Stylin Strings Debuts the Houndstooth Maryland Flag Goalie Dye

Stylin Strings just turned 10 years old, and is surprisingly just joining the playground. After years of being at the forefront of the stringing and dyeing customization movement, SS went underground the last few years reinventing itself to launch back into the mainstream lacrosse media with a bang.

A new website, new management, remodeled retail store in York PA, expanded dye lab, stick photography/video studio, and full team of string/dye artist, SS is here to stay, especially as a featured contributer to Lacrosse Playground. SS wanted to come out of the gate swinging with this Maryland Flag Houndstooth goalie stick combo custom dye job.

Most of their full custom sticks come from customer based requests. In this case Jake Springer from Baltimore, Maryland was going to college at the University of Alabama. He wanted a stick that showed his roots of the Maryland flag and a pattern called Houndstooth. It was made popular in the 1960’s by then legendary Alabama football coach Bear Bryant on the hats he wore.

Houndstooth originated in fashion in Scotland in the 1930’s and has resurfaced today in men’s and women’s clothing. The idea was awesome, but a tough task at hands for the dye artists at SS. Jake wanted an STX Eclipse goalie stick fully wrapped. This meant hours and hours of individually hand placed stickers.

The guys brain stormed and Dustin Dohm owner, creative director and dye artist prepped stickers for the flag and houndstooth pattern. Dustin started with the flag at the top so the the houndstooth pattern could start from the bottom of it.


The 275 houndsdtooth stickers took over 15 hours to hand place with an exacto knife.

As Dustin worked down inside of the Eclipse head it became increasingly difficult to hold the exact pattern due to the open areas in the plastic. If one sticker was out of place or at a wrong angle the pattern would not connect at the bottom portion of the inside of the head.

With both insides done, the pattern spilled over the front of the head and was cut straight with the body lines of the Eclipse. The final stage was putting another Maryland flag on the back top of the head. Once all the stickers were on the head it was dipped in hot black dye. A few hours of peeling stickers unveiled one of the sickest dyes to ever come out of the Stylin’ Strings Dye Lab.

The final touches were put on the head by Van O’Banion, head stringer at SS. A goalie mesh pocket was requested by Jake with white 12 diamond mesh, black top string & sidewall, and red strikered shooting strings.

This stick is also being featured in Ontario Lacrosse Magazine as Stylin’ Strings Lacrosse Canadian debut of Lax County Choppers in the next issue.

Stay tuned for more features from Stylin Strings Lax on the Playground and on www.stylinstrings.com. And do us a favor and like SS on Facebook and welcome them to the Lacrosse Playground team.

Lacrosse Playground

In 2009, Adam O’Neill, Harry Alford and Thomas Alford launched Lacrosse Playground as the preeminent site for lacrosse gearheads. For years Lacrosse Playground provided lacrosse fans with tutorials and tips on how to string a lacrosse head, up-close looks at the gear the top players used and sneak peeks at equipment and uniforms before they were released. More than 10 years and millions of visits later, Lacrosse Playground has relaunched with a focus on storytelling. Our mission is to provide comprehensive coverage of the latest lacrosse news, share insights into the sports betting and fantasy lacrosse world and showcase the lifestyles and personalities of the sport of lacrosse through articles, videos and podcasts.

2 Comments

  1. Chase Cunningham on May 16, 2011 at 4:02 am

    It’s very clean, but I feel like it needs some color. If you’re going to spend so much time on stickers, might as well put in a bit more for some two-/three-tone. Definitely not digging the pocket, though…

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