Ferrule Fitting

I don't have a belt sander/felt belt set up, so I was thinking about "pre-fitting" my ferrules. My idea was to make a mandrel that would fit snuggly in the ID of the ferrule and chuck it up in a hand drill and sand it down to size prior to shafting the club. has anyone tried this approach before?

my apologies if this has been covered before, but I find the search on the new forum tough to navigate.

Thanks in advance

Home - Cell PartsThey’re very popular here on WRX. Call and tell them what clubs you’re playing, they’ll have something very close to perfect already to match your hosel diameter. Install, give a small wipe with some acetone and you’re done. Well worth the price and wait to do it right.

Finishing ferrules is a right of passage of every clubmaker. It's easy work, just a little tedious. Sloppy ferrule work is the sign of an amateur that isn't trying.

Buy some 220 grit sandpaper roll (cloth strip sandpaper) https://www.nortonabrasives.com/en-us/cloth-sanding-rolls.

Wrap the hosel with masking tape just under the hosel, put the shaft in a club holder and clamp it in your vice, and then shoe shine sand the ferrule to size. When it's flush with the hosel use acetone on a lint free cloth to shine up the ferrule. If you really want to do a bang up job follow this up with shoe shining the ferrule with some polishing compound on a cloth.

Easy work once you get the hang of it.

thanks, that is how I did my first set, and they turned out pretty decent I think. I’ve got some bb and f co. ferrules coming they are about .016” over sized, so definitely need some turning down. My concern with taping off the hosel is breaking through The tape. The irons have a smoke finish, so I’m worried I’ll mess up the finish if the tape breaks through. I have a couple extra coming, so maybe I’ll do a bit of trial and error

I have never heard of the polishing compound after acetone. What polish do you use?

I also subscribe to the sandpaper strips and shoe shine technique. The issue with pre-sanding them is that the shaft may not be perfectly concentric in the hosel and one side may still be off.

I had thought of that too, and thought I would leave it oversized by ~.005 and see how centered it is. I figure I can take the rest off with acetone. I’m not sure if that’s enough, but my thought was to keep test fitting and see how it’s coming. There’s a good chance I’ll just go to installing them and shoe shining them.

You can take off a lot more than you think with just acetone.

Saturation a small rag (old T shirt), and rub hard up and down along the hosel. Rotate the rag to a clean spot when the plastic builds up on it. The key is to use a LOT of acetone. Once you get it where you want it, do a light wipe with a clean rag and heavy acetone, and then let dry. This will smooth it out. Once dry, buff with a clean, dry cloth.

I've done it this way for years, with excellent results, using just acetone and elbow grease.

I used Cell Parts ferrules on my latest build, and they are a very close fit, so they don't take much work.

Sweet work ^

just use a cloth linen belt ( the same kind used on a belt sander, without the belt sander) ,a few drops of acetone and the shoe shine method. This will turn the ferrule down, without worry of scratching the finish of the hosel.

Hope this helps

M60

Thanks all for the advise. It seems "pre-finishing" isn't the way to go!

First one done. How did I do? Any critique would be appreciated

Looks great! Just be careful to not over polish with the acetone, you can go from slightly too wide to too narrow very quickly.

Thank you,

yeah, I think it got away from me just a little on the left side in the picture, my next one turned out a bit better.

Best to use linen and not an old t shirt.

old t shirt often leaves lint behind on the ferrule.

I used these, cut into 1” strips

https://www.uline.ca/Product/Detail/S-13045/Cleanroom-Wipes/Class-10-Kimtech-Pure-W4-Cleanroom-Wipes?pricode=YD245&gadtype=pla&id=S-13045&gclid=Cj0KCQjw0pfzBRCOARIsANi0g0vcx9IeK3gq1Q5cKiNA_hGkktiPerAKBdkZts3v3yZKPC3Z4xErdkgaAv3LEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds&ImagePopupIndex=0

This is just a "Thanks!" to Nessism for the post. Last year I did aluminum ferrules. Used a Dremel on low speed to turn the ferrules. Then think it was 600 wet/dry I went over them with to smooth thing down. Never thought of using compound! Will be reshafting the one set & making another set. So will hit them with rubbing...then polishing compound. Thanks Nessism!

So I have to ask, how exactly do you turn down aluminum ferules? I've seen a few nice looking ones, but always pass because I had no idea how I would get them to match up exactly to hosel OD, so just stick with good old trusty Cell-Parts Mfg.

Used a Dremel with a sanding attachment. Had it at low speed and had some masking tape around the end of the hosel. At first, the tape was for protection. But after a couple of times I found the tape was actually more useful with how close I was getting on sanding the ferrule down. Then it was either 600 or 1000 wet/dry sandpaper that I went over with it to finish it off. But with Nessisum's post about using rubbing/polishing compound.....that would be the final steps to get a real nice smooth finish on them.

The Dremel sanding attachment is one that has a barrel shaped rubber pad at the end. Then used the finest grit sleeve to put on it. Made sure I had good light right on the area so I would have any big screw-ups. Had the club in a vise that I rotate the direction on. Just go slow & easy on the the first couple of ones.