Getting shafts "Spined"?

[dbornack]

I used to be an equipment freak, but that was until about 5 years ago. I really haven't been paying attention to equipment, club building techniques, or anything like that.

I was over at www.golfwrx.com , and they talk a lot about Spining or flowing of shafts, when they build your clubs.

Does anyone here do this? Does anyone have an opinion about it?

[iacas]

I used to be an equipment freak, but that was until about 5 years ago. I really haven't been paying attention to equipment, club building techniques, or anything like that.

Did you read this?

http://thesandtrap.com/bag_drop/shaf...ultimate_tweak

[dbornack]

Great read. Thanks!

It makes sense to me, as a technical person. Just not sure if it's worth it if I'm just a weekend player at this point in my life.

[PiKapp23]

Information about 'Spining a shaft' from the person who invented graphite shafts and an all around equipment expert, Frank Thomas.

This from his Q&A; today on www.FranklyGolf.com :

Frank,
My friends are head over heels into spining their shafts.
I have not seen a lot of serious discussion on spining was just wondering what your opinion is on the subject.

Cheers,
Bob

Bob,
A spine in a shaft is an indication that you don’t have a very good quality shaft.
Most of the time a spine is found in graphite shafts, which are flag-wrapped – this process is used to make the majority of graphite shafts. Flag-wrapping is when sheets of unidirectional fibers are cut at different angles to the fiber direction and then wrapped as a sheet around a solid rod, which eventually after curing is withdrawn forming the hollow center of the shaft. If these sheets overlap or don’t meet properly they create a double layer of fibers or a gap in fibers down one side of the shaft. Because of the additional material or lack of material down one side, the shaft will bend more one way than another when you rotate it, something like a yardstick. This is what we call a shaft with a spine.
If this spine is very pronounced, it is better to orient it in a particular position (for example in the 3 o’clock or 6 o’clock position) relative to the head for greater consistency in performance.
Graphite shafts with multiple layers of ‘flags’ in the wrappings or when produced by the filament winding process are a little bit more expensive but are very much more consistent in their bending properties if finished with care. They may have a spine but it is of such little consequence, that special orientation is unnecessary. This is the case for most steel shafts.
‘Spining’ a shaft may be necessary if it is a bad quality shaft but otherwise don’t let somebody influence you into spending a bunch of money to spine good quality shafts. This would be equivalent to balancing your tires for 150 mph when the engine in your car can only push it to a max of 80 mph. Spend the money you would otherwise be relieved of for ‘spining’ on a lesson or two or even a couple of cases of beer.
This should send a tingle down your spine.
Frank

[flanagan]

After reading up on here and elsewhere had the SST PURE shaft alignment done on my new shafts. Most of what I read made it seem worth it. I can't say I'm good enough to know whether my shot dispersion is tighter, for example, but I got cool printouts of all my irons showing the before and after computer analysis that suggests that it should be. Probably indulged a little on that one, but at the same time, seemed like a reasonable "extra" given my research.