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Follow along and help me out as I make a putter "mine"

Nippon Shafts
GopherNut

GopherNut

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I recently purchased a very "well played" putter for a $5 bill at a local golf shop that I frequent. It is a Tight Lies - not Adams - mallet putter that I haven't seen on ebay for the past 3 months so I don't know how rare it is or how old it is.

What I do know is that I LOVE the weight and feel of the club. This thread is being set up to show off my progress as I repair it and bring it to a new condition again and customize it to make it truly one of a kind.

As with any project, I would appreciate some honest, educated opinions on what I should be doing or shouldn't be doing so feel free to chime in at any point. Thanks!
 
Good luck, I refinished a couple of vokeys I had lying around, it's a fun experience. Be sure to post before and after pics, I love stuff like that
 
Good luck! I'd love to see some pics of the way it looks now so we can see the progress.

GopherNut said:
I recently purchased a very "well played" putter for a $5 bill at a local golf shop that I frequent. It is a Tight Lies - not Adams - mallet putter that I haven't seen on ebay for the past 3 months so I don't know how rare it is or how old it is.

What I do know is that I LOVE the weight and feel of the club. This thread is being set up to show off my progress as I repair it and bring it to a new condition again and customize it to make it truly one of a kind.

As with any project, I would appreciate some honest, educated opinions on what I should be doing or shouldn't be doing so feel free to chime in at any point. Thanks!
Click to expand...
 
Looking forward to seeing its new look man, I'm sure you'll do wonders with it.
 
depending on how beat up it is, I like to use a scotchbrite 6" buffing pad on a grinder to get the shine back into the putter...but its easier to remove the paint fill first....just get some tal strip paint remover, a big jug of it was like 7 bucks at walmart. Remove the paint, and then hit the putter with the grinding pad.....if you dont have a grinder you can get an attachment for a drill, or use a dremel tool polishing kit but I found that the dremel wasnt heavy duty enough for what I was doing. then after that hit the head with some acetone....just dip a golf brush in acetone and give the head a scrub....then let it dry and hit it with paint fill. Pretty simple process. If you want I can post some pics of a ping anser that i refinished using that same process. It came out pretty sweet.
 
Have fun, should be a blast.
 
I'm bookmarking this thread, so keep it comin'!
 
Before pictures:

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As you can see, it is pretty dinged up and has a material amount of paint missing. Nothing the Dremmel can't take care of!
 
I'm looking forward to following this one. Let's have a look at it as is now so we can snicker about how much work you have ahead of you!

Edit: You beat me to it....yeah you do have your work cut out for you!
 
If you plan on pulling the shaft at any point, carberatur (sp?) cleaner will take the paint off in a couple of minutes. You could still use it if you aren't going to pull the shaft but you'll have to be careful not to loosen the epoxy. (pulling the shaft and getting it done by :vibrant: or replacing it with one from :vibrant: would be great)
 
c_ault said:
If you plan on pulling the shaft at any point, carberatur (sp?) cleaner will take the paint off in a couple of minutes. You could still use it if you aren't going to pull the shaft but you'll have to be careful not to loosen the epoxy. (pulling the shaft and getting it done by :vibrant: or replacing it with one from :vibrant: would be great)
Click to expand...

My new Scotty and your seemore are going to be taking a little trek down to vibrant in a few weeks :)
 
As of right now I'm not planning to pull the shaft and don't plan to have the shaft vibrant treated. That may change. :disdain: The factory shaft is in perfect shape after I took some "goo gone" to it to remove some tape and the shaft band.

Update: I used a sanding drum on my dremmel to take off most of the paint from the larger flat surfaces. I also used a grinding bit to carefully remove high spots around the major dings to smooth them out.

Here's a shot after the first pass.

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I've restored a couple of hundred putters in the past ten years and it is a great hobby. Good luck in your work and let me know if you need any advice.
 
Its coming along nicely, thanks for the update photos.
 
this will be a fun thread to follow
 
Leave it ugly!
 
griff said:
Leave it ugly!
Click to expand...

Heck no! I have big hopes for this club! :D

After making a first pass with the Dremmel, I spent a good chunk of time over the past couple nights using an old fashion hand metal file smoothing out the dings and getting the face cleaned up. I filed diagonally both directions and I was shocked to see how curved the face was, even where the paint was still on it. It was NOT a "flat stick". After a couple hours of filing, it's getting close to the next step.

The next step - using JB Weld to fill in the stamping on the bottom of the club. I will over-fill the stamps so I can file the JB Weld off and get the bottom perfectly smooth, leaving no traces of who originally made the club. My plan is to custom stamp the bottom.

For the stamping on the bottom, I'm thinking: K.A.ROSSOW (my initials/name) and possibly: PROTOTYPE #1
any other suggestions or ideas?

I will avoid things like "TOUR USE ONLY" because A: I don't play on a tour, and B: Some company named after a guy named Scotty already uses that. :act-up:

I haven't thought of a clever name for it but I have the full stamp set and am eager to do something unique yet not too wild since I want to use this putter and not be distracted. i.e. - no "snowflake" patterns all over the top of the putter.
 
wow some project you have there. cant wait to see the finale.
 
Here are some shots of the face all finished up. It's as smooth as glass after what seemed like an hour of filing.

I'm debating if I should take it out to the garage to the polishing wheel or if that would just be overkill? Okay, I'll probably do that later tonight or tomorrow. :D

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2011-03-25%2017.25.35.jpg
 
Wow its really started to look great! Nice work!
 
Ok, perhaps keeping it ugly was a bad idea. Great work. Are you going to coat it, torch it, paint it, plate it? I'd polish the face to a mirror. Maybe rough up the rest and color it to your liking. Be interesting to see what you do.
 
cammyandcarter said:
My new Scotty and your seemore are going to be taking a little trek down to vibrant in a few weeks :)
Click to expand...

That should turn out nice. Don't know about vibrant on a seemore, the bottom 8" are coated a flat black to use with the RST but I'm sure it can be done and work out great.

GopherNut said:
As of right now I'm not planning to pull the shaft and don't plan to have the shaft vibrant treated. That may change. :disdain: The factory shaft is in perfect shape after I took some "goo gone" to it to remove some tape and the shaft band.
Click to expand...

It's good that the shaft is in great shape. Don't know about vibrant if it changes the feel at all but...


GopherNut said:
Here are some shots of the face all finished up. It's as smooth as glass after what seemed like an hour of filing.

I'm debating if I should take it out to the garage to the polishing wheel or if that would just be overkill? Okay, I'll probably do that later tonight or tomorrow. :D
Click to expand...

The face looks great. Did you keep the same loft?
 
wow... shined that face up great.
 
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