About Golf Club Head
A golf club is used to strike the ball in the game of golf. It has a long shaft with a grip on one end and a weighted head on the other end. The head is affixed sideways at a sharp angle to the shaft, and the striking face of the head is inclined to give the ball a certain amount of upward trajectory.
Since playing golf is the sport so popular at home and abroad, there must be a large demand of golf clubs. Early golf clubs were made entirely of wood. Not only was this material easy to shape, but it was also soft enough not to damage the stuffed leather golf balls that were used until the mid-1800s. With the introduction of the hard rubber gutta-percha golf ball in 1848, golfers no longer had to worry about damaging the ball and began using clubs with iron heads. Because iron heads could be formed with sharply inclined striking faces without losing their strength, iron-headed clubs, called irons, were most often used for making shorter, high-trajectory shots, while wooden-headed clubs, called woods, were used for making longer, low-trajectory shots.
Today, the design and manufacture of golf clubs is both an art and a science. Some club makers use the very latest computeraided design and automated manufacturing techniques to build hundreds of thousands of clubs a year. Most golf club heads are produced by stainless steel using investment casting method.
Stainless Steel Investment Casting for Golf Club Head
The investment casting process differs greatly from forging method. With stainless steel material, no protective plating is required for golf club head. The head gets polished and is good to go. The process below describes how golf club heads are made by stainless steel investment casting process.
Before putting golf club head into production, the mold has to be made first according to the specification of golf club head. Stainless steel investment casting is a copy process and the mold is used for every club head.
As you can see, the mold is a mirror image of the club head. The mold has two parts to it and has a small opening on the side. The mold is inserted into a wax injection molding machine and boiling hot wax is injected into the mold. Then a wax model is finished which is the same as final golf club head. A wax model is made for every piece that is manufactured. For example a set of 9 golf club heads will require 9 wax models.
The wax models are then checked individually for minor blemishes and a fine nail file is used to remove excess wax particles that might be present on the mold. This is important as any imperfections on the wax mold will be present in the production of golf club head. Again, this takes place manually, and each golf club head piece is subject to this process.
The wax club heads are then melted onto a wax tree in groups of 14 and dipped into quicksand. The quicksand adheres to the wax and forms a shell around the outskirts of the mold. The tree is left to dry in a refrigerated room and this process is repeated five times.
Quicksand is used because it can withstand the extreme temperatures required when pouring the molten iron and also because of its ability to form a perfectly smooth shell around the intricate details of the wax club head.
Once the fifth round of quicksand has dried, the tree is inserted into a steam oven. The steam heats up the wax and it melts out from the inside of the quicksand tree. The top of the quicksand tree is shaped liked a funnel making it easy to pour the molten iron into the quicksand shell.
The quicksand molds are transported to a furnace as shown in. A stainless steel alloy is heated up to 1500° celsius at which point it becomes molten liquid and glows red hot. Once the metal is molten and the quick sand is the same temperature, the quicksand molds are removed from the furnace and walked across to the pouring station where the molten steel is poured into the quicksand mold.
The red hot quicksand molds containing the molten metal are placed on a shelf of sand and left to harden as in. Once the steel has hardened, the quicksand outer shell is cracked off the iron molds and the unpolished golf heads are exposed. At this stage the club heads are still connected to the tree.
The club heads are individually cut off of the tree by a metal cutter and the finishing process begins from a head looking like the one in avove picture.
CFS Stainless Steel Foundry is one of the top leading stainless steel casting manufacturer and exportor in China. We have been professional on casting such golf club heads for many years. Contact us if you have any inquiry on cast stainless steel golf club heads or other stainless steel investment castings.
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