Putting a grip on

So today I continued on with the completion of my putter by going to dicks and having a grip put on the shaft. I asked Dan, my mentor to arrange a time when I could go up and get it put on. The guy who helped his name was Jay, and JE was very nice and helpful. He started out by clamping the shaft down on a table. He then put a layer of tape on the shaft at the top and smoothed it down. The tape was just this double sided standard tape that's used in all club assembly and has a brand name of "grip tape". By the way to you readers,  I'm sorry I couldn't get pictures, jay said it was against store policy for whatever reason. After he put the tape down he sprayed it with a solvent, and then sprayed the solvent inside of the grip too. The tape and inside of the grip are apparently both activated by the solvent, and its from this that the grip stays on so well. Ager he that he just slid on the grip and it stuck like a glove, and now I have this:

Also the research that I did for how big putter shafts was very very important because if I had not known the standard size for the butte was .59 inches, then this entire process could've gotten a lot worse, including the possiblity that jay would've had to apply a ton more tape to make the shaft thick enough for the grip, or it could've been way too big and resulted in me having to reschedule and sand down my entire shaft even more.

Incomplete

So, as it turns out in the end, I am not going to be able to finish my project in time for my presentation this Thursday because I need a tech teacher to supervise me using either the cnc mill or the hand mill, because none of them are available this week. I'm really disappointed that it came down to whether other people were able to help complete my individual senior project, but as I reflect its really my fault that this situation even arose. I procrastinated asking the tech department, and as a result I will not be finishing in time.

 Maybe if I had picked a later presentation date like June 15th things could have worked out better, but life never goes as planned.
I do want to finish the putter before I graduate because I want to have something to show that I accomplished something my senior year even if I got a poor grade for the class. My desire for engineering and golf goes beyond any grade, and I'll never forget that.

5/25

Unfortunately I was not able to start milling my putter head yesterday; Mr. Breigle forgot he had a department meeting 8th period, the only time that we could've met that day. However I was able to get a good amount of work done on my shaft using the sanding machines in the tech department. The only sander that worked was the wheel sander, or a spinning wheel of sand paper with only the top half exposed above a surface. Because of that it was weird trying to get the right amount of angle on the shaft just from a flat wheel, and therefore it was an uneven initial sanding, although I got most of the wood off that I wanted. It also burnt the wood in some places, but that's not a big deal because I just sanded off those parts.

Those darker parts are where the wood got burnt from the side of the wheel. I then got to hand sanding the rest of it for a good finish.

This the the almost finished end of the putter now; the only thing left to do is make it rounder and prettier, although with the short amount of time I have its not the biggest priority.

5/23

I met with Mr. Breigle on Wednesday and set up a time to start milling the head tomorrow 8th period. He said we would be using the hand-mill, which is not the same as the CNC mill. The CNC mill is different because it requires a code for it to cut anything, hence the "Computer Numerically Control" acronym. However the hand mill is simply the same kind of spinning mill, and setup overall, except that the spinning mill is controlled by turning different levers to get it to move up and down and side to side. I have no idea how to use this and I will hopefully understand and be able to use it by the end of my session tomorrow.

I have also begun to start to sand down the end of my shaft in preparation for how small it's going to be. Right now the tip is at about .6 in, or its original width because I had never touched it before. But now that I have the set size of the hole that I'll thread in my putter head, .33 in wide, I can finally sand it completely down with confidence.

I've had some trouble sanding this entire bottom by hand though, so I think I'm going to go into the tech department tomorrow during one of my free's to quickly sand it down on one of the sanding machines, which are quick and easy to use. I'll sand it down to about .35in at the tip, and then hand-sand it the rest of the way for precision. Here is a picture of the bottom after I tried to hand sand it down; it doesn't look too shabby but it basically has to be half as wide at the end, and I really can't do that by hand unless I waste a lot of sanding paper and time. You can also find a picture of what the tip looked like previously in my blog to compare it to what it looks like now.

5/22

So yesterday I got my block of brass in the mail. As it is right now its about 1.2 kg, or about three times as much mass as the final version is going to be. I plan on taking it in to Mr. Breigle today and then hopefully we'll set up a time to mill it.

From this photo it looks very much like a gold bar, but I assure you I do not have that kind of money. Once I start to mill this bad boy I'll have much more to write about, but right now there isn't much.

Oh, and one more thing that might not seem pertinent to the project but actually is: I failed to qualify for the high school golf state championships after a couple of abysmal days, so the whole part of my project in which I wanted to use this putter during states is somewhat voided. However I will be playing in the NY Junior Amateur qualifier, and will hopefully use it then, although that will be on June 26th, long after school is over, along with my WISE presentation.

5/16

Yesterday I met with Mr. Breigle and discussed on how to make my putter the most efficient to drill. I showed him my initial design that I have previously posted about. He suggested that it would be the easiest to mill the head without the top "spoke" that I had before where the shaft inserted into, and so I got rid of it and put the threaded hole in the head of the putter itself.

The shaft bore is at an angle of 19 degrees to the ground because that is the standard angle of most putters. I also had to increase the width of the face from .4 inches to .58 inches in order to get 1/8th of an inch on either side of the bore because Mr. Breigle said he needed at least that much in order to drill the hole without ruining the metal.

Another very important thing is that the metal is now going to be brass; this is the final choice in metal for the putter. I ordered the brass last night. Specifically the brass is 360 Brass, which is considered to be the best brass for milling, like here: http://www.onlinemetals.com/brassguide.cfm; and Mr. Breigle agreed. I ordered a 4x1.5x1.5 rod last night for $30, and it will hopefully get here on Friday, the 18th.

5/14

After another week of not accomplishing much hands-on-wise, I did some researching about golf in general, how to putt, and putter assembly. What I found was very interesting, mainly because of how I found it. For example, before when I searched for putter shaft sizes, I got some very vague results, which I tried to interpret without much success, so I decided on a size I would make and stuck to it. But when I searched for "should I cut down my putter" (I've been uncomfortable with the one I've been using this spring), I found a putter/golf tech forum that had a good list of putter specs that the manufacturer 'Scotty Cameron' uses.

33" Shaft - 350g head
34" - 340g
35" - 330g

I also looked more through Roger Maltby's site, which I've used in the past, and found a much more comprehensive list of putter weight ratios here: http://www.ralphmaltby.com/home/267; and is very helpful; the list goes from the weights of C-0 to E-5, depending on the shaft size. So from what I've found is that aluminum is much too light, density-wise (only 2.7 g/cm^3), to serve as an acceptable material for my putter. Even if my head were to be just a block that's 4x1.3x1, it would still only be 217.62g; much too light for a 30" shaft. From what I could figure out, the D-2 weight from Maltby's site is increasing by 10 for each inch, so if I were to use a 30" shaft then my head weight should be 411g. Doing more calculations, I found that if I were to use stainless steel as my metal (8.0 g/cm^3) then I would need about 51.375 in^3. I'll be modifying my inventor file to try and hit that number as close as possible, and I think it'll be interesting to see what it looks like in the end.

Seven Observations on Learning

So  read an article for homework about how learning works, and our duty was to respond to it by relating two of their observations to our project.

First was that the idea that learning begins with tolerance applies to my project because I've come across many different solutions on how to make my putter, and I've accepted some solutions, put aside others, and rejected a method or two.

Second was that learning is inconclusive and that's basically how I've been researching so far because with every new thing I have brings up new questions; just like when I learned that milling metal sometimes requires coolant, I then tried to figure out what kind of coolant was best for aluminum, how much I need, or do I even need coolant.

Sources used since 2/1

Since Mr. Creagan recommended to me that I do a blog post of all the sources I've had so far for my research, this is my blog post for them. I had almost 30 sources before I started this project; these are just the sources I've used since I started the project and I haven't had to use much outside of my initial research.
All of my sources so far:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0HFI/is_3_54/ai_100463197/
For when putter grooves were first used and CNC machining putters

http://www.gelputter.com/
Different kinds of putter faces

http://www.andrewricegolf.com/tag/putter-weight/
How much putters usually weigh

http://www.franklygolf.com/gripsizeandputterweight.aspx
Another source on the weight of putters

http://csquaredgolf.com/tag/putter-head-rotation/
General swing path of a putter

http://puttingzone.com/MyTips/lengthlie.html
Very useful site for putter shafts, including lengths, lie of the shaft to the ground, etc.

http://puttertalk.com/community/index.php?topic=25054.0
This was very helpful in determining how wide the putter shaft is

http://golf.about.com/od/faqs/f/shaft_weight.htm
Good for figuring out how much heavier my shaft was compared to metal ones

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/general_metal_working_machines/20588-what_coolant_do_you_use.html
Different kinds of coolant

Happiness Revisited

We read an article on Happiness a while back in class and this is just my response to it.

When do I feel the most happy?

I feel the most happy when I am out playing golf, although it’s not always the most rewarding or satisfying experience. Being able to escape for a couple of hours is very relaxing, and at the same time golf gives a challenge that I love and will always be there. There are other things that are enjoyable for me, like reading, going places with friends, video games, etc, but none can relax and challenge me at the same time.

Respond to the article:

I found the article very interesting after writing that first response to what makes me happy, since the article’s author found  a combination of skill and challenge that would make people the most happy, and I can really relate to that since I always like to challenge myself and when I have the skill to meet that challenge I really enjoy myself. This “flow” he talks about I think I can relate to very much, and have also experienced a kind of it when doing calculus or playing a rhythm game.

Where am I on the flow chart?

With life, I believe that I am probably a little north of the “flow” zone, since right now I’m a little overwhelmed with school, but other than that I think I’m right in the middle of the flow otherwise.

How has my "flow" changed throughout the course of my project?
Well I think that it probably has been a little in the "boring" zone so far just because everything I've done hasn't been extremely challenging, although it has taken a good bit of effort and creativity so far for coming up with ideas for the head design, different materials, etc. But I have had fun with the project and I don't feel overwhelmed with it, and I guess so far I've had a pretty positive experience.

How can I achieve flow?
Well I think in my activities outside of school I've done that pretty well, but with life in general I think I need to start to realize my shortcomings and the fact that I cannot do everything in life or be the very best in whatever I choose to do. So if I were to achieve flow in life I would have to lower my expectations for myself. However, this is something I cannot do, or else I fear I will lose all drive to become something better than I am right now. Setting unrealistic goals is my way of achieving important goals, and putting myself in a "challenging" area like the article suggests is just how I want to become a better, more well-rounded person. Maybe in retirement I can finally sit back and be truly happy, but until then I don't think living in a state of bliss is how I want to go.

Update 4/2

Well, unfortunately I haven't been able to do very much over the past week. I wanted to talk to Mr. Breigle about the CNC Mill and coolants and such like I said I was going to last week, but it turned out that he was away every day except Wednesday, when I had no free time. I did play around with Edgecam a bit more but couldn't do much since all I could really do was figure out milling profiles and how to change at what angle I mill the face. The more important aspects of milling depth, feed, and spin were out of reach since I first don't know what kind of aluminum alloy I'll be buying, so I don't know how fast to spin the mill, and also I have no idea how fast I can make the feed due to the moderately tight turns the drill bit would do in order to profile the putter head. I don't have any experience milling metal, only some waxy stuff and soft wood we used back in CIM my sophomore year, so I don't know how much the mill can handle.

I guess this is really my first big stumbling block, and until I can find time with Mr. Breigle, which I hopefully will this week since spring break is next week, I'm not going to be able to get much farther with my project.

IC JE

Today in class we are to talk about how we've been researching, or our method. Personally I tend to Google the problem initially, and then if the answer isn't really apparent, I'll call the store of the product I was looking for, or I'll ask a tech teacher at school or my mentor.

In terms of macro research I really haven't been actively, on my own time, looking up engineering facts or golf club making information. I have however, been learning a lot more about  physics in my physics class, and design and engineering techniques in EDD, both classes taking up a good amount of time.

For micro research I've spent time looking at all the little things about my project, mainly like I said in my last post things like coolant, or drill bit size, type of aluminum alloy, etc.

For kinds of research I haven't been doing, I haven't really self reflected enough since I haven't had much free time to do anything other than focus on my project, so I've forgotten about analyzing my past problems and what I've learned from past mistakes.

Update 3/26

I've been working mainly in Edgecam for the last week or so whenever I can find free time in school to use the tech computers, since Edgecam costs upwards of $400 to license for a year. Most of the time I've been simply trying to figure out how to use it again, since I forgot how to use most of the features on it. After a couple of tries and a youtube tutorial video, I figured out how to click the manufacturing button on the toolbar to get myself started with milling operations. I did some really basic stuff with profiling the putter and that sort of thing. I've actually got some pictures to show too!

You can somewhat see the outline of the putter underneath all of the purple lines, but that's not really the point of this post to show the putter head. The purple lines are basically the path the mill head is supposed to follow in order to cut the main outline of the head. Each cut has to be shallow or else the risk of the mill head breaking or overheating becomes significantly higher, since it is metal cutting metal.

This would be what it looks like after the 3 profiling operations I implemented; each operation cut a different tier of the back of the putter. The reason it's not completely cut out of the metal, or the reason the metal around the head isn't all gone, is because 1) the surrounding metal is essentially scrap metal and there's no need to cut more than I need to, and 2) I'm still awful at using this program. However, being terrible at this and improperly using the profiling operation opened b=my eyes; the putter with the thicker back and curved cut-out looks much better than the original head, and so I've updated the original head to look more like it.

Also, the process of cutting this made me think about how exactly I'm going to mill the head, so I looked it up and found that cutting aluminum involves a lot of coolant; even more if the aluminum alloy has harder metals in it. And that made me look for different types of coolant to buy, since I don't know if the school 1) has enough coolant or 2) would be willing to let me use their coolant. The most recommended type of coolant that I found was Qualichem Q-cool 361 ($30/gal). I then couldn't find how much of it I would need, and then found even more about CNC milling aluminum WITHOUT coolant, so I'll be asking Mr. Breigle very soon about the coolant situation.

This week I'll be working more on Edgecam and my goal is to have a complete milled profile by next week.

Poem thoughts

On Monday in class we read the poem 'Two Tramps in the mud Time' by Robert Frost, and we were asked to write a blog/journal entry about what we thought about it and how a part of it relates to our own project. For me, it was the stanza about him chopping wood that resonated with me:

"Good blocks of oak it was I split, As large around as the chopping block; And evert piece I squarely hit Fell splinterless as a cloven rock. The blows that a life of self-control Spares to strike for the common good, That day, giving a loose my soul, I spent on the unimportant wood."

I chose this because I get the same, enjoyable mindless experience when sanding my golf shaft, because even though it's slow work I enjoy knowing that it will pay off in the end with a good looking piece of wood. There's also another stanza later on when he talks about him loving the prospect of chopping wood even more and relishes it when he is surrounded by problems; although I don't think I could ever love sanding wood, I have experienced that same situation and can relate.

I've got a funny feeling that other people in the class are going to choose the same lines, since the other stanzas are kinda abstract and I asked the people around me and they all said that same thing as me.

Update 3/19

Over the past week I've been modeling different putter head designs after learning a very important piece of information from Mr. Krywe: the tech department doesn't have a ball-mill for the CNC Mill; they only have flat-heads. This really changes how I design for this, since I can't do curved surfaces at all, and sloped surfaces will have to be a lot less steep or else I run the risk of having the metal come out looking like crap. I really liked the idea of a head that instead of having a solid back surface that sloped down or curved down from the top of the head to the bottom like this one:

I would instead have a set of "steps" on the back; the same kind of idea that farmers use in the mountains so they have flat planting surfaces. I'm sure someone has done it before, but I've never seen one like it and I wouldn't think many other people would've seen one either, since none of the current major brands like Nike, Titleist, Taylormade, etc., have made a model like it in the past 20 years and probably further back. I have been doing other variations that wouldn't require to cut a slope too steep, but so far this is my favorite.

I'll be meeting with my mentor on Wednesday and bringing my different designs to him to try and finalize a decision for the design so I can bring it into Edgecam and start making the milling process.

IC JE

So after peer-reviewing Phoebe Clark's journal for last week and writing a post about it, we did another journal entry in class for each journal we reviewed. It was basically the list out the strengths and weaknesses on the project we reviewed.

Strengths:
1. The student was very dedicated to researching the project, and had a lot of work and write-ups to show for it in her journal since her project involved a lot of it.
2. She also reached out to many different scientists and researchers in the area, including local businesses and Cornell professors.
3. She had some good pictures and charts in her journal, and even though they were few and far between, they were all very impressive and detailed.

Weaknesses:
As a precursor, Phoebe's journal and project was amazing, and only had a couple of nit-picky things.

1. The topic was really hard to understand; from what I could tell it was a college-level bio project for a high school senior
2. She said she didn't do what she intended to, but in the end almost accomplished her main goal and learned a lot more than she expected to in the end
3. Her handwriting was a little difficult to read in some places like it was rushed

WISE Project Review

I reviewed the project of a previous WISE student, Phoebe Clark, who took up the task of "expressing a malaria protein in tetrahymena". I chose this project to review mostly because there wasn't really any other projects similar to mine, and because it sounded pretty interesting.

The project itself was something really advanced and most of it was beyond my understanding, probably because I hadn't taken AP Biology. The scope of this project seemed simple enough, just doing lab work, but it involved a lot of work and to me looked like a college-level biology project because of the time and resources she put into it. She got a lot of help from local labs and Cornell professors to complete this project.

Phoebe said she didn't accomplish exactly what she set out to do (even though I can't tell what she did wrong), but she still learned a lot, and reflected well on what she did learn.

Update 3/8

The final entry of the 4 I had written up previously.

I have begun to sand down my shaft a little more now since I have decided upon a size for the tip of my shaft: .34in in diameter. I'm currently not able to sand down the actual tip, since I need to keep it square in case I have to clamp it down again, but I have been sanding the middle according to how much the shaft would taper up from .34 at the bottom. It's a very slow process, since it's always better to have too much wood than too little and I want to be careful with how much I sand, but I should be able to finish it in a reasonable timeframe, about 3 weeks, if I work on it at the same time as designing the head.

I also started work on the second design up the putter head; this one is different in that it has eliminated much of the cavity that the first one employed. It's more dense and had less complex shapes than the first one. I want the option of having a heavier head after playing with my friend Dave's old putter for a round because I forgot my putter at home, and I found that I liked a heavier head because it has a better pendulum motion and feel in my hands, unlike my current putter which I have to swing harder, and therefore less accurately, to hit it.

Update 3/5

The third entry of the 4 I had wrote previously. The 5th will be about the WISE project I looked at over the last 2 weeks.

Today I met with my mentor again, Dan Miller, and we mostly talked about what I had accomplished over the last week or so. We met on Monday instead of Wednesday, because it fitted our schedules better. Dan has been talking with a bunch of "golf" people in the area, mostly from Newman and Cornell, and found someone who could help me with assembling my putter when it is done. He works at Dick's Sporting Goods, so I'll also be able to ask him about the right kind of grip I want for my shaft, the different kinds of putter grips (they are a lot different from other grips since some are flat on the top), and I think most importantly, how narrow the shaft has to be to fit a grip on it without it. I also showed him my tentative sketches for the first head I had finished designing by then; he had a couple suggestions for it, mainly that it should have a face angle of about 2 degrees because we decided it wasn't going to have grooves and it's important to get the ball up in the air a tiny bit to get it rolling. He also suggested that I have 2 "aiming grooves" on the top of the head instead of 1, 1 on either side of the ball instead of just in the middle of it.

Update 2/29

This is the second entry I've wrote up but not be able to publish it.

I've been working more on the CAD model the last couple of days. It's really been a challenge of figuring out the ratio of toe to heel weight, because the head has to balance out the weight of the shaft&grip attached to it. I've found from weighing and measuring all the putters at my house that mallet putters generally are more symmetrical than blade putters because the heads are so much larger and therefore have more weight to move around to offset the light weight of the shaft. The ratio of the blade putters, however, is about 1.3:1 in terms of weight, and it's been really quite challenging to try and model the head to keep that ratio as close as possible.

Edit: after doing a bit more researching, I realized that my wooden shaft is actually about twice as heavy as most metal shafts, so the ratio is going to be closer to 1.2:1.

Update 2/25

So after being locked out of my google account for about 2 weeks for no good reason at all, I'm finally able to post my entries again. I've been keeping track of them in a notebook, so there'll be about 4-5 straight posts this morning. This one is from 2/25, so it was a couple days after I had started work on my shaft.

I began work on doing a CAD drawing of my putter head after I had finalized 2 different designs of my putter. I plan on doing both all the way through to the end, and choose the easier and simpler one to mill, which comes down to how complex the shapes are and if I can mill the top of the head with as few realignments at all; my goal for that is none at all. I started out with how I would start to cut the head from the beginning, mostly having a big block and cutting out simpler shapes out of it.

So far I have figured out the size of the block I want to start with; 2x4x4, which I believe I can get from some type of metal store. It's this size because I want to have the head 4 in long, from heel to toe, and have the shaft insert raised up about 2 inches from the head so that I can bend it slightly so that to shaft is inserted at an appropriate angle.

Today I went up to my grandparent's house in Trumansburg to work on making my golf shaft with help from my grandfather. We started out by choosing a good piece of wood with a straight grain and would be durable and strong. In the end the best piece we found was a 36"x1"x1" rod of cherry wood. We started out by first cutting it down so it would be 30"x5/8"x5/8", and from that we just shaped it to how I wanted it to be.

I can't really make these images larger or else they would overextend into the webpage, so just squint or something.
This was the piece before we did anything:

And this was it after cutting it down to the desired size:

Now the tool next to the block we then used to taper the piece evenly down to about 2 inches before the end. We left the last 2 inches of the tip untouched because we decided it would be better to know the size of the threaded hole in the putter before actually threading the shaft.

After tapering it, I used my grandfathers wood router with a 5/16" rounded bit to round the edges of the shaft. For the final part of the session I sanded down the main part of the shaft to make it more round and smooth. Both end have about 2 inches of uncut area so that if I ever need to clamp it down again, I would be able to, along with allowing for changes in the future to the design of the shaft. The end product of the day is this, and I'm satisfied with the result.

Sorry for the poor quality, my phone was dying and had no flash, I'll get a better quality version up once its charged. As you might be able to see, its still square at either end, and the right side is slimmer than the left, since that would be the tip side. The wooden shaft is also a bit smaller than my current putter's, which is good since I needed a smaller shaft. In the weeks to come I'll be sanding the shaft more to make it more rounded and slimmer, so that I can fit a grip on it since I don't think any current grips are made to fit over a 5/8" shaft. The cherry wood will also darken more, and along with me giving it a good polyurethane finish, it should have a nice dark tone in the end.

My plan now is to finish choosing a final design for my putter head and getting it into CAD Inventor, then Edgecam, which is the program for the CNC Mill of the school.

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.

Head research and design:
For the week of 2/6

So this week I've really dedicated myself to researching putter head design, and how to approach it, and all of that kind of stuff. I started off with the knowledge I got from my interview, which was that putter heads should be around 200g so that it has good balance when swinging it. I then factored in the density of the metal I would be working with, aluminum, and figured the ideal head would be about 4in wide on the face, .5 in back, and .7 in high. The rest of the cutting and edging would be done in the back to promote a head that, when striking the ball, would have a balanced MOI and would not want to swing with the toe or heel overturning each other, so the face stays square throughout the swing.  In order to do this, the toe has to have a bit more material on it than the heel, to balance out the weight of the shaft and the force of the hands. The putter head also should slowly transfer with the length towards the middle of the head, so that for instance .1 in away from the edge of the toe it would have slightly more mass in that area than the area from .1 in - .2 in. Also, right behind where the ball would be stricken, there should be as little mass as possible, to encourage a pure hit and so that the putter doesn't hit the ball with more force than necessary, since you want to have more influence on how hard you want to hit the ball with your hands than the head of the putter. I've started out on preliminary sketches, but am nowhere near done with all of the possible designs. The first page has more simplistic designs, while the second is a bit more advanced, and harder to do calculations for.

  Reflection on Andy's Post on 2/11:
Andy is attempting to run a marathon by the summer, and I really appreciate how hard it is to run, and to run every day for miles. His project comes with a lot of hard work and dedication to his project, and I don't think I could run for 30 minutes every day, since I am not a running kind of guy. I also think he has a really nice, and simplistic way of approaching his goal, and that is to just run, run run, to improve his stamina, which I can't really do with my own project.

I wish Andy the best of luck with his goal and hope that he succeeds in running a whole marathon!

Ay ay ay! I didn't realize my phone took such huge pictures, I really don't think 2 MB was really necessary to capture this.

Anyways, these are just some sketches of possible face groove designs I could implement, if I decide to use grooves at all. Each set of grooves represents a unique solution to how the ball will roll off the face of a putter. Some grooves will help it roll smoother right away by hitting it with less backspin, others will try and correct for mis-hits. These are also the grooves recommended to me by my interviewee, who thought these five would be a good start to making my own set, or using one of these if I think it more advantageous than any other for my style of play.

The outline of the face behind the grooves also doesn't represent the actual shape of the head; it's merely a backdrop to help me visualize the grooves. Now I also want to talk about not having grooves, which I mentioned in my first post, because it's very possible I might not do it due to lack of correct drill bits or simply time. Putters didn't really have grooves until the 1980's, and before then putters still worked just fine, but it did take more skill, finesse, and knowledge of one's putter in order to use the putter to its full capabilities. Whether or not I choose to use grooves is not a decision to make right now, but it is one I'll be thinking about when designing heads, so that some may hit down more into the ball due to the moment of inertia of the putter head so that grooves to make the putter stay on the ground less needed, or a head with a more angled face to give the ball an extra nudge.

Okay! So first things first: my name is Wes Feeney and this is a blog about my senior project in high school for WISE English and will be continually updating it whenever i draw up new sketches, feel like writing out my progress of a few days, or just  posting pictures of what I've made or learned 
           My project is to make a golf putter. Not just assemble one or anything simple like that; I plan on actually milling the head and carving a shaft! Here's a picture of a modern day putter head for those unfamiliar with golf:

       Coincidentally this is actually the stock photo of the putter I use in competition now; notice it has no grooves along the face, which I will talk about in a later post.
      So you may ask now; why, Wes, do you want to make a putter? 
     Well, I've chosen to make one because I have an avid interest in both engineering and golf, and desgining golf clubs is a beautifully simplistic way of combining the two. The reason I'm making a putter and not something like a wedge, iron, or driver (google these if you don't know what they are/look like) is because it's the most simply to make. However, that does not imply at all that it's the easiest to perfect.
    My overall goal is simple: make a putter that I can use in competition and make it before the NYS high school golf championships in June. The little steps, and as my teacher Mr. Creagan put it, broad strokes (haha), along the way are going to be the challenge. 
    The first bit will be researching current putter head designs, groove desgins, and shaft and grip types. Then will be learning how to work a lathe and finish wood. Eventually I'll have CAD drawings of my head, and I'll mill it on the CNC mill in our school's technology department. 
   
    This project is the second of its kind I'm currently facing this year. The first would be in my class Engineering Desgin & Development, in which I'm working on a year long project using the design process. I think it'll be a real challenge of how I manage my time between the two projects, since both technically demand all of my time and energy. In making my putter though, I especially fear that I will screw up the milling of my head, since it'll be made of aluminum and I don't want to go about finding another 4x2 block of it.


  For my first two weeks I'll be brainstorming ideas for the face grooves, head, and shaft of my putter, and simply researching past solutions to the eternal problem of how to make a club hit it straight, no matter how bad the golfer.