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Bernie and all STer's,
Just a little epistle about this
subject on a slow winter Sunday. With all the comments on the Harrison
shafts here and the marketing comments on the shafts from Harrison, I decided to
splurge a little and try one of their shafts. I purchased two Stripper
Titanium shafts, one in blue, and one in yellow from McCann in Columbus,
Ohio. I like to see what I am buying when I get new stuff so bought it
there at a little higher price than I could get it on-line. When I got it
to the shop and prepared install the yellow one on an Integra 450cc SoLong
Iridescent Blue head something was amiss. When I first set it up in a dry
fit position, the Harrison Silkscreen was such that it was aligned wrong with
the "paintless window" in the paint that "proves" that Harrison put Titanium
Fibers in the composition of the shaft. The blue one aligned fairly close,
but still looked like it was off center favoring the left side of the shaft
alignment to the face of the club. But at least it was not skewered off
center to the "window" of no paint. Since McCann did not have another
yellow shaft, I stopped at Global Golf in Westerville, Ohio on my next trip to
the big city, (they are about 5 blocks from where I lived in Westerville for
about 12 years) since I got a newsletter from them saying that they just started
carrying the Harrison Stripper shafts. I asked for a yellow Stripper, and
she had to bring me three of them before I got one that was silk-screened
properly. Also the color yellow on the first shaft from McCann was more
the golden yellow color I expected from the ads for Harrison shafts.
The newer shafts are more a lime yellow color similar to the Bang Mellow Yellow
heads.
Anyway, my question to you all, is
does the "window" that has no paint on it cause spine alignment problems, would
the frequency of the shaft be changed because of the "window"? The paint
like Bernie says is quite thick and the "paintless window" is really a
noticeable depression. My checks on spine show that there is not a noticeable
inclination of the window and the the primary spine of the shaft. Has
anyone else checked this out? What are the experiences of others with this
shaft, or has anyone else used this shaft yet? I know Bernie is not
impressed with their marketing, but have you checked any of these newer shafts
from Harrison? What are the consistencies with these shafts? Anyone
a Harrison fan out there that has used these shafts and how they perform and how
consistent they are?
I contacted the Harrison Site,
expecting some sort of resolution, wanting to get a shaft without the "window",
but was told:
"We want to thank you for your comments
re. the window. Not paying for anything that you cannot see is as American as it
gets. The window was there for the simple reason that consumers may not believe
us if they cannot see it."
In my question to them, I expressed trust in their company's
products and that I did not need to be shown in a little paintless window
depression that they were giving me what I paid big $$$ for. Yea, like
this little windows says "Titanium Threads" to me!! I just needed a shaft
that the silkscreen was aligned properly and that the colors were consistent
from shaft to shaft, so I could sell a set of clubs to a guy and make changes,
repairs, or a new club to match his set.
Harrison replied
with:
"Thank you for your
comment. We do apologize for the discrepancy on the yellow. The yellow
color is very difficult to control. Depending on the speed in which the
shaft is painted. It will show different. Faster speed will give you more orange
color. Slow speed will give you lighter color. The
yellow shafts are painted
by a selected few workers to minimize differences. Nevertheless, it is done by
human. There will be some differences."
Pretty good for a
company to sell me products that they have to "prove" to me that what is in
their advertisements actually exists in their product then turn around and say
they cannot reproduce their product "color" consistently!!!!! This
also with no mention of the silkscreen problem and how I was to resolve
it. If I had a professional clubmaker that sent me this inquiry, I
would have got a correct product and sent it to him post haste and had him
return the one that was defective..... no questions asked. Answering an
email to a customer with a problem with my product with the fact that it is hard
to produce a consistent color and advertising agency hypo is not a way to keep
customers, let alone get new ones!
I guess since they had my money on the first few shafts, they
were satisfied and did not want my continued business. I won't hurt their
sales by not purchasing their shafts, because I never bought them before this
little episode, but they won't get more of my money now for sure and I will use
the defective silk-screened shaft, but turn the silkscreening top side down, so
the customer does not see the "sh**t" that exists as a "quality" product from
Harrison Sports.
I still hate it that Fenwick went out of the "golf" shaft
business, because you got what they quoted without a little "window" and it was
a real quality product for a moderate price. They didn't make a bad shaft
in my book. You had to scrape the paint off to get their shafts in the
hosel. Their specs were that close on the shaft, and they always fit the
hosel when inserted in a quality head. Not swim around in the hosel and
need "shafting" beads to get them centered. Too bad that a quality shaft
company was driven out by hype and advertisement.
Sorry to rant on, but it is a slow Sunday as I said and wanted a
little shoptalk to jazz things up
Dr Voo
RxGolf Custom Clubs
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On
Behalf Of Bernie Baymiller
Sent: Sunday, December 08, 2002 10:51 AM
To:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: ShopTalk: Golf Crap In
General
RK,
>Rich Beem of Thursday was talking about
his new 9* driver and how he could
not get the ball in the air >with it,
he said that it had tendancy to nose
dive off the face of the clubhead
compared to the other guys >he was playing
with in the pratice round with
who were hitting 7 & 8* drivers. He then
went on to say
>how the weight of just the paint was causing this and how
after removing
the paint he was now hitting >the ball higher. I
wonder
just how many of us would thought of that??? How many of
us would of even
>concidered the weight of the paint.
Just what I
want to do is strip the paint off my driver. No, I wouldn't have
thought of
that, or even considered it. :-) Think I'd just have asked them
find a
lighter head in the pile.
But, I do consider paint weight on shaft
weights all the time. Almost all
shaft manufacturers seem to cheat on their
spec shaft weights...using the
"before paint" weight for the spec. Aldila
specs their Longwood 50/50 R
between 50 and 55 grams depending on the
supplier. It's actually 57 grams.
UST is terrible about this...that ugly
yellow paint job is lots of grams and
not even a consistent weight
shaft-to-shaft, from what I've seen. Graman and
SK Fiber are two of the the
few that seem to have an honest spec.
Bernie
Writeto:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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