Feels like we’re going around in circles here… so taking the distribution of the weight into account, and how that may effect flight, what else makes the different flex matched heads different from eachother and how and why do they effect flex differently… I really want to get it clear because there are some sweet sets I’d like to pick up that have reg flex… any ideas? am I missing something? 
You have to hit it with the shaft you want and see what the ball does. Everything is different and you don’t know until you try it. That’s what makes ebay such a crapshoot.
Also the length and thickness and weight of the hosel can change the balance of the head and the tip flex in the shaft. Makes a big difference in feel in playability in the wedges and short irons.
I was mulling it over in the mean time… so all heads are the same weight regardless of what flex shafts they will be in? It’s just distribution and performance that may be the issue? And if you add lead weight to make it perform better from a distribution perspective then you alter the shaft flex? Is that basically what we’re talking about? So it’s possible that an R flex head might be just fine as it is, because it’s going to be the same weight anyway?
Not at all. If you have a 200g head with a 100g shaft (S) it may be like a D0, but if you take the same head and put an 80g shaft it turns into D5 at the same length. The raw weight of the heads were made totally different based on the weight and flex of the shaft being installed. If you add tape to it you either backweight or bottomweight it and change the specs from what was designed. That’s what makes it so hard to find a good head. There ain’t no raw head weights on ebay and that doesn’t even get into distribution of the weight in the head itself. You can spend a lifetime and not find exactly what you want and everything, even heads that look the same can be all over the place. Why do you think the tour players have always been so nutty about having everything handmade to their specs?
Plus if it was a manufacturer using cheap materials the density of the steel may be different in the different clubs that came from different batches and they may have weak points. Anything can go wrong which is what makes the classics so valuable.
So essentially the difference is actually weight? And possibly some distribution of it? But at the same time you say that an X100 is the same weight as an R flex shaft? Which brings me back to my original question of what’s the difference between an R flex head and a stiffer flex head? Is there any difference other than weight distribution? Are they the same weight? Are they different weight? I think it’s time for my bed… Peace out… I’ll put my head back to this tomorrow…
The site says in a .355 tip an R3 is 116g, S3 is 120g and an X1 is 119g. R4 is 119g the same as an X1. Hardly anyone wants to get above the weight of an S4 so they go for the stiffer flex of an X with the lightest weight possible. Hence X100s all over the place and anything heavier is hard to find. Nobody remembers that all the Xs bend the same and the only difference is raw weight. They see an X1 and say ‘oh I can hit that but the X3 is way too stiff’. Wrong. It’s harder to flex the X3 because it’s heavier and takes more energy and strength to accelerate it but it bends exactly the same as the X1 on the board. I want to increase the weight more than anything to increase the momentum going back so I can get more behind it and get more resistance in the transition. I could go to an S5 if I’m worried about the stiffness but I’m not worried. Like Lag says it’ll flex fine with a good pivot. But I want a lot of total weight and mass in my hands and the light stuff in the X1 doesn’t work as well. Worst case I need to play a inch or so over on the length and flatten out the lies some more. That hopefully is worst case.
If a head made for an S flex 100g shaft is 200g then a head made for a R flex 80g is gonna be 175. Huge difference in raw weight. An X would be 120g shaft and need a 225g head. Or you can cheat by adding length which is what I’ll have to do. Better than tape IMO.
LCDV, i remember always reading that heavier shafts increase swingweight. Especially with the TT DG’s as the weight is mostly in the butt end of the shaft. Or does that only apply to the parrallel tip DG’s?
Also i think TT nowadays only has R200/300/400, S200/300/400 and X100/200/300. So no S or X500 anymore. I don’t know where you may be able to find X300 shafts (i’d like to know as i would like to try them).
As for lead, do you not use any at all? Not even to get the weight of all the heads in unison? I know Dave Wood (Wood Brothers and MacGregor) says that you should not use lead at all as it is dead and does not transfer energy which means that it does not help feel. Would another type of metal (brass?) be a better alternative?
Ya I got on the TT site and saw that too. Does anybody make anything useful anymore?
I avoid tape whenever possible. It’s like a band-aid and I don’t really know if it transfers to the ball. That’s why heads should be gram weighted and matched in the first place. The only thing I know of that really works is to have the head stripped and have brass or something else welded on and that screws up the balance too. Realistic wise you have to change the length or have custom heads made up…
store.nexternal.com/shared/Store … oducts.asp
They’ve got all the iron shafts but I’m gonna call TT direct and try to get some wood shafts directly from them. The .350 wood shafts only come R S X anymore and that’s what I’ve got in the fairway woods. Whatever, but I’m gonna try to get a dozen .335 X200 and a dozen X300 just in case they stop making those too. That oughtta last a lifetime.
I guess anything good I’m gonna have to buy a lifetime supply of since nobody plays real golf anymore. No more good FJ shoes, no more shaft varieties, no more wound golf balls, no more calfskin wraps, no more hard end caps, no more spikes… What’s next, no more dark beer? Gimme a break. Scouring ebay for stuff that should be in every decent pro shop sucks the big one.
TT site: DG Shaft Specs:
.350 Parallel Tip wood Shafts:
[i][b]X
S
R
121g
124g
122g[/b][/i]
.600" / .350"
.600" / .350"
.600" / .350"
45" / 10.375"
45" / 12.375"
45" / 14.375"
How does it make sense that the X flex is a gram lighter than an R and 3g lighter than an S? Nothing makes sense at all any more and it’s like putting the cat back together to get a decent set of golf clubs. This shouldn’t be this hard. Playing well should be harder than dailing in the sticks…
LCD,
In all the tour vans or factories that I have been privy to the past 10 years at least…I have NEVER seen anything other than a X100 shaft…I was under the belief that 200 and 300 shaft’s were extinct… maybe they just didn’t want us to use the heavier shaft? because they knew they were crappier for their clubs and didn’t want to let on… 
I myself grew up with X400…and loved them…sign me up!
I know that Mizuno generally has 3 different weight class iron heads, light, med. and heavy. They told me years ago that when they build a club with a light weight shaft, say a Nippon 950 they will use a lighter head iron than they would if they were building a set with a 128g S300. My MP60s have S300 shafts and they all weigh D4.5 to D5. I played my 60s for 3 years before realizing I was swinging D5 irons. I was kinda shocked at first, but I do like the feel.
lcd,
Sorry you couldn’t make it to LVN… it was a great time. Hope you can play next year.
Ok, here’s what I got from an uncut set of Apex 4’s. I included the uncut length of the 3-iron (go down one-half inch thru the set from there) along with the weights. In general it looks like they tried to get the entire set in that 114 gram area:
3i - 114.0 gms - 39"
4i - 113.5 gms - 38.5"
5i - 112.7
6i - 115.0
7i - 114.5
8i - 115.5
9i - 115.1
pw - 114.9
Hope it helps,
robbo
Bloddy hell!
I was just about to re-shaft a set of Hogan Directors with original Vector 1 shafts, don’t think i will bother any more.
So is it only really worth buying a set that already has stiff shafts in? I would have thought that going from regular to stiff would have less of an ill effect than if you were going the other way.
You also need to keep an eye out for any shaft tip weights that the manufacturer may have used to make up for manufacturing tollerances, some sets i have pulled apart have had anything ranging from no tip weights to 10g tip weights.
I’m not saying that you CAN’T put any shaft in any head, because obviously you can, all I’m saying is that if you want to play a particular flex and weight and length in a shaft you know, that the head may not work or hit the ball the way you want to at those shaft specs. I know the shaft I want and I know that the shaft is the motor of the golf swing and I want to match the head to the shaft specs rather than vice versa.
If you take a head and put it on a shaft totally different than what was stock you can get really bizarre numbers on the swingweight and the ball flight could be wacko. You have to know the raw gram weights of the heads and what will work in correllation with the shaft specs that are best for your game. Then you get into the weight distribution characteristics in the head and how high or low the COG is and how much weight is in the toe and how that works in relation to what you do in your move. It’s hard to find just the right head that hits the ball the way you want it and swingweights out where you want it at or around your desired length and weight in the shaft. You can’t just say ‘oh that’s a pretty old Hogan iron, that must be right.’ Then you’ve got the same mentality as the guys who pick up any ol’ Frying Pan looking for answers to the puzzle they haven’t even seen the picture of.
Just because you’re using a hitter’s protocol doesn’t mean that you don’t still need to dial in the specs of the clubs. That’s just frigging stupid.
Wow, the old 4’s are in the 115g range. If I go to an X200 that’s 132g so it’s a 17g diff and increases almost 14%. That’s a huge jump. I’m gonna have to try one and see where where it swings out. It may turn a D4 into a D1 or it may be C6. If it’s C6 I would have to play so far over the length that it’s unplayable and I have to start over with a different head. And lead tape doesn’t cure the problem as it’s just floating in space during the swing. I hope I don’t have to find a different set of heads. Thanks for the info, Rob.
I sent an email over to the tech dept at TT to see if I can set up an account and get shafts directly from them. I could place a bulk order and if anyone else wants in let me know. It would be more expensive to go through a distributor and I’d like to order enough heavy shafts to last a long time. I also asked if they have any inventory of anything heavier than an X300. It’ll be next week before I get an answer but I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
One other way you can increase the swingweight if you have a head on the light side is to decrease the weight in the grip. This is another reason I want to go back to leather, because when you do it the right way you can get a leather wrap a lot lighter than a rubber or synthetic grip. Way way lighter than a full cord grip. The bad part is that when you do this you can’t build the grip up with a lot of tape because the tape weighs a lot, but that’s OK by me because I don’t have huge hands and like it a little on the skinny side.
The lightest wrap possible is a wrap with a hard cap and a light felt underlisting but I can’t find any caps. But another way with a rubber underlisting is to blow a Winn grip on with an air compressor without using tape and then remove the synthetic wrap. Now you use the underisting that remains and wrap the leather on using an adhesive that won’t dry hard or damage the leather. You get the thickness from the size on the underlisting and it ends up as light as possible. The lesser weight in the grip increases the swingweight without losing the total weight where it needs to be, in the head and the shaft.
Thanks for all that info, man… seems like some good came out of my confusion 
… silver lining…