My very easy DIY Bench ruler plans. Why spend $$$ when you can spend $ and be accurate!! ( Home shop

A small tie into Father Days here, I was always thought by my dad, that when ever possible you should do things yourself and not rely on other people. As a welder and machinist he's one of the handiest people I know.

So when it came time to build my home shop, I've taken the time to be as budget conscious as possible but still maintain the highest quality. Other than the big tools a proper bench ruler is one of the higher priced items you can buy, especially ones that measured off of lie angle ( something every competent club builder should do). As a guy who builds golf clubs for a living, I've always been a bit of a garage engineer. So rather than spend upwards of $150 on a ruler I decided to build my own. Plus in all honesty an inch as a unit of measure is completely universal ( an inch is an inch on any ruler anywhere in the world ) its just that for golf clubs there is a proper way to actually measure from a club building stand point and the set up of the jig is what's important for this project

List of parts:

- 6' long 1" by 6". I got an 8' long 1"by 6" at Home Depot for $3.50

- Quality 48" Aluminium Bunch ruler. DON'T CHEAP out on this part!! still only $12 at Home Depot

- Small piece of scrap wood 1" by 2" also at home depot ( I had extra around the house ) usually <$2 cost

- 48" long ( you only need about 2" ) wooden Dowel. I bought 7/16" for $1.14

- Protractor

It total you're in for about $20 and with the proper tools and know how about 30 minutes .

Its a long and tedious project to describe all of the steps here so instead I'm just going to post pictures to demonstrate how things were assembled to build the ruler. ( also important to have a properly measured calibration club for setting up the ruler, if you have two even better )

The whole project comes down to pressure fitting a small piece of the dowel into the scrap wood cut to about 3-4" long. Then once again pressure fitting that into the 1" by 6". Its good to have a protractor to help you make sure everything is completely square ( honestly if you're going to do it you should be sure to do it properly the FIRST time )

Mark your lie angles on the 1" by 6" for your most common clubs ( 64*, 60*, 71* for a putter, even though putters can be measured differently ) and then compare to calibration club..

Easy thing to do and VERY accurate once complete.

If you have any questions just ask in the thread and I'll do my best to answer them.

I'm assuming your protractor is just sitting there and is not attached? Do you have standard lie angles pre-marked, or do you do all the measuring with each and every club?

Protractor was just there to show what I used.

I have lie angles pre-measured on the wood for 60, 64, & 72 and just adjust a small amount within the irons to check length. Its also completely functional for both right and left handed clubs.

I once built something very similar. The major difference was I had a post that the mid point of the sole of the club rested on versus the piece you have. Mitchel was selling a piece that had this and you could mount that piece to a board and then set a ruler in place. One could argue that unless compensating for graduated lie then the length measurement could be off. What say you to this?

http://www.mitchellgolf.com/CLUBLENGTH-Ruler-Measuring-Tool.html

There was a ruler (big old heavy thing) floating around in the business some 15 years ago that had an adjustable sole resting plate that one set to the lie of the club. The club sat toe up on the ruler.

[quote name='JCAG' timestamp='1434923462' post='11802378']
I once built something very similar. The major difference was I had a post that the mid point of the sole of the club rested on versus the piece you have. Mitchel was selling a piece that had this and you could mount that piece to a board and then set a ruler in place. One could argue that unless compensating for graduated lie then the length measurement could be off. What say you to this?

[url="http://www.mitchellgolf.com/CLUBLENGTH-Ruler-Measuring-Tool.html"]http://www.mitchellg...uring-Tool.html[/url]

There was a ruler (big old heavy thing) floating around in the business some 15 years ago that had an adjustable sole resting plate that one set to the lie of the club. The club sat toe up on the ruler.
[/quote]

I always recommend building final length measured to lie angle and not measured to a single point in the sole. This is obviously a person choice for building clubs and I understand that other may do it differently.

The other thing to consider is that the USGA / R&A, measure differently as per accordance with the rules of golf, but those are not the people who are responsible for building clubs for golfers. Unless you are coming close to the legal length limit than measuring that way is of no concern. It really comes down to attempting to be as accurate as possible.

As for the big Mitchell ruler, I understand it's usefulness, but since using it for different clubs all the time you can find small irregularities in the measurement especially if the club is moving back and forth inside of the guides that sit above the hosel before the ruler. It doesn't mean that the ruler is off it just means that people will all measure differently. Heck I've seen people off measurements by up to 1/8" using a tape measure ( which when building almost anything is a completely unacceptable tolerance, not just golf clubs )

Its really comes down to a few things:
- As stated before ;an inch is an inch no matter how you measure it.
- It will always come down to how every person chooses to measure, but as long as its consistent you will have consistent results
- The was created to demonstrate the ability to build this one "type" of club measuring ruler for those who want accurate results without spending $$$ on what others call an "official" golf club ruler using lie angle.

Hope this helps.

Some other alternatives but as Toby said, an inch is an inch.

http://www.golfmechanix.com/Items.asp?Pdts=09

I use my 48" ruler and a board I place on the floor with notches every 0.5° from 55° to 65°. Then I just sit the club upright in the address position and measure from there.

Mitchell had their full kit in the preowned section for about $25 a month or so ago

I just followed Howard's blueprints here [url="http://www.golfwrx.com/forums/topic/1087107-reshafting-irons-few-questions-regarding-length-measurement/"]http://www.golfwrx.com/forums/topic/1087107-reshafting-irons-few-questions-regarding-length-measurement/[/url] ... it was a simple as you can get and works great. I used that 48" stick on ruler golfworks sells and placed dowel pins in the bench as suggested there. It cost $4.99 I think and took 10 minutes.