"Repair Your Own Golf Clubs"

[professor_doom]

Popular Mechanics, July 1935

Hi guys. New to the forum. I just started playing with laminate woods so my beginner buddy could play on more even terms with me. Anyway, I just stumbled upon this article with instructions for replacing whipping, tightening leather grips, and refinishing heads. Viewable online here :

http://books.google.com/books?id=td4DAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA141#v=onepage&q=&f=false

While I'm at it, I thought I'd ask: could anyone provide me with instructions for reshafting persimmon clubs? I've been wanting to try an ancient Spalding Autograph persimmon driver, but the shaft isn't stiff enough for me.

[brokgolfer]

Hi Professor,

Welcome to the forum. If you click on the following link you will be taken to John "Lag Pressure" Ericsson's site. John is an ex tour player, classic club champion, coach and all round persimmon / vintage enthuiast. If you save and view the doc in that thread you will have a 131 photo pictorial on how to flatten, re shaft, refinish, re whip, and re grip a vintage persimmon. You may well not want to flatten it but all the other steps are spot on if you simply wish to bypass that stage.

[url="http://lagpressure.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=97&t=456"]http://lagpressure.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=97&t=456[/url]

Whats particlurly fun (for me at least!) is that its my driver that is being made in the pictorial

Cheers, BG

[persimmonpal]

[quote name='brokgolfer' date='16 March 2010 - 06:51 AM' timestamp='1268736700' post='2319135']
Hi Professor,

Welcome to the forum. If you click on the following link you will be taken to John "Lag Pressure" Ericsson's site. John is an ex tour player, classic club champion, coach and all round persimmon / vintage enthuiast. If you save and view the doc in that thread you will have a 131 photo pictorial on how to flatten, re shaft, refinish, re whip, and re grip a vintage persimmon. You may well not want to flatten it but all the other steps are spot on if you simply wish to bypass that stage.

[url="http://lagpressure.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=97&t=456"]http://lagpressure.c....php?f=97&t=456[/url]

Whats particlurly fun (for me at least!) is that its my driver that is being made in the pictorial

Cheers, BG
[/quote]

Hi~
Just wanted to weigh in on the reshafting document link that Graham posted..
That was a very nice link that LagPressure put together, I just had a few things to mention concerning the reshafting.
I have removed many many persimmon heads that have pins through the neck, just as the one that was detailed in the link. I have never had to cut a portion of the neck away though, to remove that pin. Here is how I do it:
1) Drill through the pug in the bore through shaft (from the bottom up, until your drill bit hits, and then drills completely through the pin.
2) Sometimes, but not always, the head side of the screw will pop up enough so that you can pull that portion of the pin out. If not, take a nail punch, and hit the head of the screw, sending it back down into the shaft. Repeat the drilling and nail punch several times, until that piece of the screw is removed.
3) Remember, up to this point you have only removed 1/2 of the screw, the 1/2 that had the head on it, and was on the back of the heel. The other half, with the tip, is still in the shaft, and part of the other side of the neck. To get the head free you need to drive that half of the screw into the neck of the club just enough so that it clears the shaft. Use the nail punch.
4)If you are working on an old club, most likely you will not have to heat up the interior of the shaft, because the epoxy is most likely not strong.. If there is still an epoxy bond, heat the rod up, and insert it through the bore through, up from the end of the shaft. There is no need to cut and waste the shaft... Just keep the club in a vise, heat the shaft if necessary, and twist the head off.
(I will usually whip the hosel as tight as I can prior to removing the shaft, because when you twist the hosel it can cause the neck to crack, especially in the Old MacGregors, and other pre 1960s clubs..
Here is a pic of a few persimmon shafts that I removed the shaft from..notice how the pin hole is ver small, and when finished can be filled with a small wood dowel epoxied in, sanded smooth, and stained along with the rest of the head, for a nice look.
[attachment=559158:ja 043.jpg]
If you are careful, patient and methodical, you can remove a persimmon head from a shaft with a minimum of damage to the head, and will have a cleaner finish, and a higher quality finished product. It does take a bit of practice, but is definitely rewarding, and fun..
PS Interestingly enough, the black driver in the picture (On the right) ALSO belongs to Graham.. Its his Busson that I am restoring for him.. You should have it soon Graham!

Good luck!!

[brokgolfer]

Thanks John - great additional info!

Cheers, Graham

[MoaningM]

Great stuff all round, John how do you go about fixing that crack in the neck on that one driver in the picture?

[sausage100uk]

did anyone else wince when the saw was taken to the back of the club.....?????

[persimmonpal]

[quote name='MoaningM' date='16 March 2010 - 04:09 PM' timestamp='1268770176' post='2320360']
Great stuff all round, John how do you go about fixing that crack in the neck on that one driver in the picture?
[/quote]

Pretty simple really.. when theclub is shafted, I load up the shaft and inside of hosel with epoxy. When the shaft is put back on, it squeezes through the crack. Once it is cured, it is sanded flush. The crack is harder than the rest of the hosel, due to the epoxy.

[stevehj]

The article was very nicely illustrated, but using a saw to cut out material to get at the backscrew, and cutting off part of the hosel, wow. That guy would never get near any of my old clubs. Needless to say, there are much more graceful ways to pull a shaft. Persimmonpal explanation gives an idea of how to remove that backscrew, if you are lucky, sometimes you can use a small screwdriver to simply back it out. But removing the backscrew is probably one of the most critical tasks in the process. If you don't get the screw cleared on both sides of the shaft, you are liable to crack the neck when you try to twist the shaft off the head. Also, be careful with driving the screw further into the head, that can crack the wood too. One approach you can take is to drill away enough of the backscrew to allow the shaft to clear. It requires a fixture to hold the head in the proper orientation and a drill press, but it works fine. If you get a real hard carbide tip drill (1/8"), you can do it by hand if your hand is real steady.

Speaking from experience (one who butchered a few heads way back when), take your time and if the shaft doesn't come off easily, keep working on it making sure all obstructions are cleared before giving the head a might twist.

Good luck.

[MoaningM]

[quote name='persimmonpal' date='16 March 2010 - 09:26 PM' timestamp='1268774797' post='2320643']
[quote name='MoaningM' date='16 March 2010 - 04:09 PM' timestamp='1268770176' post='2320360']
Great stuff all round, John how do you go about fixing that crack in the neck on that one driver in the picture?
[/quote]

Pretty simple really.. when theclub is shafted, I load up the shaft and inside of hosel with epoxy. When the shaft is put back on, it squeezes through the crack. Once it is cured, it is sanded flush. The crack is harder than the rest of the hosel, due to the epoxy.
[/quote]


Cheers John, but that crack I assume would make the tip size a little bigger for the shaft going in, does this ever cause any problems or is it a case of being pretty negligible?

[persimmonpal]

[quote name='MoaningM' date='16 March 2010 - 06:04 PM' timestamp='1268777049' post='2320776']
[quote name='persimmonpal' date='16 March 2010 - 09:26 PM' timestamp='1268774797' post='2320643']
[quote name='MoaningM' date='16 March 2010 - 04:09 PM' timestamp='1268770176' post='2320360']
Great stuff all round, John how do you go about fixing that crack in the neck on that one driver in the picture?
[/quote]

Pretty simple really.. when theclub is shafted, I load up the shaft and inside of hosel with epoxy. When the shaft is put back on, it squeezes through the crack. Once it is cured, it is sanded flush. The crack is harder than the rest of the hosel, due to the epoxy.
[/quote]


Cheers John, but that crack I assume would make the tip size a little bigger for the shaft going in, does this ever cause any problems or is it a case of being pretty negligible?
[/quote]

Pretty negligible.. If the shaft is a bit loose, I will either mix a bit of shafting beads into the epoxy, or (usually) whip the club ver tightly when the epoxy is not eat cured.. It gets epoxied on, but comes off easy enough once cured.. Never had a problem with this method..

[professor_doom]

Thanks for all the info, guys! I'm not looking to change the lie angle right now, but I'll certainly use the doc as a reference for re-finishing. I happened across an 80s MacGregor 693T driver (probably 80s, since it had a DG shaft on it) and an M60W super Eye-O-Matic 3-wood in a thrift shop today for two bucks each, so I just had to buy them.

I decided to re-do the driver first. In getting started, I discovered an as-yet unmentioned way of removing the head:

I clamped the shaft in a vise and drilled out the shaft plug then extracted the pin as per persimmonpal's instructions. I found that incrementally increasing drill bit size was the most effective way to get through the pin. I was then torn as to whether to try the "hot metal rod" approach, or to try twisting it off. I was leaning against the latter because after removing the whipping, I noticed a crack along the hosel and feared that subjecting the head to torsion would cause the crack to spread. It was then that I recalled something from one of my engineering classes about brittle failure of some adhesive joints under vibration. I jammed a bolt into the end of the shaft, then turned the head with pliers so the threads bit into the inside of the shaft. I didn't bother measuring it, but it was probably 12-24 or 1/4-20 bolt. I then started beating the head of the bolt with a hammer to set up sustained vibration. Lo and behold, the head started riding up the shaft. I was then able to pull the head directly off the shaft with neither heat nor twisting.

Just thought that this result might be useful information to pass along. Then again, the epoxy could have been weak to begin with. If anyone else has success with this method, let me know. I'll try it on the 3-wood next.

Side note: does anyone know where I can get replacement MacGregor decals? Also, the only spare shafts I have on hand at present are graphite; would I be insane to put one of these on a classic persimmon club?