Shambles

Bench Vise. The bigger the better. The rest you can improvise, but the bench vise is an extra pair of hands and very patient. You also need the time and patience to do a lot of reading, thinking and deep pockets for learning. Shambles

There's a statement I can totally agree with. I sympathize with you for your difficulties but totally agree with you regarding the reason for your difficulties. It's one of the things I like about Golf today as against Golf yesterday. Wishing you the best and fully expect that you will find the best clubs for yourself. Shambles

I suppose you have seen the process at least in part and therefore know better. The whole thing sounds a lot of work to me. It also concerns me that the plating will be reduced to some degree therefore reducing the life of the club as far as the finish is concerned. Of course, you do have the recourse of sending the heads off to be refinished if you botch the scratching. Shambles

That's the kind of damage inflicted by people who don't know how to swing a golf club, something like a new guy. Spoon does not fit that description so I think someone got hold of that club and gave it a try somewhere. More likely a range, and very likely the guy had time a plenty for a number of swings and still cleaned the club up after. I would look for marks on the hosel. Shambles

I like the inclusion of a spec sheet. It's .like a callenge to measure and see if the product delivered is different in spec from the product ordered. That's a plus for Epon confidence. Did the letter have anything interesting ? Cannot comment on the Epon as I've never seen them other than from afar. Shambles

If all it takes to satinize the chrome is to scratch it, you can probably achieve that with a fine soft metal rotary brush. The trick would be to find the right kind of soft metal brush with bristles that are long enough to get to the tightest parts of the club, and making a rotary brush with it. I would expect to use up a lot of brushes in the process, thus the expense. Wouldn't it be easier to have the chrome stripped and the club replated with a sating finish ? Shambles

TC 1000 Forged is Endo forged I think. However it seems to need attention in use. It's so easy to bend the ball with it that you can do so without planning to do so. I've been bagging my set lately for the sake of the difference. CFhange helps Golf stay interesting for me. Shambles

I have a set of FOURTEEN TC 1000 3-P. I read a post somewhere that this was an Endo forgeing. I'd like to verify that. I also appreciate any links you might have of this set being discussed. I'm pretty bad with computers so my search didn't produce anything. Shambles

Offhand, I suspect that spine alignment that involves seeing the logo off center on the label is going to be unsatisfactory more often. The search for uniformity in club performance, sound and feel very much involves what the golfer is looking at especially where the golfer is relatively new to the game, regardless of how much progress he has made, or how far he can hit the ball. There is just too much to be learned for anyone who is not totally immersed in the business to be able to learn without the perspective of time and experience. We choose our gods and we worship accordingly because we do not have the willingness, time and money to invest in becoming a god. My own gods are Wishon and Frank Thomas, but I must admit that their expressed thoughts are similar to my own so my decision was easy. Design these days is much more complicated than in Golf's early days. Golf's early days was a lot of creative marketing of the same old, same old. There was little the designer could do because he was severely limited in materials, space and weight allocation. These days the designer has much more space and weight to play with because of the availability of different materials and their positioning. The market's acceptance of exotic materials, strange constructions and willingness to spend much much more has given the designer a marvelous playground. More so because he can now program a computer to do the what ifs and why nots and see the numbers reflected in a very short time. What used to take a year can now be done in a month. Design differences do matter, provided the player is good enough to benefit. Material also matters, provided the player can see and feel a benefit worth the cost, and that worth varies with the player's need for the difference he discovers. The bottom line is still, are you good enough to reap the benefit if it's there to be reaped by you ? The market is also flooded with a lot of fancy garbage and buying needs a lot more thought these days than in the past. Shambles

Metals and construction technique are subjective. There is no outright " best " unless related to specific functions and specifications. For example, before steel shafts were created, hickory was the best because it was easily available and the available technology made maintenance easy for wood heads. Steel shafts had a bit of a struggle in their early days but given time, they developed enough to become acceptable. More time and development made them even better but the steel shaft of today is nothing like the steel shaft of the early days regardless that they perform the same function. Today's steel shaft offers many options as to performance that were not available in the early days. The same is true of titanium and it's many grades. It's a matter of how well it can be applied and the performance and durability it provides as against cost. There is no " best ", but there is suitability and the judge thereof is you. New technology has many dead ends and wrong applications. New technology only offers the possibility of something better and the cost vis a vis the improvement may or may not be worth it to you. You be the judge. Shambles

I actually prefer the torch to the heat gun because I can see where I am applying the most heat. The heat gun is kind of a guessing game for me and I have successfully damaged more equipment with the heat gun than the torch. I also do not like the discolorization when it happens but learning anything always seems to involve a few mistakes where I am concerned. If any friends look to me to do their clubs I show them the ones I have damaged and advise them to look elsewhere. Shambles

Just watch a club maker pull a shaft and measure the length of time he needs to heat the club before pulling the shaft off. Look at the club after and see if the hosel becomes discolored. It's a simple operation that only needs clean and organized operators. If you really feel he is asking too much, do it yourself. There is no structural loss in discolored hosels. The club will play just as well and will only lose a little resale value. Probably less than you would have saved by doing it yourself. :) Shambles

I'm a little bit every which way about " FIRM " as that's so fine a difference between stiff and Regular that I sometimes feel it's personal feel if at all. But then that's just my personal feel from the shafts I've played with. As a matter of fact, my current baggers range from stiff to boardy with a couple of near seniors here and there among the woods. That is about to change as I've just acquired a couple of Fourteen wedges that feel so good I'm taking my Fourteen irons out of retirement and giving them a couple of test rounds. These Fourteens are shafted soft and I may re shaft them to stiff if they prove nicer than I remember. My most recent tinkerings have been with the Fourteens rather than my favored Eye 2's because the Japanese set is more a player's iron than anything I own and I can feel changes more significantly with them. For sure, messing around with clubs is a chancy thing and sometimes results are unexpected. I am very confident that I know nothing about your shafts so I can say nothing about how they should be adjusted to achieve the changes you want. Likewise, some of the changes I would contemplate require more time and effort than is worthwhile for clubmakers so I feel your most effective and economic alternative is really to find the shaft with the characteristics you want and just buy them and have them installed. In that manner your chances of success are greater. However, if it results in failure, you still have your original shafts to go back to. Shambles

Actually, it's better to first determine what flex you need. If the club is already working for you, you should also be already aware of what flex you need, or at least, think you need. If you are still unsure, keep playing what you have and keep trying to improve until you are absolutely sure of what you think you need. Stepping shafts is no longer the simple thing it used to be because manufacturers have different ways of making them. For example, I extended a set of NS Pro 950GH an inch because I found the shafts too short and didn't want to continue the struggle to adjust to those shorties. Surprise. The shafts became perceptibly softer regardless of common wisdom that extending a shaft does little or nothing to the flex. I had done this to an old X14 SW and there was no change other than greater comfort for me. The NS Pro was apparently Butt Stiff and therefore reacted differently to the extension. You now need to determine what kind of shaft you have and how it was made before doing anything to it. The safer and simpler way these days is to just buy the shafts you think you need and install them. Shambles

That train wreck is dependent upon your swing. Ignore the formulae for a moment and trust the feel of your hands. They are usually more honest as long as you are not excessively demanding and do not impose pre conceived ideas upon them. Shambles

I got used to heavy clubs when I played over long irons for some years. I got so used to it that when I bought a new set at standard length, I added 3 grams per head to get back some of the feel of my old set. Took me a bit more than a year before I removed the lead to try truly standard clubs again. For me the heavy heads gave no real advantage, just calmed my swing down. I had to learn to hold my clubs more lightly to feel the head of a standard head. Shambles

VEGAMAN, If there was a disadvantage I failed to notice because I was in the midst of trying to make my clubs feel right for my hands rather than just experimenting for greater performance. I was very interested in modifying the set for personal comfort and am fairly certain I neither gained nor lost distance. Accuracy improved but that was because of a more relaxed swing rather than the club itself. Of all the people who tried my set I'm pretty sure I was the only one who liked it. Rather indicative, I think. Shambles

Steel shafts can be cut with a small tube cutter. Graphite shafts, by my experience, need to be first taped and marked and then cut with a bench grinder or equivalent. I've never tried using a tube cutter on a graphite shaft for fear of fraying the edges. Shambles

That's for the well equipped man. For those of us who do not have a belt sander, a sharp blade to cut off the excess, a bit of sandpaper to round out the ferrule and a final polish with acetone to return the shine of the plastic. Shambles BTW, I don't actually build my own clubs as I prefer to at least try playing the clubs as they come from the manufacturer. However, after a bit of time, I do sometimes rebuild the set to specs I think might work better for me. Shambles

Many years ago I stuck 3 grams of lead on the flange of each of my Ping ISI-K's to get the feel of my over long Eye 2's that I was trying to stop using. The standard irons were zero weight in my hands and made me swing much too fast. The added weight had the effect on me of calming my swing down because I was used to the heavier feel of overly extended clubs. I gained no distance, got the ball flying higher a bit, but did have better control because of a more relaxed organized swing. I also got more backspin because it became a lot easier for me to swing through the ball with a good follow through. It also developed a funny sound that I describe as hitting something with a pillow. I played that set that way for almost two years after which I removed the lead because I had learned to lighten my grip on the clubs thereby allowing me to better feel the head during the swing and get the same results. On me, longer shafts had the effect of forcing me to swing with more deliberate pace and I have grown to prefer this way so that I now still use much the same pace with standard length shafts. I think less overall weight and shorter shafts allows me greater flexibility in adjusting my swing though it does require a bit more swing speed. I just have to pay more attention to where the ball sits when I swing at the ball. I doubt the greater swing weight is any real advantage. Shambles

The idea is to set your own standards as you really are far from the norm. I ignored your statement about already being 0.5 over standard as we are talking about Japanese clubs which often come with shorter and softer shafts. Even the American standard is, in my offhand opinion, a bit limiting for tall people. If memory serves, I read an article way too many years ago that premised 5'8" as the standard height for golfers. Rather short from my point of view but very convenient for me as I'm close enough to it. I also have no idea of how qualified that writer was to be giving such an opinion or to set such a standard. However I had a 6'2" playing partner who habitually choked his clubs a inch or so and did a fairly good job with his clubs whereas I, being much shorter, doggedly used every inch of shaft I could swing. Being tall is an advantage from my point of view as it gives you better leverage and longer arms to swing with. The disadvantage is the knees and small of the back take more punishment. As an EXPERIMENT, get one of your old Pitching Wedges and set the grooves parallel to a level floor. Fit your body to it without changing the orientation of the grooves and then see how little you can extend the shaft and still have an athletic stance with shoulders able to swing freely and knees not stressed to reach the grip, and arms falling naturally into place. Ideally, you should be able to comfortably swing the club back to address position with the grooves still parallel to the level ground even if your hands end up slightly ahead of the imaginary ball. Use the MINIMUM added length and try that out to determine it's effect on your swing and the many ways a wedge is used WITH THE CORRESPONDING VARIATIONS IN STANCE. If you try this, I expect you will first discover that the extended shaft becomes a bit softer and your timing and release might be also affected full swing but especially in the short game. You will probably find that you also need to address the ball a little bit farther from yourself, thereby reducing the need to bend the head all that much and ideally not at all. You could end up hooking and pulling more often. However the only goal with this experiment is to determine the minimum added length needed for you to gain a comfortable stance and swing without spending too much in the search. If you can find and are totally convinced you have found the added length that works for you, visit a very good and very knowledgeable club maker and consult him on the needed stiffness for the shaft. It would probably be a good idea to bring along your playing wedge so the stiffness can be compared. Make the change, which will now be costing you money, and go through the experiment again. Be honest with yourself. Wishful thinking can waste time and money. There are a lot of changes in going to longer shafts and you really should be having a person to person talk with both a good swing doctor and a good club maker as they can see you on the spot and I cannot. All I can legitimately do for you is to make a suggestion as to a possible solution but truly cannot verify your actual need. Good luck. Shambles

I think longer shafts might help you but that would have the downside of needing stiffer shafts, addressing the ball a bit farther from you, a higher swing weight, and would have a pretty good chance of affecting your timing. The end result would probably come pretty close to learning to swing again. The need for more upright is more often associated with tall people simply because the shafts are relatively short relative to them, and at 6' 5" more or less, you are very tall even amongst the tall. Longer shafts should allow you to stand a bit more upright and not need to adjust the lie as much, if at all, depending on the club design. Shambles

My experience with this club, the TC 1000, is that it's too much of a player's club for my current skill level. I find it much too easy to bend the ball with the most subtle touches and for me that is not a good thing as I'm far from steady enough in my swing. However I like the metal and the look of the head so I might bring it out of retirement some distant day if ever I feel competent for the set. Shambles

Would that happen to be some kind of Maraging Steel ? I've been on the watch for whatever clubs would be made with that as it's supposed to have compounds that do not rust but provide plenty of strength and still be soft, by some writers. It's one of the reasons I hang my hat here. If the metal comes out I would expect someone in this group to find it early. There is a pretty good article on maraging steel in general at : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maraging_steel I suspect you might have accidentally walked into a club whose design and assembly suit you so well you are doomed to spend the rest of your life with that set and must now be cast out of the Club Ho's Anonymous and made to spend your excess funds on your wife. Shambles

Grips are a splurge for me. I buy them by the bunch, if at all and try to keep them clean. Often I end up giving away the ones I don't like or lose interest in but that sometimes takes a couple of years as I tend to stock them until the need arises. The thing about new grips is that a new set can make old clubs feel new again. Every man needs to find his foolishness to restore humility. Shambles