Removing Rust

I got a set of irons (1957 MacGregor M85 Colokrom) for a bargain. These were in pretty bad condition. This iron was the worst. Lots of rust stains where the chrome was gone. I decided to try and remove the rust spots using a liquid remover.They came out better than expected. If I like these irons enough I might consider having them rechromed by the ironfactory at some time.

I really like how those colokrom copper inserts turned out. The pitching wedge (not pictured here) has a small circle of wear marks around the sweetspot. These have been played by an accomplished player. Feels good to give these irons a second life.

Restoring Irons – 8: Lie Adjustments

In the last installment of this series on restoring irons I wrote about regripping clubs. When you’re done with that you may want to change the loft and/or lie of your irons.

Vintage irons usually have weaker loft compared to modern irons, so you may want to bend those a bit stronger. The lie angle, which is the angle between the shaft and the leading edge of the club head, may need to be changed as well depending on how flat or upright you want to swing the club. Forged irons can be bent more easily than cast irons. With cast irons the risk of breaking the hosel is far bigger and you probably will only be able to bend them 2 or 3 degrees tops.

In this post I will describe the process of bending the lie angles of my Hogan irons. I bent these clubs 7 degrees flat and I did it using a bending bar, a vice and protractor. Normally you would use a professional Loft and Lie machine for this purpose but since I don’t own one I decided to be creative. Using a dedicated machine is much easier and faster than securing the head in a vice, but if you are on a budget you can get similar results using my method.

 

Left to right: A professional loft and lie machine and a bending bar. (Golfsmith)

If you have a workbench with a vice then that’s great. I don’t have a workbench in my apartment so I opted to bolt the vice onto some pieces of wood.

 

Securing the heads

Securing the head in the vice is the tricky part. As you can see, I used 2 small metal plates to protect the club from damage. You need to find a way to secure it so that it won't move while bending. The best way is to start by clamping the top line and the leading edge in the vice and try to bend the hosel. If the head starts to twist in the vice it means that you didn't secure it in a way that resists the forces of the bending operation.

 

Bending the hosels

Don’t try to bend the clubs in one go, make multiple smaller bends until you feel that you’ve got it right. After that you probably need to measure and check the new lie angle. You can do this by setting the club with the leading edge flush to the ground and measuring the angle between the shaft and the floor with the protractor.

 

If you have the head secured It's also important to position the bending bar as low as possible (where the hosel meets the head) and bend it at that position. If you bend to far up the hosel you may run into problems later if you need to remove or replace shafts…

Restoring Irons

Here are the links to my posts about restoring vintage irons:

Part 1 - Materials and tools

Part 2 - Shaft Removal

Part 3 - Shaft Preparation

Part 4 - Head Preparation

Part 5 - Ferrules

Part 6 - Assembly

Part 7 - Grip Installation

Part 8 – Lie Adjustments

Enjoy!

Restoring Irons – 4: Head preparation

Assumptions

You have sufficiently abraded the shaft tips.

Cleaning

You should clean the inside of the hosel with sanding paper. Wrap a piece of paper around a screwdriver or something else that fits easily into the hosel and make both back and forth and rotary movements. You want to do this to get rid of any epoxy residue before trying to fit the shaft. Take a good look inside the hosel to see if there are any irregularities that may prevent the shaft from sliding in. Blow out any remaining dust and gently try to insert the new shaft into the hosel. Depending on how far you can push or screw the shaft in you may want to try to use a bit more force to see if that helps. The fit is meant to be very tight so don't expect it to slide in without any effort! In case you trimmed the tip you probably won't be able to push the shaft all the way down.

Note

Should the shaft get stuck in the hosel during fitting then you can get it loose by securing the head in a vice and turn it loose. If you can't get a grip on the shafts with bare hands, try putting on plastic gloves (the ones you used to do the dishes with...) and give it another go.

Boring out the hosel

If you feel the shaft is not going to fit, not even by applying a moderate amount of force, you know it's time to bore out the hosel. There are a couple of ways to do this:

• Use a reamer. This is probably the safest option but since we are only taking away a small amount of steel it may be overkill.
  
• Use sanding paper, spiraled around a drill bit. There are specialized drill bits available for this purpose but a normal bit may work as well.
  
• Use a metal drill bit that is the exact diameter of the wanted size. The danger with this approach is that you can drill out too much if your aim is slightly off. If you go this route you should definitely use a drill press and some sort of vice to hold the head in place.
  
• It's probably safer to start out with a slightly smaller drill bit to see if you can get there by hand drilling using an up and down motion while turning the head by hand. This worked for me.

In the end you'll probably end up using a combination of sanding paper and hand drilling. Remember to recheck the fit after each turn.

In the next installment we'll be discussing ferrules.

Restoring Irons – 3: Shaft Preparation

Shaft Trimming

There are several ways to cut shafts but the cheap and easy way is this: Go to your local hardware store and get yourself a pipe cutter. It won’t cost more than 10 bucks and will last a lifetime. This device has a sharp wheel and adjustable jaw grips for use on pipes varying in thickness. You rotate it around the shaft and repeatedly tighten it until it cuts all of the way through. Faster and easier than a hacksaw and it also produces a cleaner cut.
WARNING: Overdoing the tightening will damage both the wheel and your shaft (longitudinal cracking may occur!) so take your time, be patient and make plenty of rotations around the shaft.

Once the shaft is cut, file away any rough or sharp edges. Especially at the butt end because if you don’t you may end up with damage to your grips (and hands) later on.
Now that you know how to cut the shaft, you need to decide what side(s) you need to cut from, and how much to take off. Butt trimming on taper tip shafts is done to achieve the proper playing length and tip trimming is done to increase stiffness. (The shorter the tip, the stiffer). (note: Parallel tip shafts all have one raw length and are tip trimmed (for playing length), so more trimming is needed as playing lengths become shorter.)
Should you decide to tip trim your shafts, take note that the hosel will need to be rebored. Usually hosels that are meant to receive taper tip shafts are tailor-made to fit uncut shafts as they are thinner due to the tapering… Another way to achieve stiffer flex is hard stepping. Hard stepping is putting a 3 iron shaft in a 2 iron head. (note: Soft stepping is the opposite).

Taper tip shafts with a 1” tip trimmed 7 iron shaft. Note the tip length increasing as the clubs get longer.

 

Abrading

The shiny layer on the chrome finish on the shafts needs to be removed a bit to allow for the epoxy to ‘take’. The fastest way of doing this is by using a belt sander. The alternative is sanding by hand but that takes a lot more time and effort. Measure the depth of the hosel for the shaft you are sanding and mark the the shaft with tape so you know how far up the tip you need to sand. The trick is to slowly and evenly rotate the shaft with your hand as you are sanding. If you don’t do this you might shave off too much on one side which could weaken the shaft. Sand until the shiny layer is gone and you’re left with a rough surface.
 
Next up: Preparing the Heads

Restoring Irons – 1: Materials and Tools

Introduction

This is part one in a series of post in which I will show you how to (re)build a set of irons to your personal specs:
I'll try to describe as best as I can all the steps involved in putting together a set of clubs that are set up just the way you want them.
For about 50% of what you'd normally spend on a new set of 'quality' clubs you can be gaming the set of your dreams! That is including all the tools you'll need along the way.

 

Old Clubs

First thing to do is to find a set of clubs you will be restoring. If possible, try to find a set that has shafts with the same flex you will be putting in later. This is important because of potential differences in weight (and weight distribution) in the heads. If you don't do this you might just end up with swing weight or trajectory problems when you put in the new shafts.

You can find great deals on eBay. With most of the older Hogan sets you simply can't go wrong. The forgings are among the best. Most of the Wilson and MacGregor heads are great as well. I got this set of 1965 Hogan PC5's (2-9 iron) for 25 USD! Shipping and customs costs may add to the expenses but all in all still a great deal for a quality set of blades. 
This set is in average condition, showing some wear and minor rust spots. Still very playable and they still have at least a couple of years of play left in them. 
Of course, if I really like the heads I can have them rechromed by the ironfactory and still come out cheaper than what you would have paid for a new set of blades. 
In case you have bought an incomplete set and wish to complete it ironfinder have very reliable service, fast shipping and lots of choice.

 

- Important -

Make sure you buy a set that fits .355 taper tip shafts. I think the best shafts are taper tipped shafts, but should you want to put in parallel tip shafts you at least have the option of boring out the hosel to fit the wider tip. NEVER buy a set that has aluminium shafts because these clubs typically have light-weight head to compensate for the light-weight shaft. Also, the hosel size (inside diameter) will be bigger due to the wider tip size of the aluminium shafts. 

 

New Shafts

There is so much to say about shafts and shaft technology but that's something for another series of articles.
I'll be mentioning steel shafts only since these are widely regarded as being the shafts that provide the most precise feedback and consistency in irons.
Of course there's shaft flex to consider and shaft type is probably just as important.
In general there are two kinds of shafts: .370 parallel tip shafts and .355 taper tip shafts. The smaller tapered tips are stiffer in the tips and less susceptible to torque or play due to the smaller diameter. This is turn improves shot dispersion and birdie frequency. :)
Something else to take into consideration is shaft weight. For the TrueTemper Dynamic Gold Iron shafts nowadays you can choose between four weight classes (100, 200, 300, 400) e.g. DGIS300 means 'Dynamic Gold Iron Stiff-flex 300', in which 300 is heavier than 200.

DGIX 2-iron shaft above and below that the 3-4-5-6-iron DGIXL shafts which have longer butt ends.

 

Grips

When it comes to grips you have a few options: 

• Rubber/Synthetic grips (Slip-on)
  Most grips these days fall into this category.
  
• Rubber/Synthetic/Compound grips with Cord inlaid (Slip-on)
  These grips usually have a firmer feel to them. Some players like the direct connection to the club.
  
• Leather grips (Wrap-on)
  Leather grips are rare these days and usually quite expensive. John Daly and Retief Goosen are examples of modern day players that use leather. Leather feels very nice and soft but gets very tacky in the rain, providing grip whereas some other grips have a tendency to get slippery when wet.

Grip choice really is a matter of personal preference, availability and price. Some grips are easier to install than others so doing your homework can save you lots of time. For this project I chose Griptec EZgrips because they are cheap and very easy to install. The look and feel is similar to Golf Pride Tour Wraps.

 

Tools

The next part will be about shaft removal.