After being away for the past 4 days at an ice hockey tournament in Troy, NY, I was finally able to come back home and relax, so I've been doing preparations for what I'm going to do tomorrow, February 22. I'll be going out to my grandpa's house in Trumansburg to first of all, learn how to work a lathe, and then carve my shaft out of stock wood he's got in his woodshop. I believe he either has oak, maple, and hickory at his shop, and I hope I'll be able to use the hickory. 

Anyways, a shaft doesn't seem like the hardest thing ever to make, since it's basically just a rod of wood/steel/graphite, hollow in the cases of steel & graphite, and slowly tapers down from top to bottom. Generally the shaft starts about .6in in diameter at the top and between .335in and .37in at the bottom. Shafts for irons, woods, and drivers can be made out of hollow steel or graphite, since they are durable and flexible, along with being very light. However, for a putter it can really be made out of anything, since there is such a low amount of torque on the head. That is why I'll be making it out of wood, hopefully hickory, since it's stronger and more durable than most other wood and was the wood of choice for most clubs made before the implementation of steel. 

For the length of the shaft, it's a bit of a tricky business. On my current putter, the length of it is advertised as 35in; now that is technically correct, since that's the total distance measured from the bottom of the blade to the butt of the shaft. 

However, the actual length of the shaft is about 32in, when I measured it from the top of the head to the butt.  Now this was a very important piece of information for me, since I had thought the actual length of my shaft was 35in, and since it's a little bit long for me, I would cut about a 33in shaft. That's not the case. I took some more measurements with where I gripped the shaft, and found from the top of my hands to the tip it was about 29.5in, which is just a bit too long. Then I took the measurement for when I just let my arms hang down loosely, or the longest possible extension without losing control. That was about 26in. So with those details in mind, I will make my shaft at about 29in, so that in case I want to go back to how I've putted for the last year or so, I'll be able to, but at the same time have the ability to grip down farther, since the grip I have in store for the shaft is about 10in long, and the distance from the bottom of my right hand to the top of my left is about 8.5in. 

I'll be making another post tomorrow afternoon with the results of how my shaft making went.