Iron Reshaft Help

[Metatron]

Hello all, first time reshafting.  my current shafts are  TT dynamic gold s300 and going to kbs tour stiff.  The heads are Mizuno MP-53. When I pullled my 4 I saw this red thing stuck in there.  I then noticed tips on all the ends of the other shafts while the 4 shaft was empty.   Do I reuse these tips on the KBS irons?  Any idea what the red thing is and how I get it out? Or do I?  Thanks for any guidance.  

[Piz]

It looks like some species of tip weight...although I have never seen one that shape before.  There also appears to be some epoxy surrounding it.  You can heat the shaft tip and knock them out with a rod, drill them out, or leave them in there.  I would not bother trying to reuse them.  Back in the day it was common practice to "swing weight" a set by adding weight to the shaft tip.  That fooled the swing weight scale but did not, in my experience, improve the performance of the club.

P.S.  Before you reshaft...weigh the heads and check the bore depths.  There may be some residual epoxy in the hosels.  

[ChetlovesMer]

1 hour ago, Piz said:

It looks like some species of tip weight...although I have never seen one that shape before.  There also appears to be some epoxy surrounding it.  You can heat the shaft tip and knock them out with a rod, drill them out, or leave them in there.  I would not bother trying to reuse them.  Back in the day it was common practice to "swing weight" a set by adding weight to the shaft tip.  That fooled the swing weight scale but did not, in my experience, improve the performance of the club.

P.S.  Before you reshaft...weigh the heads and check the bore depths.  There may be some residual epoxy in the hosels.  

Yes, it looks like a tip weight. They are quite common. Usually they are between 4 and 10 grams. Generally closer to 4 than to 10. As @Piz mentions above they are used to get all the clubs to the some certain swing weight. I'm old enough to remember when  the tolerances on irons were so poor you would have to add swing weight to clubs just to get them all to be the same within your set. You would buy a set of irons and they'd all be D1 or D2 and then the 6 iron would be C4 and you had no idea why. Anyhoo, that's rarely the case these days. 

 

I agree that the tip weight doesn't by itself improve the performance of the club. They CAN however, change the "feel" of the club. If you swing two clubs with very different swing weights you will notice the difference. How much difference? ... Well.... That depends on the club and the person swinging it. 

The good news is you have several options. 

• The best option IMO is to figure out what swing weight you want and then get, borrow or make a swing weight scale and build your clubs to that specification. 
• Next best option is to build the clubs without the swing weights and put Pure Grips on them. Then after you have them built you can use lead tape to tinker with em until you get the swing weight you like, then you can pull off the lead tape and weigh it. Then it's pretty easy to blow the Pure Grips off, add the same amount of weight to the butt or tip of the shaft. (At this point tip weight will have to be added with tungsten powder, a ram rod and a cork. but it's easy to do) Then just put the Pure Grips back on and Bob's your uncle. 
• The next best option is to weigh the shaft you are removing, weigh the shaft you are putting in and do some math. Then build up your clubs from there. 
• The last option is you could ignore swing weight and just put the clubs together. 

IMO - Swing weight affects the "feel" of the club. I think it's pretty important. How important it is to you is, of course, your choice.

Good luck, and let us know how it all comes out. 

Edited June 19, 2020 by ChetlovesMer
punctuation

[Adam C]

You are very likely going to want to use new tip weights. Those KBS tour shafts have more weight in the back end than the DGs. Unless you are planning to play them well over standard length, they will come out light. I reshafted my MP18 MMCs from Nippon Modus3 120s to KBS Tour 120s and had to add between 6 and 10g to all the heads and this was at 1/2inch over standard length.

[ChetlovesMer]

9 minutes ago, Adam C said:

You are very likely going to want to use new tip weights. Those KBS tour shafts have more weight in the back end than the DGs. Unless you are planning to play them well over standard length, they will come out light. I reshafted my MP18 MMCs from Nippon Modus3 120s to KBS Tour 120s and had to add between 6 and 10g to all the heads and this was at 1/2inch over standard length.

This.

Unless, the reason you are switching shafts is actually to lower the swing weight.... 

[Metatron]

Thanks everyone!! What I thought was a quick change out has gotten a lot more complicated! At least I'm learning.  

I got a drill bit and was able to pull that red piece out.  Its just a little piece of plastic! So maybe some sort of shaft plug?  When I purchased them off eBay eons ago I later found out the 4 iron didn't have the same serial # so I'm guessing that's why that didn't have any weight to it? 

I called Mizuno and they said I would probably drop about 1 swing weight by reusing the weights with the 10 gram lighter Kbs tour shafts (120 gram).  I have a set of jpx 800 pro (regular 115g shaft) that are a D2 swing weight and the stock mp-53 were D3.  

So my plan is to use these weights and see how they work out for me.  The jpx felt too whispy and a tad light while the mp-53 were like swinging tree branches and heavy.  Hoping to be in the middle now. I had swung mp-53 with the Kbs tour shafts a long time ago and they were fantastic but of course now I don't know what the swing weight was.  

Question.  I splurged on fancy ferrules cause I figured hey make em unique.  If things don't feel good and I want to go back in and add more weight can I still reuse the fancy ferrules? 

 

Thanks again everyone for your help.  Greatly appreciate it and now have a whole new understanding of changing shafts. 

 

 

[boogielicious]

You can reuse the ferrules if you are careful with the heat application. If you wrap a wet piece of cloth over the ferrule, it will keep it from overheating. Apply heat to the hosel evenly all around and go slow. It should work out ok.

[Metatron]

Great! thank you

[Adam C]

Ferrules warp very easily even when you are careful so it would be good if you have a few extra just in case. Focus the torch low on the hosel and no closer than a half inch from the ferrule when heating, and as said above wrap the ferrule in wet towels before you start. Personally I go fast with the heat on this sort of job, the less time with the ferrule in contact with the hot hosel tip, the better.

[Metatron]

Thanks Adam.  Picked up some aluminum ferrules to help add some weight back.