Looking for persimmon wood insert material

[deejaid]

Good morning guys. Can someone lead me to a source for persimmon face insert material? Or does anyone have some they would sell? Need some for a few projects. Thanks!

[James the Hogan Fan]

Tap plastics sells black ABS plastic. You could use that?

Downside is you can have any color, so long as it's black...

I don't know where one goes for the red fiber real deal, or even red impact epoxy. Unless you want to pay a lot...

 

Edit: Amazon can get you candy apple red: https://www.amazon.com/ABS-Plastic-Bar-Stock-Machining/dp/B07KY1TJYZ

 

 

[deejaid]

Forgot all about Tap Plastics. They are right here in the Bay Area. Black plastic is fine for me. Thanks James.

[xgolfx]

Can you find inserts that you would need in old clubs? Try buying some old clubs if you could replace the insert

 

CHARLEY PENNA

[deejaid]

Actually looking to build a persimmon driver from scratch. The Tap plastics lead James gave me is perfect for the insert. Now need to figure out how to make a sole plate, or maybe reuse a sole plate from another club.

[James the Hogan Fan]

I don't know what sole plates are made out of beyond brass for higher lofted woods, and cast zinc for Ginty's.

My guess is sometimes stainless, and sometimes aluminum? Not knowing what is in your shop I would expect aluminum to be the better bet for shaping and cutting.

To that end I would call up or go down to Alco metals across the street from Metropolitan in Oakland and either buy stock or ask to look through their cutoff scraps. On my Hogan Persimmons it looks a cutoff from the end of a 3x3 aluminum bar would do the job. Looks like 1/8-3/16" thick so you could also just get plate for it and cut what you need using drill/hacksaw/file. (Or mill/grinder if you have one)

Anyway the hardest part for mine will be making the sole radius of the plate... Which I imagine would involve a die, hammers, and heat... Suppose you cut an appropriate radius on wood block a bandsaw and hammered the plate into shape against it... Then coming back with file and grinder to remove the strike marks.

As for stampings... Well I don't know what to do about that...

Edit: Id like to add that besides the location of Alco metals, I am merely speculating on how a sole plate would be made, and have minimal experience with any of it...

[Stephen8802]

There are a bunch of Macgregor and Hogan sole plates on eBay now, you could always use one of those if you can router in the correct shape.

[deejaid]

 

I’ve used different gauges of brass to cut my own pickguard for electric guitars I’ve built but they were always flat, never had to consider a curve before. Aluminum would be my choice for a driver plate, easy to work with as well.

[deejaid]

I’ve got a couple of salvaged plates in the parts drawer but if I do carve my own head I’d like to go all the way and fabricate everything myself.

[James the Hogan Fan]

Out of curiosity, where are you getting the persimmon, and are you getting them as blanks or as blocks of wood?

[deejaid]

I’m going to order from this company. Green Valley Wood Products

They have 6”x6”x3” persimmon blocks.

[Stephen8802]

What is your plan to dry and oil harden them?

[deejaid]

Air dry and tung oil.