Confessions of a hobbyist clubmaker...

[ualtim]

In my 12 years or so of my club making hobby I never encountered what I did the other day when I was re-shafting my Hogan Apex Plus irons that I bought off eBay last week. I have seen my share of unique problems and irregularities over the years, but since I so rarely re-use steel iron shafts that I have pulled I have never encountered this problem until the other day.

I pulled the Hogan heads off the Apollo shafts and my Tour Cavity Pro's off the Rifles with no problems. Quick and easy. Put the Apollo's aside, cleaned up the Rifles, prepped the tips on my belt sander, inspected the shafts, and put them aside for final length adjustments. After the Hogan heads had cooled; I cleaned the hosels, inspected the heads, dry installed the Rifles, measured for length, and butt trimmed to final length. No problems. Run all of the shafts through the spine finder, mark them up, install the ferrules, and put them aside for assembly. Running like a fine oiled machine.

After a final recheck of all the components, I mix the epoxy and start assembling the clubs one by one starting with the E wedge. E, no problem. 9, no problem. 8, no problem. 7, problem. I can not get the shaft to stay all the way in the hosel. I can push it there, but it won't stay. It feels as though there is a spring inside the hosel pushing back. No worries, I pull the shaft out of the head and set aside to work on later. 6, problem. Same problem. Shaft will not stay all the way in the hosel. WTF!!! Pull the shaft and notice the end of the shaft is completely blocked from the old epoxy! Hydrolock/air pocket preventing the shaft from fully seating in the hosel. Pull the shaft and head and put them aside. 5, no problem (after I checked the inside of the hosel). 4, hosel blocked, I set it aside and do not even attempt to shaft. 3, no problem. Once I checked on the drying irons to ensure none had eased their way out of the hosel or alignment, I went back to the problem components.

After the epoxy had dried, I cleaned out and cleaned up the hosels on the 6 and 7, cleaned up and tip prepped the two shafts that had been epoxied and looked inside all 3 shaft tips. All 3 were blocked with old epoxy. I was kind of perplexed as I though I had checked all the hosels after the pull, but I found that these 3 shafts had what appeared to be an air bubble in the epoxy at the tip end that looked like a hole at first glance. That, combined with the previous use of black epoxy gave the appearence of an open shaft. Stupid me:hunter:. I drilled out the 3 offending plugs of epoxy and assembled the 4,6, and 7 irons without further incident.

Moral of the story: If you can not see daylight through the shaft, there is not a hole.:laugh:

 

[clemsonhacker]

good tip..lol...i bet you were like WTF

 

[RickinMA]

I reshafted a utility club with a Rifle shaft from my former 4 iron last week - I couldn't see daylight but I didn't expect to because of the prosoft insert and the grip - I think I got all the old epoxy out of the bottom of the shaft....I probably got all the old epoxy out of the bottom of the shaft...I hope I got all the old epoxy out of the bottom of the shaft.......OK - what do you think would happen if I didn't?

 

[SiberianDVM]

Very interesting Tim. I have a set of Mizuno Mx-11s that I would like to reshaft. My options are to send them to Dana which he will do very, very well for $60 a club, or to learn to do it myself.

I'm not in a rush for these clubs, so I haven't made a decsion yet. My real concern is how to best measure and match the shafts. Do you use a frequency meter? Has anyone used the NF2 or NF4?

I guess the big reason I want to make some clubs is that I am still searching for a driver with a head and shaft that I can hit straight.

This past weekend tourny was a huge disappointment as most of us were having trouble hitting a fairway off the tee. BIG scores due to that as the rough was punishing, the fairways sloped a lot, and there were hazards or OB both left and right on every darn hole.

But I am signing up or another lesson this week, just in case it's the Indian.

 

[ualtim]

I reshafted a utility club with a Rifle shaft from my former 4 iron last week - I couldn't see daylight but I didn't expect to because of the prosoft insert and the grip - I think I got all the old epoxy out of the bottom of the shaft....I probably got all the old epoxy out of the bottom of the shaft...I hope I got all the old epoxy out of the bottom of the shaft.......OK - what do you think would happen if I didn't?

You would know when you shafted it. The ferrule which was set with the hosel during the dry fit did not come all the way down to the hosel when epoxied.

 

[ualtim]

I'm not in a rush for these clubs, so I haven't made a decsion yet. My real concern is how to best measure and match the shafts. Do you use a frequency meter? Has anyone used the NF2 or NF4?

Nope, I have not been able to justify the cost of a freq. meter yet. On the few occasions where I was not wanting to follow the manufacturer's recommend tip trimming instructions, I go have a chat with my favorite clubmaker at my local Golfsmith. I can bounce questions off of him about specific shafts and he will give me advice on how best to accomplish what I wish to do. If he is not available, I have used the GS clubmaker forum to ask questions and have even called the GS tech folks with a question or two. They are normally very helpful and have the answers I need.

 

[MGP]

Interesting timing on this post... I just got a set of TT Dynalite Gold pulls from Youngun5's Maxfli irons. Over the weekend I was looking them over and checking things out and noticed all the shafts had epoxy plugs in all the tips.

After thinking about it for a minute I thought "you know, this will probably cause some problems when I go to install them again" and I proceeded to clean them all out. If I hadn't been bored and checked the shafts I might have gone down the same road you did.

 

[indacup]

Moral of the story: If you can not see daylight through the shaft, there is not a hole.:laugh:

Easiest way, and make it a habit....

Before installing pull outs blow on one end and make sure air comes out the other.

If it doesn't, it's either tape over the butt end or epoxy clogging the tip.

I alway take an air compressor and flush out the shafts with 90lbs of air to make sure no loose epoxy, moisture or any other foreign matter is in there.

 

[LyleG]

The worst is when you have to put lead tip weights into shafts, especially the thin ones for graphite. They have the most miniscule of holes to begin with and unless the damn piece is perfectly round and straight it will usually get airlocked. The things clog up with as much as a glass bead getting in them. The can be a royal pain in the ass to work with.

 

[ualtim]

The worst is when you have to put lead tip weights into shafts, especially the thin ones for graphite. They have the most miniscule of holes to begin with and unless the damn piece is perfectly round and straight it will usually get airlocked. The things clog up with as much as a glass bead getting in them. The can be a royal pain in the ass to work with.

I tried those on my first set of irons I built with graphite shafts back 1996. Hardest time I ever had shafting a set of irons, granted it was my first attempt at a full set of irons, but it was a pain in the butt. I vowed to never use graphite tip weights again. :real angry: I bet that I was running into the same problem and did not even know it.