Robert (and others who may be interested):
I have articles on FLO (not flow) and spine at:
http://www.tutelman.com/golf/shafts/FLOphysics.php
http://www.tutelman.com/golf/shafts/allAboutSpines.php
They contain a lot more than just your questions -- a LOT more. But
let me take a shot at the short form of the answers to your
questions. If you want more detail, read the articles.
At 11:19 AM 7/10/2009, Robert Devino wrote:
Don is right about the flowing. we had plenty of shafts that after
being Pured would almost go in circles when you went to frequency them.
I find that a little surprising, but credible. PUREing is supposed to
be the most stable FLO plane according to them. (At least according
to their literature from some years ago. They seem to have gone
Madison Avenue in the last couple of years, and spout technobabble
that I can't understand. The new party line isn't really engineering
as far as I can tell, just "product differentiation".)
Here is a question. Does flowing really, I mean really make a difference?
You don't do FLO because FLO makes a difference. You do it because it
is the most reliable way to find the spine and NBP. See the article
on FLO physics for the reasoning. But the reasoning is really basic
engineering.
Finding a spine with a bearing-based spine finder is much less
reliable; except with Type 2 shafts, it is completely unreliable. The
reasoning for that is given in the article on spines. And again, it
is really basic engineering.
When you flow a shaft your only checking to see that it moves
consistently through one plane. When we swing the club the shaft
actually bends on two planes (back and down) So is only checking it
on one plane really doing anything?
You betcha!!!
That's why it is so hard to come up with any good theory on why spine
alignment makes a difference. This is also covered in the spine
article. Along with a picture of Jack Nicklaus demonstrating that the
plane of the spine (or NBP) is only briefly the plane in which the
shaft is bending.
BTW, you an TFlan are spot-on about the precision -- or really the
lack of precision -- by which a clubmaker can align a shaft. But the
required precision isn't that great either. The articles discuss how
critical this really is -- and it is a function of how strong the
spine is. The stronger the spine, the greater the penalty for a given
amount of misalignment.
Cheers!
DaveT
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