Stuck Shafts

I was trying to take the shafts out of a 1969 Golden Ram XPD. I was able to take out 5 of them with great effort like turning them red hot and pulling with two oven mits through a wise. The rest I took to the local Golftown and two club makers have tried it with a torch and a pnumatic puller (one a pretty strong guy) without success. He has taken it as a challenge and was saying he may have to bore the shaft through or something. Any tricks???

Still no tricks :cry:

I assume they are not pinned?

Did you bend them flat and then try to get the shafts out? That can be a problem… if the shaft is bent inside the neck…they can be tough to pull off…

Sometimes you can hammer them off if you take off the ferrule … using a chisel type tool… you might bang up the top of the hosel, but usually isn’t too bad if you put new ferrules on.

I’ve got a few off that way…

Of course, there are shaft puller machines that can apply 4000 pounds of force :open_mouth:

Wow Macs. That sounds nasty. I hope you can get them out.

The guy at my local G-town has done some great work for me. Probably one of the best in the city. I haven’t run into this myself yet.

I have my old Hogan PC Blades. And they were pinned, and reshafted before I got them and the previous owner made a total mess of them. It can be tough getting it right. Good luck to you.

Thanks Lag/Prot
No they are not pinned and the guy did use the pneumatic puller along with a big butane torch. I should tap myself in the back for taking of them out with my kitchen burner and oven mitts. No major burns but aching all over. Talk about “inferior” epoxy from the past!!! . These are really in unhit condition and my heart will ache if they get messed up. :cry:

When all else fails, cut off shafts flush with top of hosel. Place them in a solid fixture and drill them out. Especially if they have been heated real well to remove the temper. I have had good success with this method.

I ran into another stuck shaft on a M75 3 iron depsite taking the pin out and burning to red hot the shaft wont come out (Not like Lag pulled one out quite easily). I think on some of the old irons the shaft just bonds to the hosel by rust or something. Anyway I tried to drill it with my 18 V Drill which did not work. so I tried a 5/16 tap to screw through and with a couple of runs worked pretty well. Keeps it pretty steady too.

macs,

I have 2 suggestions.

  1. Many of my older sets, Tommy Armour, MacGregor 985, actually require less heat then more. If I get them too hot the shaft swells up and there is NO chance to get them off. I actually suggest getting them hot for only a couple of seconds, then try to pull them off. Surprisingly less heat often does the trick.

  2. I agree with the drill out suggestion. A friend of mine does them quite easily. So it can be done with the right equipment.

Hope this helps.

Macs: Probably a stupid question…but are you throwing propane to the outside of the hosel…or slamming the propane right down the bore full blast.

Never ran into difficulties by throwing it down the bore and using whatever I could find turn it out. Other than taps, I’ve used a flat-head screw drivers just larger than the bore ID, or drill bits to turn them out. I put the drill bit, or screwdriver into a vice-grip and manually turn it out. If you go to the outside of the hosel…Blue Away will take away the burn residue.

Had an unusual experience one time removing a graphite shaft. There was only about 1/4" above the hosel line so I stuck that puppy in a vice and superheated the hosel. Graphite normally expands under those circumstances and was slowly inching it’s way out…then all of a sudden…POW!. It shot out of the hosel like a bullet…landed about 12 feet away and burned a nice hole in the carpeted area of the range. I had some explaining to do on that one. :slight_smile: RR