This might be interesting for those who like to reuse those old leather grips:
Most of the time you won’t be able to transfer the underlistings, and they’re very hard to find on eBay.
Here you see how you can make your own:
[youtube]Howto: DIY Underlistings for Leather Wrap Grips - YouTube
taken from: eurogolfer.blogspot.com/2011/06/ … -wrap.html
Nice thought but the PVC will dull all the feel out of the shot plus it doesn’t taper with the shaft. There’s two ways to do it, one easy & one really hard…
Easy way is to install a cheapie Winn grip & then take off the wrap & rewrap the leather with another piece of tape, you can build it up however you want.
The other way is way old school & it’s how you get ‘the sound’ when the clubs rattle in the bag & that real sharp crisp clicky contact by getting the rubber off the club. Step one is the end cap since those are really extinct, you buy a bunch of plastic (or wooden, different sound & feel) round drawer knobs & sand them down into the shape & size of an end cap on a bench sander. Takes touch & trial & error, I’ve done 6 clubs this way & its so cool, might redo the rest this winter. Epoxy them in when the size is right with a snug fit down the shaft to the knob as you sand down the embedded end first. The underlisting is microfelt, the oldies were either felt or paper, I like the really really thin felt but the self adhesive kind won’t work as it bunches up when you wrap it around the shaft. If you’re going to build it up do it underneath the felt as a lot of tape on top of it will change the feet of the leather to crunchy and mushy. Size it & wrap the felt on & cut it with
An Xacto knife so there’s no seam. Then a single wrap of dub sd tape & wrap away. I’m not bothering with collars anymore, such a pain & black electrical tape is just as good without the hassle.
If you want to restore the leather the best way is to clean them before you remove them, remove them while damp then let them dry for 24 hrs. Then work the straps down with a lot of mink oil like a baseball mitt. A lot of oil, then put them in open Ziploc bags 3 per & microwave each open bag for 45 sec, then seal them immediately & let them sit for 48 hrs. Keep repeating the process until you are satisfied with the results, usually takes about a week. After the saturation process let them airdry flat for another 24-48 before you rewrap them. After they’ve been reinstalled if they’re greasy clean them once daily with soap & warm water until the tack comes back.
The old school method is a huge project probably as big a pain as redrilling heads but the results are so cool, when you hit balls you feel like you’ve been playing your whole life wearing oven mitts. Rubber kills feel as it is a shock absorber
Great info once again lcdv, thanks!
I thought pvc would make a good underlisting since it’s harder than tape. It seems to transfer vibrations quite well when the fit is real snug on the non-tapered butt end of the shaft.
I’ll try your ‘hard way’ next, looks like a good option. 
Maybe the PVC would work but I’ve tried non-tapering grips & my fingers on my right hand aren’t nearly long enough to make it work., just hated it. That’s the way the master club makers did it & if you use wood for the end caps it’s one big eject for petroleum based products, which is a big plus for me at least & back to high quality, high functioning products we can do ourselves better than OEMs. Before I die I’m going to build my own set of clubs from scratch, do everything but manufacture the shafts all on my own just to see if I can do it, chop the tree down & harden the persimmon for the woods, grind the heads from raw blocks of carbon steel & age the leather, treat it & cut it. I just hope I can do it while I’m young enough to be able to use them. That’d be more meaningful personally than winning a tour event.
I don’t like non-tapered grips either, but I do like them built up more than standard. What I did here is a semi-tapered grip:
P.S. I’m all for using natural products and I really like the idea of grinding down wooden doorknobs. Do you have pics of the finished end caps?
Let me see what I can find in the shop, I know 4 of them are finished clubs except for the paint on the caps. I was using a bunch of JP Wilson wedges when I was going mad scientist before I moved last year. One of the 55s I tried grinding the bounce off of & turning it into a heavy pitching wedge & I absolutely ruined the head. I set the whole project to the side at that point but I’m pretty sure I know which box I stuck them in, I’ll dig them out this afternoon.
I would love to see that. This is one more thing I might do to my Mizuno MP68’s (along with x100’s and going flatter/heavier) after this fall’s school season. I got some lead tape in the mail today, so that should be fun. I have the perfect donor grips too.
Expedition one unsuccessful, will resume at 1100 hrs Zulu Time. I found my first staff bag & some balls & gloves & a pair of DryJoys from 1996…
Okay, I’m gonna try it. Spent the last hour taking old grips off of a few clubs. I am also going to buy some new leather, I think I found a decent source. Number 1 dilemma right now is finding a suitable material for an underlisting. I am leaning toward construction paper and tape, after seeing what was under the ones I took off. Maybe I can find some felt tomorrow. I am also going to try the wooden endcaps thing I think, if I can find some drawer knobs at walmart cheap.
I’ll post an update when I start.
lcdv,
Where do you get microfelt? And which endcaps do you prefer, plastic or wood? I know there were some vintage clubs marked neutralizer that had wood plugs in the end of the shaft, that was supposed to produce shock-absorption. But we don’t really want that do we? We want all the feel of the shot we can get, for feedback. So is plastic better? Or what about brass? I know they used to put brass endcaps on old hickory clubs.
Thanx, JN