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I’m so happy that John, Mike and Dad convinced me that making golf clubs is pretty easy. With Marc’s need for new clubs, I re-acquainted myself with the Golfsmith catalog. I looked at their ‘Junior’ stuff and decided to just order new shafts for his irons (5,7,9,P) and metal woods (3W). His ‘graphite’ staffs would be easy enough to remove, plus it gave me an excuse to get man-size torch and igniter (I’ve used a mini-butane for years that no longer fills). I could even get Marc to help; he likes fire.

So I ordered shafts and grips.

Removing graphite shafts is tricky if you want to re-use the shafts. You need to heat the epoxy to melting but not the resin (plastic) used in the graphite. But we were never going to reuse the shafts so set the big torch to 11!

Lo and behold the new irons shafts didn’t fit. WTF? I even measured them but we are talking not a lot of difference (.335 vs. .370 if you are keeping score at home). That sucked because I would need to order new heads. No where, in any catalog, can you mens, womens, or junior iron heads that do not use a standard .370 inch shaft, except for Dunlop Junior Loco clubs. Thanks, Dunlop, for making my life a little more complicated.

In the end, it was easier to order new heads (women’s Sapphire) and just use all the women’s measurements than to bore out the heads or figure out what length to cut down the wood shafts too. Yes, it turns out that wood shafts are .335. But I didn’t have wood shafts either so I still needed to order more stuff anyway. Might as well order standard stuff and have standard measurements.

Another order to Golfsmith with expedited shipping (convenient that they don’t charge a lot for that).

I assembled the clubs and was putting the grips on them. This is fairly simple. You put double sticky tape, wet the tape to de-activate the stick, wet the inside of the grip, and slide the grip on. Normally, this is very uneventful and if you pay attention, not much of a problem. Well I wasn’t paying attention. At some point, I forgot to wet the inside of the grip which effectively turns it into a very good squeegy removing moisture from the formerly sticky tape. I got it half way on, and it got totally stuck. Hell if I was going to cut this grip and order another one from Golfsmith!

I start soaking it in hot water. Twisting it. Grabbing rags to give me more purchase on the thing. I even got the bicycle pump and tried to get some air in the grip from the top to loosen it. All of this done like a madman because the glue was just going to set up as time ticked on. I was surprised the epoxy on the head didn’t give way the way I was twisting it. But I didn’t care; I was either getting the grip off or ordering more stuff from Golfsmith. It didn’t matter if I was ordering a new shaft or head because it broke or bent. Finally, after more soaking, I had Amy hold the head of the club while I twisted the grip with both hands using a rag. It gave way without being wrecked, which was a good surprise.

The next day, when I was at work, I realized that my fingers were sore. My fingers are sore? When did it happen that I crossed some threshold that something I didn’t even know could get sore, got sore. Sure, I’ve injured my fingers, broken my thumb. But do I have to work out my fingers, now? What other things can get sore that I haven’t thought about. My eyelids? My brow? “Whoa, my forehead is sore, I must have been really furrowing it yesterday.”