Re: ShopTalk: Re: Kevin Cahill's Spine Finder

[Macbyrd]

In a message dated 11/25/2003 5:50:28 PM Hawaiian Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The FLO will be on the TRUE spine and NBP planes. Dave,   This is an area where we could beat this horse to death. This "true" spine & "true" NBP definition that you bring up used to bother a great deal. Still does but not to the same extent once I realized that primarily you and some others have "hijacked" these definitions from what they were in the early days of this forum. This is not to say that the shaft properties and characteristics you describe don't have a valid place in our discussions. I would strongly argue that they do. I only have issues with your changing the definitions.   As Colin Dick and others postulated in the early goings "spine" was defined as a "high point" position(s) on the shaft where the shaft resisted rolling towards and easily rolled away from. NBP being the antithesis of that characteristic. Because these areas may be found in more than one spot on a graphite shaft (and not necessarily 180* apart or perfectly perpendicular to each other) they are believed to be the result of the manufacturing process. Because of their multiple and oftentimes asymmetrical positions they are not being caused simply by residual bend.   What you describe as "true spine" and "true NBP" are simply the strongest & weakest planes. Nothing more and nothing less in terms of cpm. However I will argue that these should not be easily dismissed in terms of overall shaft performance and alignment. While there seems to be higher likelihood of finding FLO on the strongest plane I would caution using the weakest plane as an indicator of FLO without a separate test for FLO. This assumes that FLO has any real world effect on shaft performance, which is another argument that can take on a life of it's own. My reasoning about the weakest plane argument for FLO is simply that a shaft in a position where it is oscillating with random abandonment can return a low cpm reading and not be anywhere close to FLO. If you want to argue that there is a high likelihood of finding another FLO area perpendicular to the high cpm FLO area then I will agree. This is not a 100% likelihood in my experience but it will definitely get you close.   It may obvious that this is largely about semantics. True. I believe it helps our discussions if there is agreement concerning our definitions. For myself, correctly or incorrectly, I will adhere to the classic definition of spine/NBP and treat cpm values separately. If they happen to coincide then "whoopie!"   It's still kind of curious to me why Arnie, having chosen a particular spine orientation, seems to concern himself with FLO. Maybe he's not telling us the whole story as he sees it. :-)         Rich "Mac" McHattie Mac's Golf