off centered core - poorly constructed ball?

I have a hobby that grew out of a curiousity about how golf balls are constructed. I make objects like clocks from golf balls that have been cut in half to reveal their interior. (For more information on this see: http://interiorgolf.weebly.com/).

In the course of cutting some golf balls in half I came across one (older Callaway model) that looks like it was manufactured incorrectly, see attachment below.

Notice how the core is off center, or lopsided.

I imagine this would affect the flight of the ball if the density of the core and the second outer layer is significantly different.

For those engineers out there, do you have any opinions about the degree to which this would affect the flight of the ball or roll of a putt?

(This seems to be a relatively rare occurance, most of the multi-layer balls I've come across have well centered cores.)

Never did like those hex blacks. Now I know why!

Wow that is strange

About 8 years ago I was looking to have a 3 piece urathan cover ball that would be at 35 compression. Manufactures in China sent me some samples based on my request. I cut many of the balls, none had urathane covers, but they were very consistant in centering and alinement of layers. I cut open the prov1, and 1x, the x was a mess, none were centered. Most were not as bad as that hex black, but i was really shocked.

I am going to do some more cutting, hopefully this weekend. Post any ball and i will have a look.

Wow... never had an issue with a Hex Black, so I guess I got the good ones. Too bad there isn't an easy way to determine the density of each component to see how much of a difference that off-center core would cause. The accuracy needed to determine the density just would be a pain in the rear without a calibrated water bath.

Your clocks look great!

What do you cut the balls with?

Now I feel like searching eBay for one of those golf ball spinners.

Salt solution does the same thing. If a certain spot keeps floating to the surface that is a light side. If it is random then the ball is balanced. I did this a lot during the period of the Wilson True Tour.

[quote name='demand' timestamp='1423283868' post='10904049']
Your clocks look great!

What do you cut the balls with?
[/quote]Chop saw with a jig to hold the ball.

As I recall when the Wilson True's came out, they really caused a stir with their ad campaign showing how the True ball was always balanced.
I believe that the solution was that manufactures made sure that they used components that had the same density. It didn't matter if the core was not centred, the overall balance was not effected, due to the same density throughout.
Now does that mean that the ball flies straight once its been hit? Its hard to believe that it doesn't change its flight.

[quote name='spoonhead' timestamp='1423929178' post='10951965']
As I recall when the Wilson True's came out, they really caused a stir with their ad campaign showing how the True ball was always balanced.
I believe that the solution was that manufactures made sure that they used components that had the same density. It didn't matter if the core was not centred, the overall balance was not effected, due to the same density throughout.
Now does that mean that the ball flies straight once its been hit? Its hard to believe that it doesn't change its flight.
[/quote]

If the materials are the same density it doesn't change its flight but it may effect how far it goes. The ball would bounce differently based on where the core is in relation to the face.

As for the ball shown above that should never have made it out of the factory. All balls get x-rayed for core centering to make sure that cores are centered. There is a certain amount of tolerance that the cores can have, but that is way to far out of spec.

Do the epsom salts test, to see if they have a light/heavy side....first, before you cut them open. Would be very interesting to see how the visual of the core location, might correlate to this test

How can this not be a problem? Even if the materials are the same density, they compress differently. After all, that's why they have different core materials. Seems like the spin axis would be tilted if you hit that ball where the core was not hit directly on.