Help! Not about pool cues but a golf club

akaminski

akaminski

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I know a lot of you guys deal with metal working and machinery.

I have been doing golf club repairs for a long time and this is the first time I encountered this.

Guy broke off the head on his golf club..... Steel shaft is still inside the head. Pretty standard repair and I have done in the hundreds of these HOWEVER.....

The standard repair would be using a tap to bind to the steel shaft and twist it out..... However the tap broke off inside the shaft and I cannot get them out.....

Any metal workers have any insight on how to get it out?

I cannot just drill it out as it appears to be a carbide or high strength steel tap.

Tried wd40 but it will not work.

Thanks for the help

Adam
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akaminski said:
I know a lot of you guys deal with metal working and machinery.

I have been doing golf club repairs for a long time and this is the first time I encountered this.

Guy broke off the head on his golf club..... Steel shaft is still inside the head. Pretty standard repair and I have done in the hundreds of these HOWEVER.....

The standard repair would be using a tap to bind to the steel shaft and twist it out..... However the tap broke off inside the shaft and I cannot get them out.....

Any metal workers have any insight on how to get it out?

I cannot just drill it out as it appears to be a carbide or high strength steel tap.

Tried wd40 but it will not work.

Thanks for the help

Adam
y7a5ebaz.jpg



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Unless a tap remover will get it to come out you will probably have to use a carbide end mill in a milling machine to mill the tap out. The tap is most likely not carbide so a carbide end mill should cut the center of the tap out. If that tap is carbide I do not know how to get it out if a tap remover won't do the job.
 
My method would involve heat and your ability to fashion a 'pickle-fork'.
Fabricate a tool with two fingers that fit snugly, one in each of the tap's flutes.
A short pc of stainless flat bar should suffice.
There is info here that you would have that I don't because I don't work on golf clubs.
How is the steel tube held in the club head? Is it brazed, swedged or glued?
The heat will breakdown the glue, expand the head's shank
and if it's brazed you'll need to get it pretty hot anyway.
Once you start putting heat on the shank, insert your tool and twist the tap.
Doesn't matter which direction. Twist L and you might free the tap and be back to where you started.
Twist R and the tap and remaining steel tube may free themselves due to expansion of the hole they're in.
If your efforts only allow the tap to be freed, use a carbide burr in a die grinder to cut
a slot in the remaining tube. Then you should be able to peel it away from the interior wall.
Quick question, just how much does a new club-head cost anyway???

HTHs, KJ

Just had a thought (twice this week), EDM machine but that better be a very special club head.
Well, there is another way that I know of but even I don't like it though I've done it.
Get a nice center-punch and a ball-pein hammer and go at it (the broken tap).
If it's as hard and brittle as I suspect it will shatter and come out in pcs.
Wear safety glasses.
 
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Could probably use long nose vice grips. I'd think heat as well. As far as drilling, if you can't put it in a lathe, mill, or press, you will want a bushing to keep the drill bit centered and use carbide. There is zero chance of drilling that thing dead center IMO.

I'd think with some heat you should be able to back it right out with little difficulty. That is what I would do. Might want to blow the WD-40 out thoroughly first....
 
Golf clubs shafts are held in place by 2 ton epoxy...... The epoxy can use glass beads to help center the shaft in the head and to make a more snug for essentially thickening the epoxy.....

First try was heat with the tap in the broken section.....

I successfully for the steel shaft inside to turn only when super hot.... Once it cooled the shaft bound up again......

The second time I heated the head, was running the tap into the head again and started turning the shaft.... It must have cooled a little and the shaft bound up again, in my efforts to unlock it I kept turning it right and it just literally snapped off


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The problem is anything I have tried I have bent or destroyed.....


I do not have a mill and my lathe isn't tall enough to let the head run in a circle

I may try that tap remover from amazon and it seems to be sort of what I am looking for



On a side not this club is old and prolly not worth the effort I am going through but that is not for me to decide it is my customers favorite club


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jayman said:
Propane torch and needle nose pliers
Click to expand...

I've found Visegrips to be more stout than needle nose pliers, especially the ones most people have(cheap Chinese). I'd put the Visegrips in a vise and heat it while twisting. I've never used a tap extractor, but there is always something to be said about using the right tool for the job.
 
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akaminski said:
On a side not this club is old and prolly not worth the effort I am going through but that is not for me to decide it is my customers favorite club
Click to expand...

This brings forth the question; How does this client treat his clubs that aren't his favorites?
 
golf club

It's possible that the shaft corroded from the inside out. If you don't cover the top of the shaft with the grip tape moisture will get into the shaft. Once you get corrosion started, the shaft can snap off with a normal shoot. Most anger breaks are up the shaft where knee or tree contact occurs.

You might try cycling the temperatures. I always found that several heating cycles seemed to work better than over heating it. Golfsmith use to make a special vise or vise jaws for grabbing iron heads,they also sold the drill bits. Then you drill press it out. It doesn't seemed to be that well centered already. Parallel shafts use to be .370, so you want to get something a bit undersized for the initial drill out. If it's a tapered shaft your screwed.

This is more like a cue repair all the time. More work than the item is really worth.
 
Pay attention to Steve (cutter). I think he's done this a time or two.

I was going to chime in with the question of the tip type, but Steve already went there. The vast majority of home made clubs and cheaper sets were all the parallel tip type. But, there were millions of clubs made with the taper tip. Basically, the end of the shaft is not a cylinder, it's tapered. So the club head has a matching taper. If this is the case here, then you've no doubt buried the tap through the taper and it basically threading the club head. You're going to have a tough time getting it out for sure.


Royce
 
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