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.