Cracked M75 3 wood...can I save it?

[Stephen8802]

I took a flyer on a collection of clubs with sketchy pictures and I'm thrilled about all the clubs but this one. Unfortunately, the M75 2/3/4 were the ones I was most interested in, and the 3 wood was the most important of the three to me. The good news is that the finish on all three is in near-mint condition, the bad news is that the 3 wood head has serious cracks. The 2/4 are minty fresh all around without cracks (although I haven't taken the whipping off those two).

I would very much like to save this club, but this is my first experience with cracks this big and this deep. So, the questions for those of you who have done this before are: A) on a scale of 1-10, how bad is this? B) Is it reparable, and C) Assuming the answer is epoxy the cracks, refinish, and hit, how advanced of a repair is this?

A big part of the motivation behind my current buying spree is to find clubs to refinish myself, but I don't want to ruin a salvageable M75 3 wood because I bit off more than I was ready to chew. I'd be willing to send this one out to the right person for repair rather than risk ruining the club.

That was the bad and the ugly, but with a good face like this, shouldn't we save it?

 

[raggal62]

IMO cracks that go beyond the neck into the head itself are generally a lost cause. Certainly a cosmetic restoration is doable but I would never feel safe putting this club into play for fear of disintegration.

[mcputter]

Your mention of disintegration reminded me of something that happened when I was a kid. This was back in '73 or '74, I had only been playing for a year or two and was playing some Spaulding woods my dad had handed down to me. The driver developed a crack, and my dad, being the practical guy that he was, hammered a nail into it. The next time I played, it seemed OK off the first tee, but on the next tee shot at impact the clubhead totally disintegrated into just a cloud of splinters. I started the swing with a full club, and by the follow thru all I had was a gripped shaft. I couldn't even find the soleplate, LOL.

[robert horneman]

Neck cracks are repairable. When a crack goes down into the head it is toast. It would be a fun project to refinish the club and hang it on a wall.

[stixman]

If you would be interested in a second opinion it might be worth joining The Persimmon Golf Society on Facebook and asking your question there. There are some very good repair guys on your side of the pond who contribute. I have repaired hickory shafted woods where the cracks have gone into the head and they survived, so it isn't necessarily a basket case.

[robert horneman]

Hi stixman, no problem squeezing epoxy into a neck crack. What is your method of epoxying a crack in the head?

[Stephen8802]

Well that's not great news, but it seems about right. How about the sequel?

I found this crack in another head, this one a PT1W driver. This club has plenty of face issues, but those are fixable. But this looks more serious. What do you think?

[raggal62]

Problematic IMO.

[Swingingk]

I would defer to Mr. Horneman on this one but if I were to have an opinion I would say this: good quality epoxy such as West System 105 will always successfuly bond sound wood as long as it permeates the entire affected area. Assuming the crack shown is down into the main body of the head and is mechanically or structurally affecting the overall strength or soundness of the wood, the only real way to ensure a solid bond repair would be to complete the break right through the head (ie: break it in two along the crack) then epoxy the whole thing back together again. I would trust that but I wouldn't trust spreading the crack and trying to squirt adhesive in as far as you can. Again - just my opinion. If you were to completely disassemble the head you might be able to rap it with another piece of hardwood and hear or feel it's soundness like you would if you were sounding for a crack in a bell or grindstone. If it were solid it would knock with a higher pitch sound than it would if it were badly cracked. I don't know.... that last part might be reaching a little... ☺

Anyway, it IS a cool head. It would be really cool if you could fix it.

[stixman]

Drill a hole from the side crossing the crack. Fill with West System Epoxy, very runny stuff, permeates like oil (which I have been using since the early 1980s). The technique for making a peg the same size as the drill hole is well known. Hickory is best. Hammer the peg into the hole which forces the epoxy into the cracks. One hole is usually enough, it's judgement call as to whether a second drill hole to access another part of the crack would provide any benefit weighed against further weakening.

[stixman]

There was a small business in the UK called ProTour, near Cambridge if I remember correctly. They were in existence, with a very good reputation, for repairing cracked persimmon and had developed a vacuum based process which presumably 'sucked' the epoxy into the cracks. Of course, with the demise of persimmon they weren't around for long but their Sales Manager is still alive and living in Egypt.

Those skiers amongst you will recall that laminated skis were also had the components glued to profile using a vacuum chamber. Maybe the ingenious amongst you can see a way of adapting a couple of pressure cookers, one to reduce the pressure hooked up to the other with the work piece in it.

[No_Catchy_Nickname]

First of all, I completely misread "skiers" in your post as a "golfer who skies the ball", and thought "what's that got to do with laminates...?"

Second, your anecdote reminded me of a lad I used to know when I was little whose father was involved in the design of the Maxply wooden tennis racket that John McEnroe used into the early Eighties (Maxply MacEnroe was the name, I think). The designers had to make it particularly strong to prevent McEnroe breaking it in a fit of fury, and the father was part of a team that worked out how to create a stronger laminate. I wonder if they used this vacuum method.

[raggal62]

Thanks for the tip. I'll experiment with your technique and report back. Hopefully this old dog can learn a new trick!

[robert horneman]

Stixman very interesting method to repair a cracked head. Where do you get the West System Epoxy?

[stixman]

Readily available on-line on your side of the pond, I've just googled it. Any marine shop should do it. It's the only epoxy I use because it is approved by Lloyds of London for maritme use, specifically for boat building which is where I got to use it in the first instance. This standard of approval guarantees consistent quality, not so with proprietory epoxys in the golf business.

[robert horneman]

Thanks stixman.

[Swingingk]

Stixman, those are some great ideas!

[Swingingk]

As mentioned most good marine supply stores will have it. I've ordered it from Jamestown Distributors too. Pretty sure they carry Frearson screws as well.