DIY TaylorMade TM-880 Tour "Un-Ghosted" - Pic Heavy

[halliedog]

I recently picked up a cheap spot blaster from Harbor Freight for another project and decided to see how it would work on cleaning up my old gamer, a TaylorMade Rossa 880 Tour Ghost. As you can see, I obviously don't care for using head-covers on putters. The white paint was completely chipped, the black sole was wearing pretty thin, and the face was pretty beat up, not to mention the various scratches, dings, and bag chatter :

 

 

 

 

 

I started by blasting with 20-40 grit Black Diamond coal slag @ 110psi. It is pretty aggressive stuff and did a great job of removing all the chipped paint. I taped off the face because I didn't want to roughen the face too much and lose any of the "Pure Roll" scoring lines. After all the paint was gone, I went at the dings and chatter with the Dremel with some grinding and sanding attachments. Once I was satisfied I had all that cleaned up as good as I was going to be able to, I went over it again with the 20-40 grit Black Diamond to even everything out again. This stuff gave an even, but rough looking finish:

 

 

 

 

 

Next I moved on to giving it a "misted satin" finish by blasting with 80 grit glass beads @90psi. This stuff isn't nearly as aggressive as the Black Diamond, so I removed the tape from the face and hit that also so the entire head had a uniform look. I'm not sure about other models, but I was under the impression that there was some type of insert in the face of this club, but that appears not to be the case. It seems to just be milled into the face, but I'm not sure. I removed all of what I thought to be elastomer that would hold an insert in place, but nothing came loose. After everything was blasted I was quite pleased with the finish, but wanted to give it a special touch, so I went at the face and sole with progressively finer grits of sandpaper to get a shinier appearance. Finally I used some polishing compound with a loose leaf buffing wheel on my bench grinder to achieve an almost chrome-like finish on the sole and face. It really looks nice in contrast to the satin matte finish on the rest of the head. I wanted to do the top-line like this too, but the sun glare would be terrible. I finished it off with Testors White Gloss and Tamiya Clear Red. Will be gripped with GripMaster Stitchback red leather grip.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let me know what you guys think.

[eric6624]

GREAT JOB!!!

[Scotty1140]

Fantastic.

[Rpardygolfpro]

looks amazing makes me wanna strip my murdered nike 004 back down to bare like this

[DeltaDat]

Looks fantastic! Way better than the white!

[leo the lion]

Absolutely gorgeous!

[TheDominator273]

interested to see that there wasn't an insert, that must have just been painted

[Northpaw68]

awesome job ... maybe now its time to put a head cover on the flat stick?

[TheMoneyShot]

That looks great, nice job!

[halliedog]

[quote name='BirdiesnoBogeys' timestamp='1364704394' post='6729233']
awesome job ... maybe now its time to put a head cover on the flat stick?
[/quote]

Yeah, I probably will start using the cover now, although I can always touch it up from here on out! I gamed it yesterday, but the greens were running about a 7 on the stimp and in just horrible condition overall, so you had to absolutely HAMMER every putt. It was tough to get any feel for it, but from what I could tell wasn't any different than before. No glare issues at all.

[jcamn1]

very nice!!

[seminolesfan56]

I really really like the look of that!

[jtitleist12]

Really, really nice work! Looks great just like your GoLo from last week.

- Josh

[rb83993]

Very nice, can't stand the white putters.

[bu11dog]

You've done some very nice work both in this thread and the Golo thread. It makes me want to buy a blaster a junked up putter and have some fun.

[avgjoe]

nice work... ya gonna use a headcover on it?

[J_Tizzle]

I want to see that done to a Spider for some reason. I think do that and then matte black a single sight line on it would look pretty nasty.

[NickPhillips]

Looks great!

[halliedog]

[quote name='J-Tizzle' timestamp='1364915323' post='6743893']
I want to see that done to a Spider for some reason. I think do that and then matte black a single sight line on it would look pretty nasty.
[/quote]

I'm now thinking of scouring the local GG and PIAS for nice models in poor condition and "customizing" them. I have to tell you, I have this Un-Ghost sitting at the bottom of my basement steps, and every time I walk down here it looks better and better each time.

I don't know what type of an insert a Spider has (I thought mine had some kind of polymer insert,but apparently not) , so it could be dicey, but I'll keep an eye out for one on the used racks.

Jay

[TheGeekGolfer]

Wow...that looks great, I have the same putter and I love that look. Mine's fairly new, so no major dings in it. If I get some, I may go for that look. Great job!

[avgjoe]

maybe hit it w some caswells?

[drifter12]

very nicely done. i love harbor freight for making projects like this more affordable, I have a shopping list for the next time I go.

[indyvai]

Doesn't even look like the same putter... Very well done! If there were more hours in the day I'd try my hand at that...

[bhorton5]

@halliedog what did you do to the insert? does the black just sand off? Ive polished my TM880 to a shine and trying to decide on insert replacement as well as whether or not to leave polished or torch it.

[halliedog]

> @bhorton5 said:

> @halliedog what did you do to the insert? does the black just sand off? Ive polished my TM880 to a shine and trying to decide on insert replacement as well as whether or not to leave polished or torch it.

 

I replied to your PM, but now seeing the pictures again jogs my memory. That wasn't an insert at all, the entire head is one piece. The face may be "milled" into that pattern, I don't really know. So I did remove all the white on the head and black on the face by bead blasting with low pressure and very fine grit glass beads, then shined the sole/face with different grits of polishing compound on a cotton wheel on my bench grinder. Hope this helps?