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I bought some pulled shafts from a club maker that are .350 .....CAN I USE THEM IN .335 HEADS BY SANDING THEM DOWN OR SOME OTHER WAY OF REDUCING THEM ????????.........Will it weaken them if I do this ???? THANKS FOR THE HELP

No I don't think you should sand them down.Yes it will weaken them.

Definitely do NOT sand them down! They will break during use.

Quick background on the .350 tip shafts. It costs a lot less to make a .350 shaft than it does a .335 believe it or not. That is why they are/were so popular with OEM's. There are many quality grades of graphite, it's not just "graphite". The graphite in a .350 is a lot lower quality and requires more of it to get the strength needed to withstand a golf swing. A .350 quality graphite manufactured to a .335 would snap like a twig.

I'm not saying a .350 is a bad shaft, they work just fine, just sharing with all, what it is and why it exists. Has nothing to do with trajectory, all economics.

Try to get the right shaft , but depending on how much meat you have in the hosel, you can re-bore the hosel to .350. It could be risky, maybe call Golfsmith, Dynacraft, or even our CSG clubmaker here on golf rewind for advice.

Quick background on the .350 tip shafts. It costs a lot less to make a .350 shaft than it does a .335 believe it or not. That is why they are/were so popular with OEM's. There are many quality grades of graphite, it's not just "graphite". The graphite in a .350 is a lot lower quality and requires more of it to get the strength needed to withstand a golf swing. A .350 quality graphite manufactured to a .335 would snap like a twig.

Where did you get this information? The reason I ask, is that this is not what I have read in other sources of information. What I read, is that it's easier to build a 350 shaft with a low torque rating, than it is with a 335 shaft. It has to do with Physics, not cost. I'd like to know the source of you information so I can read it first hand.

Below, I pasted a couple of responses I knew I could find quickly from Tom Wishon's Forum. It explains how the tip "thickness" does not necessarily mean lower torque, due to the manufacturing process. I believe the Aldila NV and the Graphite Design YS6 shafts have the same torque whether it be a 335 or a 350, below explains a bit how it's done. Those are quality shafts. OEM shafts on OEM heads (not upgraded) however cost about $4, very low end. From what I was told from one of my mentors a couple of years ago, and honestly I do not recall who off the top of my head, explained to me that 350 OEM shafts would snap like a twig if the graphite used in those OEM shafts were made to a 335. In re-reading my post, I should have mentioned that I was refering to the low end shafts that OEM companies use on their "off the rack" clubs. There are many good 350's out there still, not necessarily lower torque though.

Good call, you have peaked my curiousity and I am going to dig to find out which manufacturer explained all that to me. One of those, "In the Archives memories about shafts".

Quotes from Tom Wishon (forum):

"It is completely possible to duplicate the torque between a 335 and 350 shaft. In the mfg of a graphite shaft, torque is controlled chiefly by the number and size of angle ply layers that are wrapped on the shaft, secondarily by the diameter of the shaft. An angle ply layer is a sheet of the graphite pre-preg material that is cut and wrapped so the graphite fibers align themselves at a 45 deg angle to the shaft. More angle plys on the shaft = lower torque. Thus the 335 shaft would likely have more angle ply wraps than the 350 shaft to come up with the same torque.

Tip diameter is most definitely related to torque, however, as I mentioned above, it can be offset by the angle ply wraps in the design of the shaft.

"Skilled clubmakers can easily install a 335 shaft into a head with a 350 diameter through bore. It just requires a little extra work at the opening where the shaft penetrates the sole to fill in the little gap around the smaller tip, usually done with epoxy in the installation process.

On the PGA Tour, some players who play Callaway heads do use 335 shafts in a 350 bore head. Also, Callaway will provide these pros with heads that do have a 335 bore as well if they ask.

It is possible to make a 350 shaft play differently than a 335 shaft for sure, just as it is possible to make them play the same by varying the way the wraps are applied in the design of the shaft. There is nothing inherently different about a 350 shaft over a 335 just because of the diameter difference, providing allowances for offsetting that larger or smaller tip are done."

TOM


"Let me see if I can explain this a little more clearly. The stiffness of any shaft is first and foremost a product of its diameter and wall thickness at any specific position along its length. Greater diameter and thicker walls means stiffer shaft.

However, because all shafts go from smaller at the tip to larger at the butt, it is possible to vary the stiffness by how big the diam and wall thickness is along the shaft's length. That also means you can use diam and wall thickness to "offset" stiffness at any other place on the shaft as well. So just because you might make a shaft with a 350 tip, if you don;t increase the diam and wall thickness as soon up the shaft, you could have the 350 tip shaft end up being more flexible than a 335 tip shaft that starts its diam and wall thickness increase sooner as you go up the shaft.

When thinking of any shaft's stiffness design, you have to think of the WHOLE SHAFT and not just any one section - what the relationship of the diam and wall thickness increase is to another shaft's diam and wall thickness increase at the same points along the length of the shaft.

In the end, the variations for this are almost infinite when you think about it."

TOM

Again, I will try to find which manufacturer explained to me that the 350 off the rack shafts are pretty low end.

Great Read Bill



Golfranch,

I would by no means try to sand down an OEM .350 shaft to fit a .335 head.

Noooooooooo!!!!!

Since I have the equipment to reshaft etc, I do my own work. Occasionally, I do a job for a friend or two. As a machinist, not ever really retired..LOL, some of the shaftwork that I see is poor as ****. Last one in here was a crushed, 'spider' type brass spacer that someone put around a .335 shaft while installing crooked into a .350 hosel. Also, not even close to the bottom of the hosel. I guess, like all trades, "There are Clubmakers...and then there are clubbreakers..". JMO