Titleist Tour Model Groove Question

[chazpet]

Looking at a set of tour models for my first set of old school blades. They appear to be from ‘85 without the diamonds surrounding the face. My question is regarding the grooves, the 2, 6, 8, and PW in the listing look to have dirt in them, but the seller confirmed that he cleaned them again and saw no change. He also suggested that the grooves had paint in them that chipped off the rest of the irons... what do you guys think? Did grooves have black paint in them back in the day?

[Fellaheen51]

Not unusual to find painted grooves in irons from that time period. Hogans certainly did. Based on the pics, has the look of missing paint fill.

[twidener]

Yes, lots of different brands of irons had paint in the grooves, especially in the 60's, 70's. Sometimes black and sometimes gold.

[chazpet]

Would taking some acetone to it do the trick of removing the paint fill so it all looks similar?

[Fellaheen51]

Perhaps. I usually cut to the chase and use Jasco paint stripper. Use it whenever I have a paint fill refurb, to remove all the embedded paint. It's a thick gel that stays where I want it. Let it set for 15 minutes, then scrub the grooves with an old tooth brush in a utility sink under running water. Use a small blade xacto knife to pick away any paint left in the corners of the grooves.

Find the partial fills mostly unseemly. Since I typically redo all the fills on classic irons, I strip the grooves clean while prepping.

[No_Catchy_Nickname]

It does look like paint. I have a set of either '79 or '80 Tour Models, and they don't have any paint in the grooves, but I got them second-hand in about 1989, so it's possible any paint in them had already fallen out.

[BIG STU]

Now that it ha been mentioned. Yesterday I got my new Maltby catalog in the mail since I called and requested one> i am ramping up the shop again since I am in the process of retiring. Anyhow I was looking through it and found groove paint for restoring irons. I have never seen that before

[Shallowface]

Testors Flat Black model paint is what I have used in the past, but yeah The Golfworks has sold that groove paint forever.

Fellaheen mentioned Hogan Irons having painted grooves. I can remember how much I liked the white first groove on the PC irons from the 80s. Hadn't seen it before, and it really seemed to help with alignment. For awhile I painted that first groove white on every iron I had, but that was a long time ago.

You still see that sometimes today, although today it's the only groove that's painted. Groove paint disappeared for the most part with the square grooves of the late 80s. All of a sudden people got the idea that the groove paint might be reducing their spin similar to how dirt in the grooves might have that effect. I wonder if anyone ever did any testing on that?