Does shaft direction matter?

[dlow206]

Besides visually, does shaft direction matter for irons? I ended up putting the shafts on with the labels sideways, which doesn't bother me visually, just wanted to make sure it doesn't matter from a functioning perspective.

[Dpavs]

Nope. you can take them off and apply new ones if you like just to tidy up.

[Marengo]

The thin end should go into the club head.

No, im kidding. I dont think it matters. I have had a few graphite shafts spine/flo'ed but i dont think steel has the variance that graphite fibers do.

[dlow206]

These are Nippon shafts so they have the graphics printed on the shafts. The label/graphic orientation doesn't visually bother me, just wanted to make sure there was no actual impact to performance.

[Z1ggy16]

Radial consistency on modern steel is like 99% or so... Meaning orientation should not matter.

[Old Tom Morris]

Radial consistency is apparently very good on modern graphite shafts. Despite fitters trying to upsell you on shaft puring and spining. Once adjustable drivers came out, the orientation of the shaft would change with each setting. ?

[Dpavs]

Curse you Nippon! Lol, just kidding of course as I like and play their shafts also!

[dlow206]

Thanks everyone. I spent so much time and focus on shaft/hosel prep, mixing the right amount of epoxy, trying to put on the right amount of epoxy, etc. and didn't really give much thought to shaft direction.

This is my first time shafting clubs. My leftover epoxy on the cardboard is rock hard, even though there is still a few more hours of cure time left. However, I'm not even going to touch the clubs whatsoever until tomorrow.

[halliedog]

So how did it go? Did the heads cure, and have you applied grips yet? Someone much more knowledgeable than me will chime in, but if your leftover epoxy is "rock hard" (that's what she said) well before the recommended curing time, be careful of a bad mix ratio? My epoxy usually cures a little early, but still remains soft enough to push a fingernail into before sitting a few more hours.

Keep us updated on the build!

[dlow206]

The epoxy on the cardboard seemed mostly cured after 12 hours. After 24 hours, the epoxy was hard like hard plastic. It is hard to bend the cardboard but can be bent when applying quite a bit of force. It is not brittle when bending.

I need to do the grips tomorrow.

 

[Howard_Jones]

Not correct....there is still large varieties to flex on graphite woods, and no driver hosel setting works the same. One of the first to the marked was Titleist 910 where each setting changed shaft orientation with 90* or exactly the same as what we expect to be the difference from the weak to the strong FLO lines, so if a shaft to a 910 was FLOed, we could choose "weak or strong" as we wanted, both with good FLO. Some hosels dont rotate the shaft at all, only cogs thats moved, so orientation stays the same.....The designers KNOWs about this, they are not stupid, even if non of them will advocate PURE or FLO, but dont think for a second that "all shafts is good shafts" and like they should be, thats marketing BS, ONLY testing can tell what shaft we got at hand, just like for all other shaft specs, we dont even know weight before the shaft is on the scale, the official weight is "paper specs" and NOT what you got at hand.

[sailfishchris]

Howard, is this still true today? The 910 is ten years old. Shafts haven't improved in that time? That's pretty scary considering the prices paid for some shafts.

[Howard_Jones]

It might have improved "some", but we will never get to the point where quality control is "over kill", its a needed step no matter what we deal with and thats the actual difference between a high end product and a standard product. Just look at True temper Dynamic or more correct, Fork & Hoe Dynamic from 1942. We still play that shaft, improvements was made in 1980 where TT started with weight sorting into SUB FLEX using plus minus 1.5 grams as tolerance. NO change of product, just a "quality control" here as weight sorting. Next was "Tour issue", its still the same Fork & Hoe Dynamic from 1942, this time with a weight sorting as tight as plus minus 0.5 grams....no change in design or production method....

Graphite shafts "normally" vary with 2-3 CPM from "weak" to strong FLO line, but then we have those "out-liners" or "flyers" who is shafts who for some unknown reason ended up way outside this norm, and we never know what shaft from the box that might be, its just like Fork & Hoe Dynamic, we have to measure to find it and sort them out.

This spec sheet from my shop is a few years old now, and all models is out of the marked, but one of them is actually a "Tour Issue" product (Grafalloy TOUR), and we should at least expect them to hold the same or better tolerances than ordinary "aftermarked models", but they dont, just look at one of those S flex models, its almost as strong as X flex and we dont want that, UNLESS this was a player where S was to soft, and X to strong,. then we had what we needed in this shaft. Others like the PL BLUE AXIS S has a difference from weak to strong FLO line that tells this shaft is actually "asymmetrical", so depending on how that shaft is installed it either soft or strong with 1 full flex from weak to strong. If we look at the PFC model, depending on what shaft we picked, and how that shaft was installed, i found a difference of up to 8 CPM or close to 1 full flex.

I have NOT seen any kind of "improvement" in the design of carbon fiber flags, carbon fibers or assembly method who could improve this varities, and those of you who are familiar with PX hand crafted vs standard would know that the "tolerances" on the hand crafted model is higher than the standard model...even if pricing would indicate the opposite...

I do NOT Advocate PURE, i think their pricing is "far out", and a FLO test is a few minutes pr shaft so pricing for that service should not be something we raise our eyes to at all. Every time i had a box of shafts coming in, each shaft was put on the gram scale, tested for "roll" on a table (to check if the tip is centered or how much off - it will oscillate on most shafts, but we dont want too much, and at last i checked them for FLO and measured weak and strong. That way i always knew what shafts i had in stock when i needed a certain start weight or flex.

Be aware of that Graphite respond with average 1 CPM for each 2/8" tip trim, so it takes 0.75" tip trim to "equalize" the flex difference between weak and strong (3 CPM) who is the norm, but we should never tip trim a graphite shaft for CPM reasons, its better to take advantage of the strong FLO line if stronger than the weak is wanted, OR find a shaft thats stronger ion the weak line like here:

All shafts here was tested "label up/Down" and to weak and strong FLO line. Some shaft had good FLO label UP/down, others not.

Ive color coded the weakest within each model with GREEN and the strongest as RED so its easier to find them and see how large the difference from "weakest to strongest" was within each model. Graffaloy TOUR was the worse (should have been the best since its Tour ISSUE), and 12 CPM or a full flex is more than anyone expect, so if fitting was done using the softest option and delivery the strongest, the customer WILL notice that something is off....

This chart is a total of 13 shafts, only 1 is 100% symmetrical (the lowest Graffaloy TOUR with 269 CPM no matter install) so 92% was NOT like the commercials tells.

6 of 13 shafts had a CPM difference of more than 3 CPM from weak to strong (46%) and 2 of 13 is "flyers" (15%)

Thats what we try to get control over by a FLO test, those who say this is Hog wash dont understand much, its a quality and sorting control to make sure we know what shaft we install vs the shaft used for fitting. If its a blind deal on a shaft never tried, it does not matter since you dont know how strong or soft that model should be compared to what you got delivered, but if the buy was based on a real club fitting, we better test the shaft we deliver.

 

 

 

[sailfishchris]

Thanks Howard!

[JCAG]

There is a story about Tom Wishon and his staff at Golfsmith fitting Raymond Floyd??? for a set of irons. Floyd liked them all except the 8 iron. He said it felt "funny". Tom's people took the clubs apart and measured everything and could find any difference. One of Tom's people (Mike ???) decided to try something different. He reversed the shaft in a frequency meter (meaning clamped the tip end) and low and behold the 8 iron shaft was quite different. Thus began shaft profiling. Shaft consistency has improved over the years but not all are created equally. The question is how much are you willing to pay to find the not consistent ones?

 

[Stuart_G]

The biggest problem with aligning golf shafts, is trying to figure out what really is the best direction to align the strong axis to. If you really are convinced that shaft alignment is important to the results and you do end up finding an 'outlier' (a shaft with abnormally high asymmetry), you really should be throwing the shaft out, not trying to align it to a particular axis. But that's just my opinion.

 

 

And that's just the graph for one player. Different swings can give different resultsimage credit: https://www.tutelman.com/golf/shafts/ShaftLab1.php

[Steezyryder]

On 2/6/2020 at 1:58 PM, Old Tom Morris said:

Radial consistency is apparently very good on modern graphite shafts. Despite fitters trying to upsell you on shaft puring and spining. Once adjustable drivers came out, the orientation of the shaft would change with each setting. ?

Not with honma driver and vizard shaft. Their adjustable hozzle keeps the clockwise shaft orientation. 

Edited April 18 by Steezyryder
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