NickBooras

Most big name OEM's tend to use .350" tip shafts in their newer drivers. The exceptions being Titleist, King Cobra (the new stuff), Mizuno, Taylor Made TP versions, and a couple others. Component manufacturers tend to use the more traditional .335", with the exceptions being some of the newer Golfsmith line (Hi COR). We're in a transition period. I'd assume they'll all be .350" eventually.

I use Golfsmith Tour Van epoxy every now and then in a pinch, and I've had very few problems. I must admit, the return rate is much higher for those club builders I know who use it exclusively, however, if you mix it properly, you should have no problems. The main problem I see with the epoxy is people hurry - it sets in 5 minutes, so you must work fast. If you don't spend a good 2 of those minutes mixing furiously, they will eventually fall apart. I'm lucky if I can get 3 clubs epoxied with a batch of Tour Van.

Is it a center shaft or a double bend? If it's a center, you're golden. A standard putter shaft will work. If it's a double bend, good luck finding the proper shaft to make it look right - if you do, please let me know. I'd love to know where to find them. To avoid damaging the insert, take a wet cloth and drape it all the way around the face and 2 balls on top. Make sure the rag is soaking wet and covers them completely. Use a blow torch on the head for about 5-7 seconds and twist off.

The RAC LT's should be a .370" parallel. The only newer Taylor Made's I've encountered that have .355" taper tips are the forged versions. As for ferrules, you can use a standard .370" ferrule on taper tip irons just fine. As long as the bore is deep enough, the ferrule should be nice and snug on the shaft. Try www.golfsmith.com or www.golfworks.com for a nice selection.

Here is a little exerpt from Tom Wishon's website, www.wishongolf.com: Can be found on this site: http://www.wishongolf.com/tech_talk/indept...n_shft_fit.html Trust me, this man knows his stuff.

I pulled a steel shaft from a Hogan Hybrid a while back and it is, indeed, a .355T. I've never pulled a graphite, but I'd assume it's the same.

This is normal. I've reshafted more Titleist drivers than I can count, and it happens from time to time. Toss the heat gun back on the little plastic plug and it should melt out just fine, and expose the clean hole. Take a graphite tip plug and stick it in the hole for fitting purposes. Cut all the extra off the tip you can so it will still fit in the hole, but so you won't have it sticking 1" inside the head. Take some epoxy, or superglue, or some pressure bond like "Royal Onyx" and coat the plug. Slip it back in the hole and give it a couple taps with a screw driver, or utility knife, or something that will wedge it in the hole. Hit it straight on or it could break the plug off. When it's dry, cut the plug off and polish it down with whatever you use to finish your bore-throughs. Simple stuff.

The first thing to consider is the tip diameter. Obviously you need a .335 tip for your Titleist. 2nd is the flex. The Titleist has a VERY deep bore, as you can see. Somewhere around 3.5", IIRC. The problem with this is that in a standard bore, roughly 1.25" - 1.5" of shaft are immobilized by the head, however, in a Titleist, you more than double that, giving you the effect of extra tip-trimming on the shaft (read: it gets a lot stiffer). In my experience, depending on the shaft, the Titleist bore will generally stiffen a shaft 1 to 1.5 flexes, so if you're wanting a stiff shaft, I'd suggest purchasing a regular. Note: IMO, this is not true in all borethroughs. A Callaway Steelhead III has a borethrough, however, the entire depth of the hosel is only about 1". Depending on how much shaft you leave sticking out of the head, and eventually grind off, the flex should still remain roughly what it is labeled on the shaft. It may play a few CPM's stiffer, but it's nothing to really concern yourself about, IMO.

I would say no. I've spoken with some reputable names in the golf industry on this subject, and the general concensus is the reason for going to a .350 tip is because it is easier and cheaper to obtain the desired specifications by adding more material to the tip than by using better materials or engineering. If you remove all other variables, other than the shaft, I'd bet money you will feel no difference whatsoever between a .335 and .350 tip of the same model. To make sure all other variables have been removed, I'd suggest finding two .350 tip heads of the exact same weight. Shim a .335 into one, install a .350 into the other. Measure the frequency of each and make sure they are the same, or very, very close. Make sure the swingweight of both clubs is the same. Install logo-down so you don't know which is which. Tell me if you notice a difference. My money says you can't, and if you do, it's because of another factor. Just my $0.02.

The last Cleveland clubs to be manufactured in .335 were the Launcher 330 and the Launcher steel fairway woods. Everything since, including the Launcher 400, 460, Comp, and Titanium fairways have been .350. I'd assume this will continue to be the case with all their new clubs.

It's possible that he didn't tip-trim the X100 as much as is required to be a true X100. I'm not sure the term "soft step" would apply to this method, but I'd assume that's what he means. A standard Dynamic Gold X100 requires 1.25" of tip trimming in a standard bore. If he trimmed anything less, say 1.00", it could be a sort of "soft stepping".

First off, what is the butt diameter of the shafts you're using? If you're installing .58R grips on a .600" butt, you're already playing grips that are .020" over standard. Your first move should be to install .60R grips on the same shafts to make them slightly smaller, no matter what butt diameter they are. From there, we can try ladies grips, but I prefer to move in baby-steps.

I've seen the STT method down at Golfsmith in Austin, and yes, there is a very considerable human factor involved. Basically, if the process is still the same, they lock the shaft in the the computer/machine, and it tells the operator to turn the shaft left or right X degrees. When the computer says all is well, the operator places a sticker on top of the shaft where he "thinks" 12:00 is. It's fairly accurate, but when you test the PUREd shafts, they are slightly off 99% of the time. Yes, they do come marked so you install them at 12:00 for righties, or 6:00 for the lefties. With regards to the rifles, I don't have any experience, so someone else will have to answer this. Someone correct me if I'm wrong here: When a shaft is made, graphite or steel, there will always be a hard side and soft side in the shaft due to the manufacturing process (wrapping graphite, for example, starts and stops somewhere). Because of this non-uniformity, in addition to the shaft flexing on a plane toward and away from your target, there will also be some vertical motion in the direction the hard and soft sides are aligned in the club head. Finding the hard spot, or the spine, and placing it facing your target will, in theory, eliminate most of the vertical motion in the shaft, thus eliminating another inconsistancy in your swing/clubs. It's my understanding that Puring is just a computerized version of Spining developed by STT, but I don't really know the whole story, to be honest. As for "floing", I've never heard the term, so someone else will have to field that one.

Just do it right, and you'll be fine. If I handed you a shimmed club and an un-shimmed club, I'd bet my house you'd never know the difference.

Bingo. 1/2" added to length will make the club play 1 more degree upright.

It's been my experience that some manufacturers add a small amount of glue to the head during the assembly process. I'm not exactly sure why this is, but sometimes the easiest way to fix a rattle is a blowtorch on the bottom of the club for a few seconds then let the glue catch the rattle. I'd say about 25% of the time that works, depending on the manufacturer. That may be what you experienced when the rattle temporarily went away.

No, that's about right, IIRC. They did the same thing with the woods. They started doing that with the first generation Bubble shafts and didn't stop until the 500 Series woods came out. I re-epoxy about 10-15 factory Taylor Made clubs per week because of this problem.

Ken, I actually work at a store, so no worries there. Does the company have a website or phone number I could contact? I'd love to have a few of them on hand for future repairs. Thanks! Nick

Ah, that would be wonderful if you could help me out. I still have yet to have one come back, so I think my makeshift tape shims work well, but I wouldn't mind something a little more concrete. If I had the time to play around with one I'm sure I could rig something up from Home Depot, but I just don't hang onto them long enough. Thanks for the help!

Oh, I forgot to add - you can use the same method with ERC Fusion drivers, but the PVC needs to be cut at about a 4 degree angle, IIRC.

Wow that's a pretty solid effort...I don't think I've ever seen it done, I ususally just mail that puppy back...nice job! :cool: It's actually VERY easy once you do it a couple times. Just get yourself a piece of PVC about 2" long cut at about a 12-14 degree angle. I don't know what type of PVC it is exactly, but it's a little less than .5" thick with about a 3/4" hole in the center. This will make sure the pressure is placed on the hosel and on the head, forcing the shaft to come out of the hosel instead of pulling the hosel and shaft out of the head. Here is a step by step tutorial: 1. You can either cut the shaft about a foot above the hosel to use a short hot rod or use a long hot rod and just take the old grip off. Slide the PVC over the shaft so the angled cut is sitting flush against the plastic hosel and head. Lock the shaft in a vice just like you would do if you were going to pull the head with a pry bar. 2. If it's a Ping shaft with Cushin, you'll either have to fish the Cushin out with a rod (hook on the end), or cut the shaft below the Cushin. You make the call. It all depends on how much you want to save the original shaft. 3. Heat the hot rod so about 2" of the tip is cherry red. Wait about 5-10 seconds before you stick the rod in the shaft just so it cools down a little and isn't glowing anymore. A lot of people will tell you to put a wet rag around the plastic hosel to keep it from melting, but I've found this takes much more heat and actually increases your odds of melting the hosel. 4. Immediately after you stick the hot rod in the shaft start pushing on the flat part of the PVC with a pry bar. If you did put a wet rag around the hosel, you'll probably have to wait a good 30 seconds before the head will come off and you may even have to re-heat the hot rod 2 or 3 times. If you do like me and don't use the wet rag, the head should pop off in about 10-15 seconds. 5. Make sure you're quick with the wire brush to clean the old epoxy out of the hosel - if you're not, you'll be stuck with left over epoxy. You can't put more heat on the plastic, so it's a bit tough to get the old epoxy off sometimes. They require a .350" shaft, but you can use a shim in them no problem. Make sure you have a tight fit. If you weren't careful you may have melted and expanded the hosel. If you do end up screwing one up, you can always buy replacement Ping hosels from Golfsmith, but the fit and finish isn't even close to as good as OEM. Anyone have any other methods?

Interesting. I've never had a Golfsmith Callaway shim that is long enough to reach the bottom of the hosel. IIRC, the CSS2 is only about 1" long, perhaps less, and the C4 bore depth is almost double that. I have to reshaft another tomorrow, so I'll see what I can work out.

Well, I don't feel much like digging up data, but I suggest you talk to someone at Fujikura (not a salesman - someone who knows their s**t) and see what they say. I'll eat my words if they back up your opinion, but I've talked about shafts with Tom Wishon and Mike Dugan at Wishon Golf Technologies, and both of them are on my side. I think I'd take the word of two of the most knowledgable people in the golf industry over a couple people on an internet forum. Just my $0.02.

But what was the bend profile of each of the different shafts? If you look at the Grafalloy Blue, it's a high bend point but a mid trajectory shaft. The data just doesn't add up to support your conclusion in my experience.

The C4 isn't a .350, unfortunately. It's a .400" at the bottom, and even wider at the top (maybe .430"?). I used a .335 shaft with a Callaway shim from Golfsmith (not the CSS - I forget the number) and used drywall tape to fill the rest. I'm thinking they'll hold together just fine, but we'll see in the coming months.