Shafting Rocketbladez tour irons.

[wobgon]

I am considering shafting a new set of TM rocketbladez tour heads.......I notice they have a ridge that only allows the shaft to go in a hair over one inch....Below the ridge is a good sized empty cavity that i believe they use for weighting such as bullet weights......Is it okay to insert the shaft to the ridge and leave the cavity empty if no x tra weight is needed?....Any expertise would be appreciated.

[Adam C]

You could fill that space or cover it will a small plastic or aluminum disk. Otherwise it will just get filled with epoxy when you reshaft and that is okay too.

[wobgon]

Thanks.

[Socrates]

Nothing wrong with it, but you are essentially hard-stepping the shafts a little. You would have to compare what came out of the heads to the same shaft that is raw to see if TM tipped the shafts any. That might give you a better clue as to whether fully inserting the new shafts into the hosel changes the flex unexpectedly.

[halliedog]

If you are asking/concerned about the 1" insertions depth, I'm currently reshafting a set of P770s and was also concerned the 1" - 1 1/8" depth on those as well. My problem is that there are apparently still bullet weights stuck in all but one of my heads, as I can only see the cavity you're describing on my 5 iron, but the 4 and 6-W have what appear to be a brass/copper colored disk that block the opening to the cavity. I started a thread about my SW being of during dry-fitting and was told by a few people that those are bullet weights stuck in the hosel. Even if I can get them all out successfully, I'm still concerned about the insertion depth and considering drilling through that "ridge" to get a little deeper insertion depth?

Sorry to thread-jack, but seems we both might be going down the same path and have similar questions? My thread was involving the SW of the 8 iron being way off when dry fit, but was told until I pull all those bullet weights won't know the true head weights, and that makes sense.

What say, you experts?

[wobgon]

No problem.....I saw your other thread......I pulled the shaft on a set of rocketbladez tours a while back and ran into what yo ran into......They had bullet weights in them and when heated enough, they almost shot out......I did not reshaft those irons so am not quite sure how to handle the large cavity.

[wobgon]

Thanks. These are new heads . Could these be shafted leaving the cavity empty and then have lead powder and cork installed.

[Socrates]

You could do that, but the point of having the cavity is to add weight there instead of up the hosel. Either way will work. I've always found powder and cork to be a PITA.

[wobgon]

How do i add weight in the cavity? I appreciate your input.

[NRJyzr]

Inserting my obligatory lead tape comment. Lead tape, it's not just for breakfast anymore!

[Bobalu]

Callaway Apex Pro 19 irons can have a similar drilled out area in the bottom of the hosel below the shaft tip insert shelf. You can add weight with tungsten putty if you also use a brass tip weight to keep the shaft tip free of tungsten putty. The putty is commonly sold online or at hobby/toy stores (Hobby Lobby) for "weighting" those Boy Scouts mini wood racer cars. Just roll the putty into a small ball, weigh and adjust, then drop it into hosel bore. Gently use a pushrod or stick to pack it a little in the lower bore after dry fitting. Easy to remove- stays semi soft. Dry fit then finish build. The epoxy will fill the remaining space. You can still use cork and tungsten powder to fine tune SW, but it is not hard to get it right. The tungsten putty/epoxy is very easy to drill out if needed later (cobalt bits always seem to work best). IMO, If you did nothing with the hollow cavity at the bottom of the hosel, it wouldn't make any difference. Tom Wishon built small "weight" cavities in the bottom of his iron bores. There was no difference in performance or feel if the cavity was filled with a Wishon weight, or left empty.

[Socrates]

TM put a disk on that ridge if they didn't add weight or if they added weight, the weight became the disk. That gave them a standard hosel bore depth no matter what gram weight (or none) went below. That made shaft cutting very simple and repeatable for them. You can do that too by making a disk (if you drilled it out or lost it) from cutting out a piece of tin or aluminum. You take a piece of lead or something else and shape it so it fits in the cavity and then put the disk on top (you can also buy them). Then shaft insertion goes as normal. Of course the weight needs to be the weight you want. Or you can use powder in there.

I still prefer to use a basic tip weight that goes into the shaft or, lead tape and forget the whole PITA process. I usually use a combination of tip weights and lead tape for my own clubs. Or just lead tape. My least favorite thing was lead powder.