How To Easily Remove The Medallions From The Backs Of Irons?

EmperorPenguin · April 30

I have an old set of Callaway X Tour Forged irons I am cleaning up. A lot of them have their medallions fallen off, and what remains is a lot of black foam and adhesive. I spent at least a half hour removing and cleaning all out just one head using mostly wooden ice-cream-stick handles, thin rags, some acetone and a lot of elbow grease. I also used the heat gun to loosen the adhesive, but even with that it took a lot of work to clean just one head. Any of you guys have a faster way of cleaning out the cavity? My goal is to remove all those medallions and give the clubs a generic look, and for further blanking, I think I will apply paint stripper to the numbers so my opponents cannot see which clubs I am using.

RangeBaller · April 30

Dastardly. Your foes won't stand a chance.

Depends on how aggressive you want to get here. Personally I would try a solvent to attack the glue, starting with less toxic/harsh ones first. Make sure you have proper ventilation and PPE.

The quickest but perhaps most aggressive would be to pry up the backing and hit the foam/glue with a wire wheel. This will obviously be quite aggressive on the club so take into account that you might need to do some polishing after to get your desired finish.

Post some photos of your results

Ephemerlol · April 30

Soak the head in acetone? If you want bare metal thats going to go a long way towards it.

gdb99 · April 30

Goof Off, your wooden sticks, and a heat gun.

Goof Off is much better on adhesives than acetone.

Edited April 30 by gdb99

EmperorPenguin · April 30

So far I have been using Goof Off and it works very well, but even with that I need much elbow grease to remove the adhesive. Here is a picture of several clubs, one with the medallion, one with the medallion but with remaining adhesive, and the last one cleaned up. Looks pretty good without the medallion.

When cleaning out the head, what is most important is to avoid metal-to-metal contact, hence the wooden ice-cream sticks.

gdb99 · April 30

I would use fire if Goof Off doesn't work.

EmperorPenguin · May 1

I finally did them all. I used an electric heat gun and pried off the medallions and then with the leftover adhesive applied the heat gun to loosen the adhesive. From there I carefully poured in some Goof Off and took less time to clean out, but this method ruins some of the finish, but these are 2006 clubs anyway, so no need to keep them in pristine condition.