The Hickory Golfer

The truth about being a hickory golfer is that sooner or later, and generally sooner than later, one of your shafts is going to to have to be repaired. Sometimes the repair is simple and you can use the existing shaft and other times you have to replace the shaft. I’ll save the later for another discussion and focus on the repair of a split shaft.

Split shafts, in either woods or irons, have to the be the easiest of shaft repairs. In the middle the Mid-Pines Hickory Open my Mongrel Mashie develope a rather long split that semi spiraled around the shaft. While I’ve seen a couple shaft split on just one side this is the more common split all the way the through.

Of course the first question is how do you know you’ve got a split anyway? Periodically I will test all of my clubs by grabbing the head and flicking my wrist causing the butt end to hit the ground. You can do this on any surface but I prefer our downstairs berber carpet. A solid club will make a thump not unlike the thump of a good sand shot and a broken one will just vibrate in your hands.

When I initially started to repair the Mongrel it looked like the split started and ended before the hosel. This made the repair easy. Putting the good part of the shaft in a vise I mixed up some epoxy and just twisted the the split open enough to slide a toothpick full of epoxy in it. Turned it over and did the other side. Then took the club out of the vise  and open the split by hand while moving the club back and forth so the epoxy could spread a little better.

Using a wet rag I cleaned the excess epoxy and wrapped strips of painters tape, the blue stuff, about every six inches. Then simply apply a 1/2″ pipe clamp over the tape to secure the shaft. I had to install 4 clamps repairing the Mongrel and once the clamps are secure you need to wipe off the excess the epoxy. Put the club aside for 24 hours while the epoxy hardens. The next day loosen the clamps and remove the tape. Unless you’re lucky you’ll need to strip down the shaft and apply a new stain and shellac.

The shaft will probably be better than new. Kinda like a bone repairing the epoxy will make the joint stronger. We’ll see, I suspect I didn’t inspect the club well enough and the split is down in the hosel. If that’s the case the shaft won’t last very long and I’ll be replacing it soon. Until then the Mongrel Mashie is back in my bag.