Altering Vintage Blade Lofts...

If I want to tweak a set of vintage blades and make their lofts stronger; bringing them more in line with what’s out there today, what would be the repercussions?

I’m thinking the following:

-Vintage blades have a higher sweet spot and CoG (compared to today’s blades). Strengthening the lofts will make an already lower ball flight… even lower.
-There is little bounce and thin soles on the most of the older clubs. Strengthening the lofts will make what little bounce there was even less. I don’t think this would effect playability all that much though.

Have any of you tried it?

I’ve done it to a couple of sets. One was a set of PC’s to bring them in line with today’s Miz specs (requiring a 2 to 3 degree strengthening).

Personally I don’t think the cog thing is a concern at all. I doubt more than a handful of players on this forum could ever tell any difference other than the ball flies lower because the loft is stronger. I was more concerned with the affect of altering the bounce, but didn’t see much affect there either.

We can talk about the science and theory behind these kind of changes, but I think you just need to go ahead and “do it”, perhaps to just one or two clubs, and see what the effect really is based on how they actually perform.

robbo

I would probably get the lofts more in line with what Lag has…48* PW, 28* 5-iron, etc.

Many of the modern blades have lofts stronger than that.

Today I played with a group that we play for money, so I had to pick a set of clubs and instead of going to my modern Mizuno’s, I just used my 67 Percussions and played them like 1 club more because my 5-iron has about the loft and shaft length of a 6-iron and so forth. And it worked out fine.

3JACK

delofting will alter the bounce to a little less like you said…not that much but it will slightly-- which is actually great!! get that 4.30 line going and it will be perfect for a shallow swing with no bounce clubs…get steep on it and the less bounce will have you fatting the ball down the entire length of the fairway :laughing: talk about game improvement irons :astonished:

Something else to consider I suppose would be the lie as well. If you drop the lie to say 6 flat AND increase the loft do you increase the offset of the head? HMMMMM. I need to research this.

Generally if you decrease the loft you increase the offset, and vice-versa. I’ve never dropped clubs that flat so I don’t know how that effects offset. I can’t imagine a lie alteration would change the offset that much…

Lag has written how he recently found a way to do away the offset that comes with flattening the lies. Whcih means yes it increases the offset.

You gotta link to that or remember what Lag said. I noticed the offset but just thought it was my imagination. So if you really want a technique improvement club it needs to be a flat…heavy…pole that you can shave with! :laughing:

Need some help with this one guys as I haven’t a clue

I heard that gamers around town somehow alter the loft on their wedges so that there are two lofts on the face–but you can’t tell just by looking at it.

So maybe from ground to the 5th groove is 48* and to the top is 50*----anyone heard of this and what kind of ball flight should one look for to see if it was done. Just heard it though the grapevine and am curious. RR

it’s called doing a double bend

Normally a deloft gives a gooseneck look to the club into an offset position
Obviously for a blade that look is not very desirable to the golfer’s eye

So the process is bend low to alter the loft and then bend higher up the neck to rid the gooseneck
You are effectively limiting the damage done to the golfer’s view of the club from address angle by working top and bottom of the hosel/bending area

The bottom or low bend gives you the desired loft----- bending the top the opposite way doesn’t alter the loft/lie so much but brings the clubs old visual appearance at address as a blade looking club

It is not as clear cut as that…and could take a few times back and forth to get the desired settings and look…but that should give some understanding

Got it…thanks Two. :slight_smile:

But I also heard that there is a way to “candy cane”- for lack of a better description- the top without it being noticable…like bending the top of the face without using the hosel area…and that it will play tricks with the spin. Ever heard of that?