Friday 4 October 2013

Advanced wedge assembly

Hi and welcome to Octobers John Letters Workshop Blog

This month we would like to show how we do some advanced club assembly to meet the needs of tour players. In this case we will run through how we recently assembled some new wedges for JL Staff Player Phil Archer.

The Brief

Phil did some wedge testing at our technical facility in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire recently. Both the MM Grind and Tour Black wedges were tried in a variety of shaft options. Between Phil and our Club Technician it was decided that the Tour Black model with Dynamic Gold Spinner shafts would suit the best.

The Spinner shaft as the name suggests is designed to create more spin, potentially up to 700rpm more. This is due to a special section of the shaft that helps to create more 'bite' from the grooves on the wedge face. The Tour Black wedge head is designed to easily sweep through the turf on shots. Hopefully this shaft and head combination can help Phil with his control into the green.

Phil requested wedges in lofts of 52 and 58 degree made to a D3 swingweight. He uses the Tour Velvet grip with reminder and 2 extra layers of tape. A reminder grip contains a ridge down the back which some players prefer as it helps with their hand alignment.

Club Assembly

The D3 swingweight provides a challenge to our club technicians as this is lighter than our standard wedge swingweights of D4 (52) and D6 (58). The Spinner shafts also add to the problem as they increase the weight in the head. Having picked our lightest wedge heads available we were still faced with a dry assembly swing weight (i.e. no parts glued together) of D5.6 in the 52 and D5.5 in the 58.

A note on swingweight - There is an overall club weight and then there is swingweight. If you look at any manufacturers spec sheets on irons and woods there will be a column detailing swingweight. This is in basic terms the distribution of weight in the golf club. Think of a seesaw and the difference of weight distribution as people of different weight use it. Swingweight can be manipulated within a golf club by either adding or decreasing weight at the butt of the shaft or at the shaft tip/clubhead. Its generally good standard golfers and tour players that can notice subtle swingweight changes. Many tour players have their irons and woods 'swingweight matched'. This means they have the same swingweight throughout for consistent feel through the swing.

Having discussed our options with Phil it was agreed that we would drill holes in the back of the wedge heads to make them lighter. This is quite a common procedure on tour but is not something that you see often in retail.

First of all we weigh the club head to see how many grams we need to lose. One swingweight is equivalent to 2 grams so we need to drill out 2 swingweights from both heads which is 4 grams.


Secondly we tap some pilot holes where we want the port holes to be drilled out. The weight needs taking evenly from each side of the head so as not to create a weight imbalance.






We then drill into these pilot holes with a 5mm hardened HSS steel drill bit. There is a fair bit of resistance even with these drill bits and the head material being a relatively soft 8620 forged metal.

Initially we create two holes and then re-check the weight of the club head. From there we drill two more shallow ports and regularly check both the head weight and the dry assembled swingweight as we continue to drill. If more weight needs to be removed we up the drill bit to firstly 5.5mm and then 6mm.





Once we have the correct head weight and therefore a swing weight of D3 we need to look at tidying the drill holes. The entry point to each hole becomes frayed and has sharp edges, these need smoothing out.








To smooth out the frayed edges we use a medium grit belt. This is a key part of the assembly process, very carefully we evenly smooth out the frayed holes. As the belt comes into contact with the head it removes the black PVD finish, it takes some skill and precision to ensure that this is kept to a minimum and does not disfigure the cosmetics. We next use a fine grit belt on the same area to create a smoother grind and a better finish. After the grinding is done we again check the head weight and swingweight.






As a final flourish we stamp 'ARCH' onto Phil's wedges and also custom colour all text in silver. This complements the area which we grinded which became silver after the PVD black finish was ground off.



The wedge head is now ready for assembly. We shaft it up with the Spinner shaft and Tour Velvet grip.

A final assembled check on the swingweight ensures that the club will play at the requested D3 swing weight. The clubs are then shipped out to Phil for testing.



























Thursday 12 September 2013

JL Workshop Blog September 2013

Hello and welcome to the John Letters Workshop Blog.

Each month this blog will give an insight into the daily workings of our custom assembly workshop. This will be an exclusive look behind the scenes of how our custom product is assembled at our technical facility in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire. Along the way we will give sneak peeks of prototype JL products and catch up with our tour players as they visit us for testing and tweaks.

We hope that you enjoy the blog, thanks for reading.

New John Letters Sporting Ambassadors on board

Recently the John Letters brand decided to broaden our appeal into a different sporting arena.....that of rugby league. The Rugby League World Cup is held in England and Wales this Autumn and many of the Huddersfield Giants team that is local to our technical facility are internationals and world class players.

As with many professional sports teams a lot of the players play golf to a good standard and we are now delighted to have on board England international Eorl Crabtree and Scotland International Danny Brough as JL Sporting Ambassadors. Our brief with the two players was to fully kit them out with customised golf clubs and help them to lower their handicaps through technical and instructional support. The guys will play our brand and help with publicity through local and national media particularly the golf and rugby league sectors.


Danny & Eorl with their new JL clubs
Initial Testing

Eorl and Danny had a full testing and fitting session with our new TR47 range as well as Tour Black wedges at our teaching academy which is coincidentally next to the stadium where the guys play. Readings were taken on our Flightscope launch monitor and specifications were taken on shaft flex, shaft length, and loft and lie angles.

Club Assembly

Completed specification sheets were passed onto the workshop where our team of technicians interpreted data taken and decided on the best set make up.

Eorl's specs were particularly challenging as he is 6"6" tall and has huge hands. We had to make the most use of the shaft and the energy created through his swing. At 1.75" longer this used the full length of the uncut shaft available to us in his irons. As club lengths are made longer the overall club weight increases and the balance of weight (swingweight) increases in the club head. For many people this would mean a struggle to keep the club head square at impact and also result in a loss of swing speed and therefore distance. In Eorl's case though he is a big strong man and we expect to see more distance as he fully loads the shaft with power creating maximum energy transfer at impact. Five extra wraps of tape were added to his grips to help fatten the grip into his hands.  A big saying for club technicians is that a golfer should have their clubs altered to suit their swing not the other way around, this was particularly true in Eorl's case.

We fitted Eorl into a mallet shaped head putter which would give more forgiveness on putts. He had spent years leaning over his putter to get his hands on the grip so we decided to extend the shaft 2" longer with four extra layers of tape under the grip. Lead tape was then added to the putter head as some feel and control will have been lost with the extra length.

Danny had pretty much standard spec clubs. This means John Letters standard, be aware that in the golf industry there are no 'standards' throughout, each manufacturer has their own lengths, lofts, lies etc. Danny is a good fluid ball striker and he was fitted into our Master Model irons enabling him to have more precision and control over his shots. He will also play TR47 woods and a Golden Goose putter.

Both players had their names and squad numbers  stamped on to their Tour Black wedges as well as a one off custom gold finish. Custom stamping is something that we offer to all customers buying the Tour Black or MM Grind wedges.

Danny and Eorl were presented with all custom fitted clubs and other John Letters equipment on the pitch at the John Smiths Stadium. Its fair to say that they were delighted with the outcome and couldn't wait to get on the course to test the clubs out.

We look forward to hearing feedback from the guys and helping them to lower their handicaps over the coming months. They will also have the opportunity to test some of our prototype products as we seek feedback from regular golfers.

Congratulations

John Letters Golf would like to pass on our huge congratulations to Danny and Eorl for their pivotal roles in helping the Huddersfield Giants come top of the league for the first time in 81 years. This is some achievement and was made even sweeter when both players were named in the '2013 Dream Team' which awards the best players in their position throughout the season. Well done to both!

On the back of this achievement we were privileged to be able to show the League Leaders shield around our technical facility. All the best to Danny and Eorl as they now look forward to the play offs.