The Power Fade Golf Blog

To start, I always like to point to my references. GolfWRX provides the background again:
http://www.golfwrx.com/forums/topic/53415-diary-of-a-wedge-grind/
http://www.golfwrx.com/forums/topic/22167-grinding-a-wedge/

Grinding a wedge is a pretty neat process. It takes a lot of patience, care, and confidence to do it right. But making a club that’s exactly to your own specs is pretty amazing–and, of course, I wouldn’t do it if it weren’t at least a little fun.

I started with an old wedge–Tommy Armour. It had an ungodly amount of bounce, so I decided it was a good test piece. If you don’t have a wedge you want to sacrifice, Golfsmith sells grinding blanks for $10/head (see http://www.golfsmith.com/products/SE2886/Snake_Eyes/Custom_Grind_Wedge_Head). Pics of my starting wedge below:

Before starting, you need:
1) either a belt sander or a grinding wheel
2) a sharpie
3) gloves
4) safety glasses

For my wedge grind, I decided to pull the shaft from the head, as it’s usually easier to maneuver the head by itself without the shaft.

As shown in the references, the next thing to do is mark the grind with a sharpie. My goal was to replicate the Chikara wedge grind. Photos below show the Chikaras and my sharpie marking.

The advice from the WRX postings is to start where you have the most room to mess up–or, in other words, start with the place where the most material will be taken off, as you can fix a problem there easily. This was GREAT advice, as you really need to get a feel for it as you go.

I added the passes in relation to the shapie markings. The result…less than stunning.

The reason for the “bad” results was that I used a grinder. A stationary belt sander would work a whole lot better and make a much smoother cut.

However, not to worry. A WRX’er suggested that I use a metal file to smooth out the bumps. After some elbow grease, the grind looked smooth and consistent.

After a bit of sanding, the grind was done.

Altogether, I enjoyed the project. I’m not sure I’m ready to try it on my gamers. I took off A LOT of material, and I think the weight of the head really went down. However, I enjoyed the process, and now I know I COULD do it if I really wanted to.

Happy club work!

Oh, and, BTW, happy Valentine’s Day!