i'll try my best to explain. spine aligning a shaft is taking a bare shaft(no head or grip) and putting the butt end into a tool that basically consist of a pipe and two roller bearings inserted into it on each end and with a third bearing, pulling down on the shaft in which the shaft will rotate to its neutral position. this is the position of which the shaft will want to bend too when flexed while you swing the golf club also. the spine(s) on the shaft are usually 90 degrees of the neutral position. graphite shafts can have one, two and occasionally three spines with generally one of the being a dominate spine. steel shafts have only one. when turning the shaft in the tool, you can actually feel the spine (feels like a hard spot on shaft) and then will rotate back to the neutral bend point which you then mark and install in the head with the mark facing toward the target. every shaft is different while some have could two spines that feel the same, others can have one very dominate and the other is barely noticable. a crafty person can set up the club by positioning the spine in a position to help the head close off (draw bias) or stay open(fade bias) because the shaft will tend to turn away from the dominate spine. shafts installed at the factory are not aligned so you never know what you might get (like a box of chocolates, lol) and i actually had a titleist 980f that i could'nt stop drawing and the spine was at an angle so that the face close off at impact. if you are a do-it-your-selfer, jb's spine tool on ebay is the best, or you can send it into golfsmith to have it sst pured (basically the same thing but on a high tec machine that spins the shaft) or call a custom golf shop in your area. hope this helps.