Sole Draft Angle and Face Thickness - Designing a Putter

[opmet]

Hey,

 

Im designing a putter in solidworks, and am pretty happy with the progress so far. I think it looks pretty good but I am going to change some of the face grooving, a few thicknesses to make weight optimal, and then some final balance alterations. But I just have a few questions;

 

 

1. I started designing it as a rectangular block, in which I made one face of the rectangular block at an angle of 2.5 degrees (the putter face) and did not alter the bottom (sole) or the top of the rectangular block - so they are parallel to the ground. At the heel and toe, the sole is about 4-5mm off the ground. Im not entirely sure of how sole draft angle works - my logic is as follows;

 

- if i were to add 2 degrees of sole draft, is that not just the same as having a 4.5 degree face angle, with the hosel leaning backwards 2 degrees at address? - It just confuses me the more I think about it!

 

 

2. Im unsure of what face thickness to use, what effect does it have in general? I have several putters (Wilson 8882, White Hot XG #7 & #9) which are all pretty different from the Anser style. I suppose this putter design is fairly 'Scotty' like - Scottys feel pretty good, what sort of thicknesses are used on them if anyone knows?

 

 

If anyone has any suggestions I'd be happy to hear about them, any help is much appreciated!

 

Thanks,

 

Opmet

[moocherpix]

This is going to sound a little dick-ish, but some things you just have to learn from doing. If you apply your most reasonable sounding and calculated theory and it does not work, you learn something. From that point, you can make the changes you think necessary and go at it, again. If someone gives the answer to your question, you only learn what other people have found, possibly by their mistakes.
I guess it really depends on your thought process. Do you want to figure out how to craft a putter, or just want to make a putter and call it "your design".
I say go for it with your best thinking and learn as you go.
Nick

[opmet]

Hi Nick, thanks for the reply. I completely get where your coming from regarding 'crafting a putter', trial and error rightly being the best learning tool. For me its entirely about figuring the crafting of a putter, not just making an aesthetically pleasing putter, but an all round package - which could only come with time.

[dci762]

I love these threads, I hope you get through these early stages and get yourself a one of a kind custom!

I've ought about this same draft angle issue before, I've never asked the question. I think the most direct path to an answer is to do some reverse engineering on a top notch putter and see what it comes out to.

The fundamental question to me is: is the loft measured from the shaft, or from the bottom surface of the putter? All these angles move together as you add forward lean at address, so I think this is a matter of preference and feel at address. My instinct tells me that this is a very minor issue with an anser style putter but more so with mallets and oversized putters where the putter will drag through impact.

Again this is just engineering instinct here, but until you get to very thin faces similar to a metal wood or something like that, you are going to get effectively zero difference in speed off the face. This thickness however could effect the sound and feel, and of this I have zero experience but thinner should produce a lower pitch sound I think.....

There are people out there with these answers but I think they might be in payroll somewhere, and probably won't start sharing all of this. And I don't think there is a book with these specifics.

[hebron1427]

loft is measured with respect to the shaft. it has to be. the sole needs to have some draft on it. even blade style putters need some relief to keep them from dragging.

i disagree with the above posts. you don't have to learn EVERYTHING by trial and error. otherwise, what would be the purpose in going to school? some things are general principles to follow. You may find that something else works better than what's recommended, and that's fine. but having a question is legitimate, and the answers you get will hopefully guide you in finding your own way.

as for an answer to your question, i would not machine it with a flat sole and, say, 5 degrees of loft and then bend. the main reason for this is that you're going to be doing a lot of work on this putter in your analysis to find the COG and balance the weights properly. if all you're going to do is bend it out of whack, what was the point in doing this analysis and coming up with a great design? also, you'll probably run into issues with shape memory hardening, and it will either weaken the joint at the neck/head (more likely) or try to spring back to its originally machined alignment (less likely, but possible). plus, depending on how you bend it, the face progression will change, and you could go from, say, 3/4 shaft offset to 1.25 shaft offset, which would mess up a guy like me who needs a half-shaft offset.

there are basically two ways to do it: 1) draft the entire sole (a la cameron) or 2) machine it straight back and draft the portion you expect to have some problem interacting with the ground. one designer who uses the latter approach is david whitlam--you should look at some of his gauge design putters for instruction (your design actually resembles those more than cameron's, which, personally, i like =)). if you use optino 1, i would go wtih 1 degree draft. it will be enough. you dont want the face to fall open at address when it's on grass. i saw a video of cameron restoring brad faxon's putter where he talked about this a little. you want it to sit flat on grass and fall open on a hard surface (like cement, for example). the idea is that you want just enough sole draft that the grass can hold the putter up when the player is trying to set his hands but still get through the strike zone without dragging. i think 1 degree is about right. 2 degrees seems too much, btu that's just me.

good luck with it =) keep us posted on teh work!

[opmet]

Wow, great info there, thanks Hebron1427! Will update soon, design will hopefully be finished in a few days - then to get it made!

[dci762]

Yeah so, what he said..

Thanks Hebron.


[quote name='hebron1427' timestamp='1344280511' post='5417716']
loft is measured with respect to the shaft. it has to be. the sole needs to have some draft on it. even blade style putters need some relief to keep them from dragging.

i disagree with the above posts. you don't have to learn EVERYTHING by trial and error. otherwise, what would be the purpose in going to school? some things are general principles to follow. You may find that something else works better than what's recommended, and that's fine. but having a question is legitimate, and the answers you get will hopefully guide you in finding your own way.

as for an answer to your question, i would not machine it with a flat sole and, say, 5 degrees of loft and then bend. the main reason for this is that you're going to be doing a lot of work on this putter in your analysis to find the COG and balance the weights properly. if all you're going to do is bend it out of whack, what was the point in doing this analysis and coming up with a great design? also, you'll probably run into issues with shape memory hardening, and it will either weaken the joint at the neck/head (more likely) or try to spring back to its originally machined alignment (less likely, but possible). plus, depending on how you bend it, the face progression will change, and you could go from, say, 3/4 shaft offset to 1.25 shaft offset, which would mess up a guy like me who needs a half-shaft offset.

there are basically two ways to do it: 1) draft the entire sole (a la cameron) or 2) machine it straight back and draft the portion you expect to have some problem interacting with the ground. one designer who uses the latter approach is david whitlam--you should look at some of his gauge design putters for instruction (your design actually resembles those more than cameron's, which, personally, i like =)). if you use optino 1, i would go wtih 1 degree draft. it will be enough. you dont want the face to fall open at address when it's on grass. i saw a video of cameron restoring brad faxon's putter where he talked about this a little. you want it to sit flat on grass and fall open on a hard surface (like cement, for example). the idea is that you want just enough sole draft that the grass can hold the putter up when the player is trying to set his hands but still get through the strike zone without dragging. i think 1 degree is about right. 2 degrees seems too much, btu that's just me.

good luck with it =) keep us posted on teh work!
[/quote]

[hebron1427]

i missed your second question--pardon me for not answering.

the short answer is that a thin face makes a higher pitched sound, which most people will translate to a "harder" or "clickier" feel at impact. This is a GENERAL rule, that has a lot to do with other design characteristics (such as deep milling and the presence of grooves) as well as materials, shape, shaft, grip, etc. just given two of the exact same putters, the one with a thinner face will generally feel harder and ringier. however, there is a diminishing return. at some point, the too thick face has a deadened feeling, as the pitches of sound it reverberates are so low that they are almost undetected.

however, this is typically not a huge design element. many designers use face thickness as the primary method for varying weights. for example, if you look at some of hte old cameron putters (before his interchangeable weights were around), you can see that the 33/350 models (like the mil spec and some of the other japan specs) have more face progression. Essentially, to get the weight higher, he took maybe 100/1000ths less material off the face. if you're able to do a side by side comparison, you can see that that is the only difference between his 350g putter and his 330g putter. it ends up with a little bit thicker top line and a little bit less offset--like, 100/1000ths or so. i don't like this method much because it changes the face progression/offset a little, but, nonetheless, it's the way things are typically done.

hope that helps.