rhowardprd

Well, I've finally found the time to get back to this board. I sold the MR23 Japanese diamond backs. Thanks for the help with the history. I just read through some old threads here about retail versus tour and how much or little the difference is. I guess many players fret about spending money on top equipment, or worry whether they actually need the Gauge or Fourteen or Epon clubs they are fixed on. So, here's some added info you al might enjoy. Hope I am not bringing coals to Newcastle, so to speak. Consider these: Nicklaus reported collecting a bag of his favorite clubs, each of a different model or manufacturer. Some years later a club builder tested them and found that put together they formed a perfectly matched set. None of them were tour products, which really didn't exist then, circa 1960s. But, putters and woods were customizable even then -- with different face materials wood types and putter shapes. Irons were very much different with only one flex and long deep hosels. I recently shafted some 1967 MacGregor VIPS with modern shafts, Project X 5.5. The cpm of the 5 iron came out to 322, which is off the chart. Why? The hosel is so long and deep it makes the club as if it had been tipped an extra inch. Even so, I mustered up enough muscle to hit the 5 iron (31 degrees) about 170. And it took all I had. Yes, Nicklaus played with lofts that would be 5 or even 6 degrees weak today. He only hit is 2 iron about 200 yards unless he geared up and went for it. I believe the great matches between Palmer and Nicklaus saw them driving around 250 to 260 or less. It was only Snead who got up to 290 and he was this huge self title hillbilly and he preferred to go hunting or fishing to golf. Well, what does this say about Tour versus Retail equipment? It says, those who want to buy a swing can pay, pay, pay and never really be satisfied. But... Having said all that -- there is a big difference in quality to me between Tour versus Retail. My local pro told me that his privilege in shopping at a tour van is that he can test out 40 drivers all with the same specs and choose the best one of the lot. That can be important when mass produced clubs are only inspected within a range of tolerances. This is a little like Nicklaus chasing after the perfect set of clubs and not caring what the make or model was, just did the club work, the ball does not lie... And the ability to have any club customized to your specs, well Ping made a fortune on mass producing that idea with its color codings. But now we get to the really hairy issue -- are tour issued clubs with it? IMHO -- it depends... The up side is that you can often find prototypes on auction sites that if you take the chance on one and get lucky -- you might get a great value on a new product that now costs tons in its finally released form, example, the original Aldila NV shaft which came out as a prototype -- the early versions of this were really a find and were going for half or less of what Golfsmith wanted. But you had to know about it and do your homework and avoid the lookalikes. Driver heads -- a mixed bag. Did you know that Long Driving Tour players practice with their favorite heads until the face flattens? They test this by passing the edge of a credit card over the face. When it is nearly flat they set that club aside for competition -- as that is when it will launch the longest drivers, that is, when it is so worn it is about to crack. What does that say about tour heads? Or new drivers in general? Better to try and wear out your old driver? Yes, Taylor tp's are open faces. But, did you know that the stock TM's have 350 hosels which allow you to install 335 shafts with shims that can be asymmetric so the face opens up to 5 degrees from stock. So, which is more versatile a tp head with 1 degree open or a retail head that has the capacity of being shimmed open up to 5 degrees. And if you want a thinner face, well go the LDT route and practice with it tons, flatten it. Wood shafts -- the aerospace world is responsible. What? Well, the triangle of golf manufacturers located around San Diego are well known for hiring a herd of out of work aerospace engineers, including design engineers who are putting out new products every year for every brand. And then is it no wonder that the next best thing is always around the corner. In spite of this "gotta have it" market place, there are genuine innovations out there. The problem often is how good is it really if it can be mass produced? Answer -- it depends... Aldilas NV shafts with 30 micro layers, technology straight from NASA, is one example of assembly line production that does work. Whereas, Ozik shafts that take 9 people 6 days of set up, does not lend itself to high production, and there the price is somewhat justified but certainly not the headline grabbing $1k shafts, the competitively prices ones that rival the $245 speeders or the $300 red/blue/white-boards, and so on. Conclusion: you don't need tour issued shafts if the technology can be readily mass produced at high quality, high tolerance levels. You do need tour issued if the product is labor intensive and subject to poor quality at retail levels. Irons -- can you mass produce the quality of Miura which only makes a very limited number of sets a day? Is that quality really needed? Well, if you don't care about feel and/or if you just bomb and gouge -- buy Callaways or something other GI club. If you really want to play old fashioned golf where you study course layouts and try and shape shots, then finding quality irons can be rewarding. So, then can you get the right quality from store bought? How much quality do you need? I think here the lesson is best shown by the phenomena of Honma products. You can pay up to $50,000 for a set of irons, these have gold, platinum and even rubies in them; no kidding, on sale at Herods in London. You can marvel at the 5 star boron ti shafts made by 70 year old masters that you paid a mere $10,000 for. But is the quality real? When does art take over function? When is it all so ridiculous? Hmn, well, you won't expect this answer, but -- the actual answer IHMO is cultural. I understand that the most common purchase in Japan of 5 star irons is by business men as business gifts. The Japanese work is giri, which roughly means to repay an obligation. So, why not give the business man something he can really use and love? But you can't be cheap in the business world, your giri gift has to spell out the worth that the sender feels for the sendee, get it? Honma irons fill a social role in a complex business environment which relies on valued friendships and personal connections. But at the same time Honma irons can be highly functional for the chosen few. But, their playability is questionable for good players. The best craftmanship can make a mediocre club perform to the best of its mediocre range. Honma irons are easy to hit, usually have very soft shafts and very strong lofts so it just appears that the player is doing well. Example, a Honma 5 iron can be 23 degrees, compare that to Nicklaus's 1967 VIP 5 iron of 31 degrees. This all goes to show that craftsmanship whether it be Miura or sensei -- will not always be valuable unless it is truly purposeful. So, a choice of tour van or retail in irons depends on what? IHMO whether the technology in question is susceptible to poor quality in mass production, and that's all. If it is then go tour van, if not go retail. As simple as that. Wedges: I understand that this is actually a science that matches individual courses and weather conditions to designs. Best example is diggers leading edges versus beveled; use diggers for hard dry courses, use beveled for wet courses. And grass types and rough height are other conditions that warrant different grinds and shapes. I believe you can avoid over priced tour van items here by following these rules: 1. if you don't open or close the face of your wedges you don't need special grinds or reliefs; 2. if you play only wet or only dry courses you don't need different types of leading edges, jut the one that suites your conditions; 3. if your home course has slow muni tupe greens, you don't need high spin grooves, but if you have supper fast US Open type greens that are cut every few days, then you may need to find high spin grooves or learn how to slide the face under the club more. 4. Lastly, if you have to play around with wedge weights and shapes, it's my understanding that this is done mainly by pros to find that one perfect set up for a given yardage that the pro routine lays up for. Example, some 40 something pros favor Ping becu sw at a perfect 100 yards for them. So, find your perfect 100 yard wedge or 70 yard wedge or the yardage you most often find yourself at when laying up or on approach. You probably do not need tour van wedges for that. Okay, take your best shots, fellas...

This is not a coincidence, I wanted to make sure that the MR23 data on Ebay was correct. That's why I posted this info here, along with a general respect for this board. I came to this board specifically because a potential bidder emailed me from Ebay and told me about this board. he also said the MR23 US spec was a limited production, so I put that in to the Ebay auction as a correction. And after reading the comments above, I intend to correct the MR23 diamond auction further by putting in some of the detail given from TSG. In reply to TSG, here are a few things that I understand to be true which follow or slightly conflict with his given knowledge above. 1. Copper coating as an underlayer is generally not for feel. It is for plating efficiency. It may be that someone noticed that copper coating gave a better feel so they increased the thickness of the copper coating. But I have my doubts here. Why? Well, a tenth of a millimeter of copper just is not thick enough or dynamically active or resonant enough or dense enough to change feel substantillly. Whereas, copper undercoating is necessary to get an even distribution of chrome plating. Copper is highly conductive and plating uses electricity. So, many products are copper coated before plating to ensure uniformity of coating, and thus sheen and luster. But, yes, covering pits may be one other use; however, the condensing done by the 15 ton press should have taken the pits out in the first place. Sterling silver electroplating has a copper underlayer, for example. 2. Second, TSG reports that, "...The less pressing that is done to a forged club the better, currently only Endo does a true double press...'" Well, that is arguable, and perhaps really unknown. My original post here suggests otherwise. But let's take a look at this because this issue is the thing itself, the gravamen. First, Srixon advertises as a point of sale that it strikes each head 6 times compared to Mizuno with only 4 strikes. Next, we know that the more that steel is struck the harder it becomes -- except that there comes a point where the steel will fracture. And that is the key. How to make steel as dense as possible without it fracturing. Fractures are caused by increasing the crystal properties of a metal. Crystals fracture and sometimes shatter because the crystal structure carries the breaking energy through the structure. How far through the structure? Well, as far as the crystal pattern goes without it being interrupted. Example, you can stop a crack in a window pane by somehow fusing the end of the crack, this interrupts the crystal structure by creating thatched or opposing grains. Which brings us to how steel fractures or is prevented from fracturing. Steel comes in many varieties as you know. Steel can be very glass like or not very glass lke depending on the formula. And as you might guess, steel that is not very glass like is the most difficult to fracture. Steel that is easy to fracture also is the harshest for a golf club head. Why? Because vibrations carry the impact throughout the head -- as more iron atoms are connected directly to each other -- owing to crystal structure. Whereas, free carbon which is just held together by carbon acting as a glue -- does not have much crystal structure at all, and will not transfer as much vibration. Remember the bits of carbon graphite that are like bits of a jagged sheet of carbon rings? Those bits are the glue that can hold the iron atoms together without resorting to crystal chaining. Crystal chaining uses stronger chemical bonds which make the steel behave more like glass. So, the long and short of the matter is -- the more crystal patterns in steel the more it will carry vibrations throughout its form. The less crystal patterns the more the shock will be localized. Lastly, it may be true that the more you press an iron head the more it is likely to form crystal structures. So, there is probably some optimal amount of pressing that has to be discovered by experiment. In battleships, the cannons are designed to reduce the crystal structures in the steel so if there is bending in one part of the barrel it will not cause a failure or crack down the length of the barrel, that is, the weakened part of the barrel is localized and can be repaired, usually be re-forging or re-hammering the expansion. Then this begs the question -- why are off center hits on forged club heads so stinging? Well, that's a conundrum. It seems that if you hit the sweet spot -- the spot acts as the site of center percussion, like a drum head. But if you hit the edge of the forged club head -- you get a nasty shock. Why if the dense steel has shock isolating properties? Well, I think this off center shocking occurs less and less with modern forgings. I own a set of 1960 something Macgregor VIPs and also Hogan blades and they both give nasty shocks, while off center hits on Mizuno MP30s and Srixon 506's are much less harsh. So, how does this all add up? Balance. Even isolated iron atoms held together by carbon bits that gum up the stacking or grains -- even these have enough crystal properties to provide a shock, and since the forged steel is so dense (has so much substance in a small space) the shock is amplified. Also, the form -- since the sweet spot acts as a center of percussion -- when the edge is struck -- the shock wave flows through the center and to the hosel without percussing like a drum head. The shock shoots right up the shaft instead of rebounding off the sweet spot and into the ball. Whereas, with cast cavity backs -- center percussion and rebounding effects and dense steel are all forgotten in favor of a uniform metal reaction. It's a trade off. So, the hunt of the perfect forged iron head continues. New heads by boutique companies -- are working trade offs too by carving shallow cavities or top cavities to lure cavity back players into the market. While cavity back companies are introducing forgings with welded on perimeter weights, i.e., Callaway X-Tour. Moreover, there is one advantage to thick dense forgings we have not mentioned. That is this -- the more mass you put directly behind the ball, behind the sweet spot, the more energy is focused and released -- the more pure the feeling of a well solid shot. This means having a cavity or partial cavity behind the sweet spot is not optimal. This brings us back to the MR23 diamond back. Here with this club, the whole head has been forged, compressed and made dense uniformly without carving out a cavity -- but by pressing in a cavity. So, is this the way to go? I understand that the diamond back was stopped in production half way because it was too expensive to make or turned out that way. It may be laying around in shops in Japan unsold because no one wanted to pay $1,250 USD for what looked appeared to be pure ornamentation. I think this is wrong. It's not pure ornamentation. The diamond pressing is functional and perhaps the best compromise for cavity back players -- in terms of metallurgy. The crying shame is that to lure cavity back players to the forged world -- you may need more than that -- more? Yes, like a better swing, (LOL).

Below, I have tried to present some information about the metallurgy of forged irons which, after reading around in this forum, I think members may find interesting. This topic was sparked after reading around in the best iron reviews where the great debate continues over what is the best looking, best feeling or best performing forged iron. Please feel free to debate the following or disagree as you like; but I think that if you read through the facts and let them sit for awhile, you might start to see more into your own experiences with these irons. Okay, here goes; Did you ever notice that the more expensive an iron head is the softer the carbon steel? But the softer the steel the more feel you get? And the smaller the head the more feel? The denser the metal the more feel? And denser metals are heavier and harder? There seems to be a contradiction here, somehow. Curious? Have you ever heard of coin forging versus machine forging or false forging? Well, here's some of what I learned in a machine shop about all this. Some of this may sound like voodoo because even the top engineers have not completely figured it out. So please bear with me. First a little metallurgy. Steel is an admixture not an element. It is made up of ferric iron and carbon. Stainless steel also has chromium in it. Carbon steel suggests that it has a high or dominant amount of carbon. The chemistry looks like this -- carbon has only 4 electrons and positrons -- it bonds in 4 directions to create various tetrahedrons, like a 4 sided pyramid. This versatile structure allows life on earth because it is so attachable in 4 directions, thus allowing complex proteins to be formed like so many tinker toys. However, carbon's use in making steel is different. Iron atoms are much larger. Say if an iron atom is a cannon ball, then a carbon is a pellet. When you stack the cannon balls like oranges in a supermarket, the cannon balls can roll off each other. But carbon in the form of graphite gets inside the spaces between the cannon balls and gums up the works. Graphite or coal or charcoal is not a tetrahedron but a complex sheet of carbon rings. As industrial grade coal dust it's really looks like ragged bits and pieces of sheets of carbon. Why is this important? Well, the more you gum up iron with carbon bits, the less the iron atoms can roll around or shear away. Yes, you can increase the tensile strength of steel this way. Now, in metallurgy, the science of atoms and bits of graphite turn into more of a magic formula game, and one of trial and error. Certain amounts and forms of carbon are good to increase steel's ability to be strong yet flex, or to hold an edge or to withstand tremendous pressures. So, the question for the golf club maker is what is the best formula for making golf irons? You want steel that is dense, soft, accurate and that can transfer energy and provide feel and feedback. Now, many top boutique club makers, machine shops and/or foundries have been testing formulas and methods of making iron heads for years. Some are secret, while many are misleading and off point. Example, Srixon says its 506 heads are coined forged six times. but probably 2 are for hardening, 2 for shaping and 2 for graphics. Which gets us to hardening. Did you know that one of the very first practical uses of coin forging besides for coins was for what? Yes, cannon making. The barrels had to be hardened to take great explosions. So the harder the cannon barrel the more explosive material could be used and the further the shell could travel. Battle ship cannons were especially made of high carbon and multiple hammering. In fact, a 30,000 pound press was focused on each square inch of the barrels of the USS Missouri. It took the forge operator a week to hammer one barrel. The result was that the cannon could fire shells 10 miles. So, coin forging is all about hardening and therefore strengthening. Strengthening is nessassary to allow the metal to withstand the impact of explosives or in golf of 100 mph swings. So, where does the feel come in? And what about soft feeling but hard forged? It's actually a big misunderstanding that has resulted in this seeming ambiguity or mix-up. That is how can a harder, stronger metal -- a forged high carbon steel iron head, now be so soft feeling? Answer: its about vibration killing density without lattices speading out the shock. A club head can feel hard or harsh as in a cast club -- because the steel used depends for its strength on high temperature crystal patterns forming in the steel matrix or lattice. That is, when certain formulas of steel are molten and cooled quickly a higher percentage of lattice formations occur. This is what tempering is. Quick cooling causes the iron atoms to line up more evenly with the carbon and chromium and other alloy elements. When this happens an impact in one spot on the surface can more readily carry over to other parts of the surface. However, when the strength of the steel depends on compaction -- or coin forging by compacting a pure mix of carbon and iron in the right formula -- then you get strength and density without much of a crystal structure. The pile of oranges at the supermarket that represented iron atoms stacked up, now has carbon bits that act like glue in the spaces between the oranges. And the strength comes from the structure being gummed up, and not from a lattice being formed. The cannon balls or oranges can slide independent of each other. So, any shearing force is localized. The result for the golf club head is that the sweet spot or center of gravity spot feels soft, with less vibration and that softness or solid feel can be remembered physically. when this feeling is paired with hand eye coordination elements -- the whole memory can be stored as a unit; so when practicing -- if one part of the unit is missing we translate that to an incompleteness. And thus this can help us hone in on a better swing. If you understand the term of art, fuzzy logic, that is close to what is going on in learning the golf swing by feel. Lastly, in the forum discussions on best iron heads, there is a lot of anticipation of the next best thing. I noticed that the top forged irons are now a combination of forging or compressing the lower half of the head, while routing out the upper half. The intention is to make a more forgiving club while keeping the forged iron feel. But, there's a problem with this, IMHO. When you take away the metal in the top half or cavity half of the club head -- you take away the forging quality or density or compaction of that part of the head. The first club head to do this, I would guess, was the Tourstage MR23 US spec. Before that MP30s did not have deep enough cavities to compare, nor did the original Yonex Tour Forged of the 90s, as crude as it was. This has lead me to suspect that the reason for the on-again, off-again love affair with the original MR23 US spec -- occurs because the club head itself is rewarding when you hit the truly forged rise at the center, and disappointing when you don't, disappointing because the remainder of the design is routed out and not genuinely compressed, it is not dense or coined like the bottom. The cavity is not coined. So, you now see boutique club makers struggling with designs to harmonize what can give a truly forged feel in a cavity back and what designs fail or do not give enough feel, or the correct feel often enough. It appears that the answer is how much routing is too much, and how much actual forging will a cavity back player stand for? If you know what I mean. On the other hand, I think there is one club in history that did it all. Its the MR23 non-US spec, the one with the diamond design on the back. This club is rare. I bet most members have not even heard of it??? But before the US spec there was an MR23 that was wholly forged, compressed, or entirely coined, with little or no routing at all; and it still had a significant amount of cavity and perimeter weighting to it, without having to cut out the cavity and thus destroy the feel and density. Has anyone heard of this pre US spec MR23? The diamond back? I understand that it was tour only and was so expensive to make that Bridgestone stopped production mid year of its first year. I also understand that this was the purest feeling cavity back ever made. Well, the chemistry and metallurgy would make sense that it would be the best cavity back if it is the only one that is truly coined into a cavity design. Okay, any thoughts on all this? And I hope this info on chemistry and metallurgy has given any one interested a little food for thought. So, the answer as to why we keep changing irons is -- we want the feel of the pure forged dense carbon steel that was made dense by compaction. But when we use routed cavity backed forge blades -- the feeling can be elusive from one day to the next depending on how much we have honed our hand eye coordination on that particular day.