An Academic Club-building Question

kelco9 · 2022-06-02T21:43:33+00:00

I am the lucky beneficiary of Shokosugi's move to the Wishon EQs -- I got his old Sterlings heads and a set of taper tip Aldila shafts. I'm really looking fo...

kelco9

candukid That's a good thought, Candu, and you may be right. But, as Par4QC points out, in my mind this is more of an academic discussion than anything, anyways. I believe that shaft weight is generally far more important than flex for most of us, which is the main reason I was interested in this set of shafts. But when it comes to 8-iron length clubs, I don't think shaft flex makes any difference. When Tom Wishon was first discussing creating SL set, he wrote that most people don't flex an 8-iron shaft, so my belief about flexing the shafts was something I got from him.

Par4QC

kelco9 Are these shafts actually the Tour Gold? iirc, they were the same, if not lower, torque than steel shafts. And they weighed 100g. +/-. The R flex 3i shaft was so stiff, I could not hand flex it at untrimmed length. And that was before I was 'old/weak'. 🤨

kelco9

Par4QC These say "Tour Gold" on them. They are 85g, stiff flex. On the little information I could find about them, I believe they said the torque was 3.0. Now the set of Penley IMS shafts I have, which are 105 g, their torque is 2.0!

sdandrea1

kelco9 Now the set of Penley IMS shafts I have, which are 105 g, their torque is 2.0!

Is there a hole down the shaft or are they solid?! 2.0?! 🤣

kelco9

candukid By the way, I actually don't mind if the do become progressively stiffer. I'll post what happens after I actually build these and try them out.

shokosugi

Well, if you put each shaft straight in and butt trimmed to length, essentially the 5 iron shaft would be the equivalent of soft stepping 3 times (SSX3), the 6 iron would be SS x 2) the 7 iron SS X1 and 8 iron would be standard and the 9 iron would be hard stepped once and so on - basically you would have the equivalent of a flighted set - it could work. You could also tip trim the long iron shafts to make them more equal in flex too. If I were you I would shaft up the 5 iron and a wedge to see the extremes in flex as the 5 iron will play the softest and your wedge will play the stiffest. If you can hit those okay then the other clubs should work fine

kelco9

shokosugi Interesting stuff. Thanks.

kelco9

sdandrea1 They kind of feel like rebar.

kelco9

Well, I finally got around to shafting these irons up and playing 9 holes with them. I really like them. I haven't played enough with them to "love" them, but I may just get there. They feel great and they're VERY forgiving. I can't believe how little they punished me on the couple off-centre-strikes I made.

As for the implications of cutting the tapered shafts to a single length, I didn't notice one bit of difference. They came out reasonably close in their weighting and they performed well through the entire set. I also didn't get any sense of the ball flight being affected by the flex inconsistencies that arise from cutting the shafts down to a single length. But, then, I'm a really big believer that once you get the weight and length right, the rest of the "tweaks" you can make to the club are academic for most amateur players.

Fun stuff. Thanks Shokosugi!

Dufferman

I don't know anything about the shafts you are using, but I do know that I put a "GW" shaft from my Sterling set into a 4 iron head (trimmed to 7 iron length). That sucker comes out low and hot! The ball flight is way different then even the 5 iron with the correct trimmed parallel shaft. Probably because it was tip trimmed way more then a 4 iron needs! I really need to put a new shaft in that thing!

shokosugi

Dufferman

A gap wedge shaft into an 8 iron would be equivalent to a 2 or 3x hardstep- of course it'll come out low!

Dufferman

shokosugi

I was lazy as the 4 iron is a Diamond Tour head I think. I hit my regular length 4 hybrid better anyway. Someday I'll fix it.

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