GI Non-Shovels

[24putts]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...STRK:MEWAX:VRI

[jetdriver]

I have a mixed set of similar x31's I do not use them since some of the shafts are steel and some aluminum. I Ilike them though. Mine have the x31 in the crown towards the toe with a wide sole. My long irons are a slightly different model. My set is too mixed up to really take seriously. That set you posted looks good.

[mongrel]

Gorgeous clubs. But the dollars will mount up if you get them and need to put modern shafts in them. I've got a 3-PW set of equally beautiful FG 17's around the same vintage with the original TT Dynamic shafts which are too dead, too heavy, too stiff, and too short. Since I bought the set for $20 at a yard sale, I figured it would be an easy deal to reshaft them and have a great set cheap. Wrong. In the old days, Wilson installed those shafts with machines like pneumatic hammers since the state of the epoxy art wasn't up to today's standards. After using every bloody hand tool in my shed, I've finally given up trying to pull the FG 17 shafts and will take them to a clubmaker who will drill the shafts out for $22 a pop. Still and all, not that bad compared to a set of new clubs.

[jetdriver]

Gorgeous clubs. But the dollars will mount up if you get them and need to put modern shafts in them. I've got a 3-PW set of equally beautiful FG 17's around the same vintage with the original TT Dynamic shafts which are too dead, too heavy, too stiff, and too short. Since I bought the set for $20 at a yard sale, I figured it would be an easy deal to reshaft them and have a great set cheap. Wrong. In the old days, Wilson installed those shafts with machines like pneumatic hammers since the state of the epoxy art wasn't up to today's standards. After using every bloody hand tool in my shed, I've finally given up trying to pull the FG 17 shafts and will take them to a clubmaker who will drill the shafts out for $22 a pop. Still and all, not that bad compared to a set of new clubs.

Mongrel, I read your other post on this. As you know I have FG17's and they are one of my favorite sets so this hits home for me. I do have a spare set so I may never need to reshaft but I had never heard of this. did you get a second opinion, do you think the guy may be trying to rip you off perhaps? It sounds like a good way to get people to buy a new set of clubs.

[24putts]

... with the original TT Dynamic shafts which are too dead, too heavy, too stiff, and too short ...

Could you explain this? My understanding is that the only difference between the pre-1984 Dynamics and the subsequent Dynamic Golds is that the latter are weight matched, i.e. supposedly no variation. Or are you saying that you also find today's DG's too heavy?

[famousdavis]

Gorgeous clubs. But the dollars will mount up if you get them and need to put modern shafts in them. I've got a 3-PW set of equally beautiful FG 17's around the same vintage with the original TT Dynamic shafts which are too dead, too heavy, too stiff, and too short. Since I bought the set for $20 at a yard sale, I figured it would be an easy deal to reshaft them and have a great set cheap. Wrong. In the old days, Wilson installed those shafts with machines like pneumatic hammers since the state of the epoxy art wasn't up to today's standards. After using every bloody hand tool in my shed, I've finally given up trying to pull the FG 17 shafts and will take them to a clubmaker who will drill the shafts out for $22 a pop. Still and all, not that bad compared to a set of new clubs.

I had my a set of FG-17 irons with True Temper Dynamic R shafts and they felt absolutely perfect to me. One of the best iron/shaft combinations I had ever tried. I think it would be crazy to reshaft them. I saw the same set in a golf store here in town for $79 with the same set up. I'm tempted but the lofts are just too weak.

[mongrel]

Could you explain this? My understanding is that the only difference between the pre-1984 Dynamics and the subsequent Dynamic Golds is that the latter are weight matched, i.e. supposedly no variation. Or are you saying that you also find today's DG's too heavy?

Steel shafts will lose elasticity after time and use. After a certain period, the shaft starts to feel dead. I've broken a few Dynamic Gold S300's on old sets of blades and, when replaced, the new shaft had a lot more snap and kick. They're just stainless steel tubes. Take one and keep bending it in the same place enough and it will stress and break. Just like a metal coat hanger but it takes a lot longer. They feel heavy because I've just put 103 gram Dynalite Gold SL's in my MP's and anything heavier just feels heavy. I was going to pull the orig. shafts and replace them with the modern super light TT's. I am sure that's how they were installed at the factory because others more knowing in other forums have posted that it is so. But screw Wilson. I just got a set of Titleist 755's at Golf Gal. for $125. The Tri Spec shafts in them will have to go but at least I know I can torch the heads off in 30-45 seconds. I figure a forged cavity back will be a decent 2nd set of arns.

[joeybee]

Nice to see some love for my favorite brand

[mongrel]

Mongrel, I read your other post on this. As you know I have FG17's and they are one of my favorite sets so this hits home for me. I do have a spare set so I may never need to reshaft but I had never heard of this. did you get a second opinion, do you think the guy may be trying to rip you off perhaps? It sounds like a good way to get people to buy a new set of clubs.

No, I don't think he was trying a rip off because he has a golf supplies shop where I buy all my grips, solvent, ferrules, epoxy, tape, shafts etc. And I spent hours on the net researching the job and several clubmakers on different clubmaker sites confirm the original factory method of shaft installation in the 17's and older Staff blades. The glues available 30 years ago were not nearly as good as today's and the company wanted to ensure that no head would fly off the shaft just after impact and strike a bystander at 100 mph. The lawyers 30 years ago were equally as adept as today's. I had a set of Palmer Standard blades from the mid-'80's that came with the shafts pinned through the hosels. Carbon steel pins about 1/8" diameter. You had to punch the pins out to remove the shafts. If the pins and shafts bonded due to oxidation, you had a real problem on your hands. FD responded that he couldn't think of any reason to reshaft FG 17's but when you get older, sometimes you just can't load the damn old 130 gram stiff shafts. If you get into that situation, you'd be amazed at how good those old classic forged heads can feel with modern super light steel shafts. Like putting a set of Pirelli P7's on a '60's Porsche that came with 5" wide Michelins. Night and day. Or flying by celestial navagation versus a Garmin.

[jetdriver]

No, I don't think he was trying a rip off because he has a golf supplies shop where I buy all my grips, solvent, ferrules, epoxy, tape, shafts etc. And I spent hours on the net researching the job and several clubmakers on different clubmaker sites confirm the original factory method of shaft installation in the 17's and older Staff blades. The glues available 30 years ago were not nearly as good as today's and the company wanted to ensure that no head would fly off the shaft just after impact and strike a bystander at 100 mph. The lawyers 30 years ago were equally as adept as today's. I had a set of Palmer Standard blades from the mid-'80's that came with the shafts pinned through the hosels. Carbon steel pins about 1/8" diameter. You had to punch the pins out to remove the shafts. If the pins and shafts bonded due to oxidation, you had a real problem on your hands. FD responded that he couldn't think of any reason to reshaft FG 17's but when you get older, sometimes you just can't load the damn old 130 gram stiff shafts. If you get into that situation, you'd be amazed at how good those old classic forged heads can feel with modern super light steel shafts. Like putting a set of Pirelli P7's on a '60's Porsche that came with 5" wide Michelins. Night and day. Or flying by celestial navagation versus a Garmin.

Gotcha....So what did the guy say that they use epoxy, but jam the shaft in there by force like its a really tight fit?
My two sets are regular, I thought I wanted stiff so I got a beat up set of NON FG17 staffs in stiff but found the longer irons very hard to hit long. I am still a 44 year old spring chicken but on this type of iron regular seems right. I find other irons fine with DG S300s though. If I only had a couple of sets to maintain I would probably screw around with mods, but it's just to easy to just grab a different set out of the garage and go knock myself out with what I have.

[mongrel]

Gotcha....So what did the guy say that they use epoxy, but jam the shaft in there by force like its a really tight fit?
My two sets are regular, I thought I wanted stiff so I got a beat up set of NON FG17 staffs in stiff but found the longer irons very hard to hit long. I am still a 44 year old spring chicken but on this type of iron regular seems right. I find other irons fine with DG S300s though. If I only had a couple of sets to maintain I would probably screw around with mods, but it's just to easy to just grab a different set out of the garage and go knock myself out with what I have.

Again, the epoxies available 30 years ago were eons behind what you can get today (those available commercially, not those developed for the aerospace industry/military). My first job after high school graduation was working in the lab of my friend's father who was a mad chemist. Just a high school degree but he had several patents including that penetrating spray called CRC. This was in the summer of 1965 and he was experimenting with the newest stuff called two-part epoxies. You mixed some glop from container "A" with an equal amount of a different colored glop from container "B". We used those little fluted paper cups like the ones restaurants use for mints etc. The stuff we mixed got hot as sh&t in about five seconds and some mixes would get hot enough to ignite the paper. He had us record temperatures and time-to-hardening etc. I don't know what the shear strength of the old glues was but I remember that it took 24-48 hours to harded and a couple of days to fully cure. Yesterday I bought an epoxy kit at the local golf supply store called "10 Minute Epoxy" that fully cures in 4 hours. There were a couple of old local club pros in the shop when I was there and we were reminiscing about the old blades and those guys confirmed that Wilson would force the tip ends into the heads. Additionally, even though they used the standard .355" tip tapered shafts, the hosels were bored with a decreasing diameter at the bottom so that the shafts True Temper made for those Wilsons actually tapered below .355" at the bottom-- maybe down to .275" or so. And then jammed in. That's why it is such a b%tch to pull them. And according to one of those old pros, you can ruin the head by drilling or reaming the hosel too deep. And those True Temper shafts in the old Wilsons are not Dynamic Golds but Dynamics with different steps and flex characteristics. I think that reshafting the FG 17's with modern shafts that suit my swing, age (64 on Monday) and strength would be worthwhile but I don't have the time or inclination to dick with it right now. I just bought a used set of Tit forged cav backs and bought the new shafts yesterday and will install some of them today. Its a real luxury to me to be able to pull the heads after only 30 seconds of torch flame on the hosel.

[jetdriver]

Thats all very interesting. You know from something you said the other day about old shaft elasticity changing with use... I am now wondering if that may be at least partially why I have found identical sets (same heads and shafts) to feel different from one set to another.
The only thing that makes me not be quite 100% on this being the reason for a difference is that I would not expect all the shafts in the set to "wear out" equally since some clubs get more use, or maybe their use averages out with time...who knows? I always just thought that perhaps there are forging veriations by batch that effect the feel of the heads.
Specificaly some hogan radials feel quite different, also my two FG17 sets feel different
oh and my 2 sets of Eye twos are night and day.

[lorenzoinoc]

Thats all very interesting. You know from something you said the other day about old shaft elasticity changing with use... I am now wondering if that may be at least partially why I have found identical sets (same heads and shafts) to feel different from one set to another.
The only thing that makes me not be quite 100% on this being the reason for a difference is that I would not expect all the shafts in the set to "wear out" equally since some clubs get more use, or maybe their use averages out with time...who knows? I always just thought that perhaps there are forging veriations by batch that effect the feel of the heads.
Specificaly some hogan radials feel quite different, also my two FG17 sets feel different
oh and my 2 sets of Eye twos are night and day.

Seriously? I haven't noticed any changes yet. S.hit, I sure hope you're wrong. Either way, I'm not about to stop using it.