How Are Golf Clubs Manufactured?
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Club Heads
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Golf club designers specify a variety of metals, engineering plastics, ceramics and composites for different parts of a golf club (head, shaft, hosel and grip). They base their materials selection on the mechanical and physical properties required by the part in question. In general, however, designers tend to specify titanium for drivers and steel for fairway woods and hybrids.
Manufacturers create club heads either by "investment casting" or "forging." Casting creates club heads in molds. The process lends itself to the manufacture of intricate shapes, allowing designed-in variations in the weight distribution in the club (for example, cavity-backed irons). Forging uses large machines, robot blacksmiths, which hammer the raw metal into the specified shape. Because forged steel club heads have a tendency to rust, manufacturers electroplate the heads with chromium and nickel.
Shafts
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Designers use either steel or graphite for shafts. The manufacturer makes steel shafts by "tube drawing." A "tube-drawing" machine pulls the pre-cut steel rod partway through a die slightly smaller than the tube's diameter. That causes the drawn portion of the tube to "neck down" in diameter. The machine repeats the process in steps as it moves down the length of the shaft. The manufacturer then chrome plates the shaft.
Shaft manufacturers create graphite fiber-reinforced composite shafts in a process called "Pultrusion," an automated process for producing constant cross-section parts. The "Pultrusion" machine pulls the reinforcing graphite fibers through a formulated resin bath before pushing the resulting composite material through a hot steel die. The reinforced graphite tube cools in ambient air, forced air or water. As it emerges from the cooling process, the machine cuts the graphite composite tube to length. Graphite fiber-reinforced shafts are the same diameter along their entire length.
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Assembly
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With some metal shafts, an assembler first inserts the shaft into the socket on the club head, then drills crosswise through both and pushes a small metal pin, coated with epoxy adhesive, into the hole.
When making graphite shafts, the assembler bonds the head to the shaft with an adhesive. Finally, the assembler either molds a rubber grip in place on the top of the shaft or installs a pre-made grip.
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