I had a new shaft installed in my driver and the clubmaker told me that he "spined" the shaft. It is installed where the writing is on the side instead of the top so I assume that it has something to do with the orientation of the shaft when installed. He said something to the effect of when you put it in a vice and ping it (paraphrased) that it vibrates back and forth instead of in a circle. What does this do if that is what it is?
Thanks,
David
Graphite golf shafts, along with graphite fishing rod blanks, are formed by rolling thin sheets of graphite fibers onto a steel rod, or mandrel, which is then cured under high heat and pressure and the mandrel withdrawn. That means that one side of the hollow, rolled structure will always have one more graphite wrap than the other side, no matter where the material is cut. That makes one side stiffer than the other in the completed graphite blank. The "spine" refers to the direction or natural tendency of the shaft to bend along the line of the thicker side of the shaft. When the shaft is "spined" by the club builder, or the fishing rod builder, he determines the high side and low side of the bend in the shaft. You can see this for yourself by taking a shaft, or fishing rod blank, and holding it by the end, with the other end against a hard, flat surface and forcing a bend in the middle with a pencil, or hard object. The shaft will actually "flip" to the position of the "natural spine". In fishing rods, the line guides are then installed along either the upper or lower portion of this natural bend. In a golf shaft, the head will be aligned along this bend point so that when the club is flexed during the swing, it will follow its natural bending direction and not try to twist itself out of alignment with the direction of the swing. That little extra effort by the builder assures you of a golf club (or fishing rod) that will be as accurate as can be made, and not try to twist itself to one side or the other, changing the angle of the club head. I have not actually built many golf clubs, but I have built many dozens of high end fly rods, and I know that the "spine" alignment is critical to making an accurately casting fly rod, be it made from graphite, fiberglass or even bamboo. All of these materials will exhibit a "spine". By doing that little procedure for you, your club builder demonstrated that he makes a good product and knows what he is doing. I would keep him as a friend. Some builders just "slap" together components, and you have no way of knowing what kind of quality and workmanship went into the finished golf club.
What your clubmaker did is taking it one step further than 'spining' a shaft. If he twanged it, that tells me your shaft is FLO'd or Flat Line Oscillation. The previous poster is right, shafts are not perfectly round and the process of spining a shaft is finding the soft and rigid plane of the shaft. The vast majority of clubmakers, when spining, will align the soft plane of the shaft with the target. Taking a step further, he will then twang the club beginning in the direction of the soft plane, or Neutral Bend Plane, and rotate from there until there is no wobble when he twangs it. This is called the Flat Line Oscillation and whatever this orientation is how it is set up in your club. This eliminates the extraneous factor of shaft wobble during your swing. It ensures consistent performance out of your shaft. In the the case of an iron set, it ensure that each and every shaft will perform the same and be consistent. There is some discussion of how much good this really does, but it can't hurt , thats for sure.
Depending on the shaft, this can make a big difference in how the shaft ,and therefore the club proforms. And it also applys to steel shafts. I just pulled, splined aligned, and re-installed the Prolauch shaft in my G2 driver, and the first swing, I could feel a difference. Being different, it felt "weird" the first time, but after that I didn't notice if feeling weird. As to how much better the G2 will play for me, only time will tell, as I've only hit it on 7 holes so far. I'll know more after I get a chance to hit some balls at the range and play a few more times. For what it's worth, I wouldn't build a club without using a spline finder on the shaft. The difference in flex alone can be as much as two flex ratings. Imagine having a set of irons, and the flex varies as much as two flexes. How much fun would it be the have your 7 iron be an A flex, and your 6 iron being a X flex? I don't think you'd like those clubs too much.
So if you buy a set of irons like my mizuno's with factory DG s300 shafts should they be spine aligned from the factory?
Should they be? That is debatable.. are they? NO. Specs that play a bigger role in performance, such as loft and lie should be checked and adjusted first. The next logical question is whether or not its worth the money to pay someone to pull the shafts, FLO them, and re-install them in the correct orientation. All these factors are some of the advantages of purchasing a set of quality custom clubs from a reputable clubmaker. It is simply not cost efficient for major OEMs to spine shafts on clubs found on the rack. Just to add a quick note, some of the most out of spec clubs that I have adjusted have been ones from the factory. I remember one set in particular were mizunos where the lies were all over the place and a few of the lofts had only 1* difference between clubs. So it is very important to at least have these specs checked, no matter what you paid for them!
To the best of my knowledge, non of the OEM's spline align any of the shifts in their clubs. (Not in the clubs they ship to a golf shop at least. Maybe if the set is for a Tour player. And I know that SST Puring has a Tour Van, that does the work for a lot of the tour pros.) It takes time to test each shaft, and that costs money, so it's not done. I believe all clubs can benefit from this added step, and that's one reason I build all my own clubs. Since I found out about spline alignment and got my own spline finder, I test every shaft I buy, and align it when I build a club. If this is done before the club is assembled, rather than after, it's not that much work. Having to pull the shafts, remove the grips, and then test all the shaft from a set of irons, would be a lot more work, and there by, more costly. Is it worth the cost? That depends on the skill level of the player, and how much the irons cost in the first place. If you have a $800 set of irons, then it might be worth it. I can't see doing all this on a $150 set of irons you got from Target. The cost would be more than the price of the irons, and I doubt a golfer that would buy clubs from Target, would notice the difference, or be able to take advantage of the difference if he did notice it.
What would you say the biggest difference is? I have a lot of money in my golf clubs (see signature). I shoot in the high 80's low 90's. I am in the process of tweaking my equipment (tweaking my skill more) but I am the kind of person that likes to tinker. Reshaft a club here and there. Replace old equipment, so forth and so on. I am interested in learning to do things like this myself. I have excellent mechanical ability (I fix cars for a living) so I am only limited by knowlege and equipment. Does it require a lot of expensive equipment to do things like this?
No, it doesn't take a lot of expensive equipment to build clubs. There's no good reason you couldn't do the work yourself First step I'd recommend is that you take the 1/2 day club making course at Golfsmith, it's pretty cheap. Then you will need a shaft puller, and a spline finder. I built my spline finder for less than $25.00, That's pretty cheap in my book. Do a search on the net for spline alignment or spine alignment, it's spelled both ways for some reason. You'll find a lot of good advice on the subject and if you're lucky, you'll find the same plans for building a spline finder that I found. Sorry I don't have the plans, or I'd send them to you. With any luck, someone here know where to find those plans and will post it here soon.
I looked at your bag, and you have some nice clubs, ones that could only improve with spline alignment. Doing the work yourself, it's would cost much at all. A little epoxy, and some new ferrules and some time.
As for the biggest difference? For one thing all your iron shafts would be much closer in terms of flex. All your clubs would feel more solid and more consistant. Think of a golf shaft as a "yard stick", one of those wooden sticks you can find at a hardware store. Imagine a set of clubs with "yard sticks" for shafts. Now imagine your set of club all have the thin edge of the yard stick, facing the target as you address the ball. All of those "shafts" will flex pretty much the same. Now imagine all those "yard sticks" are installed "any old way". One club has the wide edge facing the target, the next club the thin edge is facing the target, the next one it's twisted 45 degrees clockwise, the next one 30 degrees counter-clockwise. Can you imagine playing golf with clubs like that? Fact it, you are playing with a set of club just like that, you just don't know it. Ask yourself a question. If you need to swing all your clubs the same way each time, how can you do that when all the shafts bend and feel differently?
I find it important in irons because I have seen excessively large spines in steel shafts. The fact is if you place the same shaft in a freq. analyzer, it is possible that it will oscillate as much as a whole flex difference depending on its orientation.
Now, using this rationale, wouldn't you want every iron throughout the set to play the same? It is a question of consistency and repeatability. Will you actually see a lowering of your hcp because of this? Maybe, but probably not. So the question remains... is it worth it? I always do it on every club I build. It is a fairly simply process, it gives me piece of mind, and its a nice thing to tell the customers that you can perform these services.
Also, shaft manufacturers have started aligning their graphics with the spine to aid clubbuilders. I contacted Graphite Design and someone there told me that they do this and that they recommend installing their shafts graphics-down for right handers. Although this is helpful, I would hesitate to say that it's an accurate way of "puring" your shaft to your club. It's more of a guideline than anything.
Also, shaft manufacturers have started aligning their graphics with the spine to aid clubbuilders. I contacted Graphite Design and someone there told me that they do this and that they recommend installing their shafts graphics-down for right handers. Although this is helpful, I would hesitate to say that it's an accurate way of "puring" your shaft to your club. It's more of a guideline than anything.
I found and have since lost the plans to build a spline finder. Do any of you know a web address with the plans to build one. I know there are a few guys that would like to build one, so if you can help, it would be appreciated. Thanks in advance, Don.
here are two on ebay, for 8$ more (cost of shipping) you can buy the plastic one and save yourself the hassel or you can spend the extra if you feel you may be doing quite a few shafts and buy the metal one by JB, it is a very good spine finder and very easy to use. i have the metal spine finder. http://search.ebay.com/search/search...e=search&fgtp=
to build one, you need to have 1 1/4 inch water pipe schedule 40 about 8 inches long, three bearings 1 3/8 od and 5/8 id and a dremmel tool with a sanding wheel. you can use the thinner pipe but your much better off with the thicker pipe and sand the inside until the bearing fits. this will give you a more rigid spine finder.
October 28th, 2006, 05:52 PM
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