perfect for white V, thin orange stroke, and the orange swords contoured to the ridge. The pocket strung in this is the SS Lax staple Mesh-X pocket with traditional outsides as opposed to the coils you are used to seeing from us. This option is available on all SS Lax pockets.

One of two surprises is revealed in this ¾ angle. Dustin used the bodylines of the head on the inside sidewalls to accentuate different size swords curving in and out. The next angle will show a very ambitious undertaking to pop out the natural V the Gait Showtime had in it’s sidewall of the head.

We thought the V need to be popped out in white and the flat back area in orange, which made it very difficult and almost impossible to stop any type of bleeding. But as you can see it looks pretty good. This angle also shows a nice drop in the pocket.

The third head for Dom was the Flow. It has the 2011 National Champions in white on the top lip and the same two color Virginia logo on the bottom as the Showtime. All the text was pulled out in orange. This view shows the top rail left to right (Dom Starsia USILA Coach of the Year, #4 White, #35 Kelly, #31 Glading, #7 English, #17 Price, & #25 Riley).

This view top left to right is the back right sidewall rail (#28 Melzer, #21 Cockerton, #43 Swankowski, #33 Ghitelman, #14 Van Arsdale, #39 McGee, #36 Lantz, #22 McLinden). The front right face of the head (#6 Stanwick, #10 Bocklet, #34 Briggs, #44 LaPierre, #24 Emery, #15 Ince, #29 O’Reilly, #32 Kugler, #36 Hill).

This view top left to right is the back left sidewall rail (#41 Cockerton, #18 Fortunato, #27 McWilliams, #19 Landon, #8 Ghitelman, #12 Haldy, #5 Prevas, #26 McDermott).

These two views are the inside faces of the heads by the sidewalls top let to right (#11 Harbeson, #30 Malphrus, #42 Geisler, #9 Faiella) & (#37 Benincasa, #2 Clements, #40 Lovejoy, #16 Puzes).

The next few pictures show a limited view of how amazing our trip to UVA was and the time spent with the players and coaching staff. Everyone was very welcoming. After speaking to three sets of players in the locker room to explain what we do in detail, we stopped into the equipment room to throw some Gait Ice shafts on the two sticks we did for the guys. The shafts bin was in a separate room that had this awesome old Lacrosse Assembly sign we just had to take a picture of. It looked like it has seen many championships teams, players, & staff with its worn appearance.

While we were in there we were intrigued how much of an operation it is for a Div. 1 college equipment manager. Here we got glimpse of the jersey stash to authenticate our visit.

The hallway walls of the locker rooms were covered with huge framed pictures of championships teams from across all sports to create an environment of winning. This 1996 undefeated Lacrosse team photo caught our eye on the way to the old Basketball field house.

We went in there to have the guys throw around with the two sticks and the bag of broken in demos of all of our pockets, some dyed, all on complete sticks.

Here we discussed pocket styles, string theory, analyzed dye jobs, they asked questions on the capabilities of custom stringing & dyeing for each individual. Some guys had us take pictures of exact top string, sidewall, & pocket placement so we could replicate their favorite stringing styles.

After we were inside for a while the guys could only let loose so much. So we had the privilege of getting some field time on the practice field.

While groups were trading on and off we made our way on to the Boise style blue Field Hockey field so the guys could rip shots with our demos with no mercy. Here is where we got some guys converted to our Hybrids. Our base styles are only a building block to get exactly the throwing criteria that you want out of a pocket. Then we customize the pocket placement, amount of whip, and actual pocket choice to the player. Some guys had us replicate mesh styles as well. We do offer a standard SS Pro mesh pocket and a build your own mesh pocket on our website.

After the guys were done we soaked up some of our own time ripping shots and taking some time for Dustin to get some sick photos.

Before leaving and dropping off our gift to Dom Starsia to hang on his office wall we grabbed a few final photos in the sweet setting of the athletic offices.

So there you have Part 1 of the Virginia series, stay tuned for Part 2 & 3 over the next couple weeks for over 10 more sick specialized pockets & dyes. Again, we at SS Lax would like to thank The University of Virginia for the opportunity and the contract naming us The Official Stringers & Dye Artists for 2012. Stay tuned to our facebook page for unposted content and our website for newly available dye jobs. Use discount code LPGUVA1 to get 10% off any pocket or dye. Our twitter page will be live all season giving status updates on the BIG new projects while they are in progress at .

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In this festive episode of SS Customs, Stylin’ Strings brings out the holidays in all of us. Dustin brought the creative idea to Kumar to turn an STX Av8 upside down to make it resemble a Christmas Tree’s shape. With that in mind the guys knew the dyejob needed to feel like the pine needles were all used to seeing, minus the sap.

To start the head was dyed a very light green to make way for this 6 color dyejob, including 5 shades of green. The body lines on the head were also used to accentuate the contrast between the different shades of green for the needles. The bottom of the stick was dyed brown between the leather holes to pronounce the stump aspect of the tree.

Dustin then gave Van a piece of forest green 8 diamond mesh to string flat into the stick. The top string was ran thru the leathers to lock it into place. Dustin then weaved the leathers thru the mesh to resemble the stump getting smaller toward the top of the tree.

After a short trip to a local Christmas store Dustin found a perfect strand of 20 led lights, 6 mini Xmas balls, and a star that could be customized to the top of the stick. A few hours later the stick was strung up with a full set of lights. The balls were also strategically tied into the stick balancing between the lights. The star at the top was cut in half and attached using a custom SS ballstop.

Mission complete: now the SS headquaters finally has its own LaXmas tree. Only problem now is finding presents small enough to sit under it. Stay tuned to more SS Customs on www.stylinstrings.com.

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For this episode os SS Customs, Stylin’ Strings Lax got a call from Terry Lamb from Williamstown, Massachusetts to do a full custom stick for her grand daughter Bridget. Her grandfather Renzie Lamb was the lacrosse coach at Williams College for 35 years. Bridget’s nickname was “Bee” so she wanted a yellow n black head with a cartoonish Bee. Dustin sent her a few Bees he had designed and with her approval was off to the dye races.

With the DeBeer Fierce head in hand Dustin wanted to put a few bees on the head. After he dyed it yellow he put one on the top, one near the ball stop, and a third one on the top back of the head. As a surprise to the client, Dustin took creative reign and decided to add some honeycomb patterns to the head for extra flare. Some places he used the positive and some places the negative to give the head a real visual impact.

The pocket was strung with an SS LAX Girlstring Pocket with the Runway center channel. All the string was strung in black except for the outside channels. They were strung in neon yellow since the regular yellow string didn’t match the yellow dye very well. To finalize this sweet custom rig SS matched it up with a Harrow Title 9 tapered shaft in black and yellow. A yellow Gait end cap was put on as the final touch.

Stay tuned for more customs on our site or our facebook page at www.facebook.com/StylinStringsLacrosse.

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