First torching issue

jls667 · December 15, 2022

After garnering as much info as I could, including OneAugusta's tutorial, I torched my first putter yesterday. All went well and came out an nice dark wheat/bronze color with subtle purples. Looked fine even into this morning before I left for work but when I came home I looked at and saw this discolored line on the face that wasn't there yesterday or even this morning.

Anyone have an idea what could cause this? It wasn't there this morning and wasn't touched all day. The face's color was consistent and even this morning. It was also resting on the sole of the putter during the day. Not on the face.

Really disappointed because I was very happy with how it came out. Not sure I can fix it since it's paint or similar that I can just rip off and re-do.

Edited December 15, 2022 by jls667

oneaugusta · December 17, 2022

Did you just try and wipe off with damp cloth? I have had phantom marks after torching cooling process that appeared after the process that just wiped off. If it doesn't than you must have missed something during the cleaning.

jls667 · December 19, 2022

On 12/17/2022 at 7:11 AM, oneaugusta said:

Did you just try and wipe off with damp cloth? I have had phantom marks after torching cooling process that appeared after the process that just wiped off. If it doesn't than you must have missed something during the cleaning.

Thanks for the suggestion. I gave that a whirl but no change. In fact, more of the bronzed finish has disappeared. As I wiped with the cloth, more purples showed up. Not sure what's going on but I'm guessing you're right, it had something to do with my cleaning despite cleaning quite thoroughly (or so I thought).

Is there anyway I can just remove it and start over? I'm assuming no.

SE Gamer · December 19, 2022

That's a bummer. Kind of BTDT with a different hobby (woodworking). Spend all this time assembling, sanding, etc. Throw a finish/stain on, and a renegade glue spot shows itself. Has to be similar to what happened here. Some solvent/protectant was preventing the treatment from being applied in those areas (looks like the same thing happened a little on the heel).

I'm not really experienced with metallurgy. So not sure if you could go through the sanding/cleaning process again; which is something that can be done with woodworking.

D0ch0l1d4y · December 19, 2022

You can 100% remove the color treatment. Sand off, CLR, lots of ways. Search the forum for "remove torch finish" and there should be several topics.

sm_watts · December 23, 2022

And that's why we practice on older/cheaper models before you try it on a newer handmade. Another possibility is the metal that these older TPM heads were made out of had wildly inconsistent metal contents. I did an old TPM head that ended up with a line right down the middle where either end came out looking completely different. I sent a picture to David asking what it was made from and he told me that he would have no idea what pot metals the old TPM putters that were made by Spaulding were really made from. In my case, it appears that they ran out of one metal in the mold halfway through the head and finished up with another type of metal - they really are that different. So buy up a few more cheap on ebay and keep trying until you get what you want! It really is a pretty fun process.