Two bad knees and a multi stress fractured L suffered 16 years ago has left me with a very low SS for a otherwise fairly strong 58 yr old male.
When my swing mostly arms is good I play them dead even outside of about 10 yr per club distance difference. The blades bring me joy. Hi Matt, You summerize very well the debate around playing blades.
Your last statement applies to me. I love golf clubs and in particulier, irons. I am playing blades because, feel, higher center of gravity in certains models which I prefer and the look at address. I like to see a small head without lot of offset. Best regards,.
Grew up on blades and persimmon, migrated to game improvement and metal. Have been as low as a 4 and currently a wobbly 9 handicap. Returned to blades and persimmon 2 years ago courtesy of a great conversation with Mike Just of Louisville Golf God bless his memory.
Your last paragraph says it all. Thanks very much for all the good work, really enjoy the site! All the best in I also play blades for the same reason all the other commentors play them too.
But I remember reading something from Terry Koehler a few years back, prior the Hogan relaunch, that had data about mishits with blades vs cb. All the data showed mishits with cb had a wider dispersion from the target line than blades. The blades stayed closer to the target line while lost considerable distance. That means the ball is 10 yards from the target line. The face twisted less because of the higher MOI, so the shot is more accurate as a percentage, however because it traveled 1.
EDIT: We already did the test. Doing ok. Play to a 10 to I really think the feedback they have me helped me markedly improve. Something to be said for striking the ball well being better than buying equipment to correct it. As always, love the site and reviews. I love to see my for their brightness, their shape and mostly I love to play them. I go to the golf course and see people with huge cavity backs hit slice after slice.
It reminds me of once when I went to a karate school and the instructor told me they were very careful to train so as not to hurt anyone. The degree to which bad shots are attributed to mishits as opposed to just plain bad swings seems to me grossly overstated.
An open club face is an open club face and the ball will slice with a blade or any other club. I think this is one of the most significant information for me. Thank for sharing! In terms of forgiveness I find there is really very little in the difference, roughly 5 yards with toe strikes. I played mp5s and then jpx Recently purchased mp18s. The look of the smaller blade head is so much more attractive than the only slightly larger jpx.
Would you still reccommend a cavity iron for me? If you want to play MBs, play MBs. I just struck them better than any of the cavity backs I tried and had better dispersion. In fact, only around percent of the top PGA Tour players used blades as recently as the season. In fact, of the Top 50 PGA players in strokes gained: approach to the green in , 44 percent actually gamed cavity-back irons, 30 percent play a mixed set, and the remaining quarter used blades, according to research conducted by Golf Magazine.
Another article by Australian Golf Digest revealed that at the Players Championship there were 26 players who used a full set of blade irons, however at the tournament — a decade later — the number of players gaming a complete set of muscle backs was just 13 a decline of 50 percent.
A blade iron is forged out of a block of steel, meaning there is no weight dispersion — what you forge is what you get. By comparison, a cavity-back iron is hollowed out so that the weight can be distributed around the perimeter of the club head.
This provides more forgiveness, meaning off-centre strikes with cavity-back irons will deviate less from their intended target line than a blade iron might. Most golfers think that as your game improves, you should graduate from playing cavity-back irons to blade irons. They think that moving into muscle-backs will help them became an even better player — one who strikes the ball flush every time they hit a shot, and is able to bend the ball left and right at will like Tiger Woods.
But having done a lot of reading and spoken to professional club fitters — most recently when I bought my new set of Srixon ZX7 irons — I can say with certainty that my views on this have definitely changed. In most cases, learning to play golf with blades will hinder your progress, rather than help it — especially as a beginner.
I've been playing golf for over 40 years now and there are now a load of things looking back I wish I had paid more attention to. And one of those things was simply putting a bit more thought into But is that really true? Shot shaping — Blades allow golfers with high enough club head speeds to generate more spin off the clubface.
And more spin allows you to curve your shots more easily and stop them more quickly on the green. Lower launch — Hitting a golf ball with blades typically launches the ball at a lower angle and consequently golfers, particularly those who frequently play in the wind, can benefit from more predictable and accurate shots.
Some players just also prefer hitting the ball lower. A bag full of very shiny chrome finished blades looks better, especially when they sparkle in the sun! With less weight behind the clubface than cavity backs, and a centre of gravity closer to the club face, there is simply less room for error.
Less distance — Due to the lower launch angle delivered by the slower club head speeds of the vast majority of golfers blades do not go as far as cavity back clubs. Golfers typically get distance from hitting their irons higher, not lower. Lower launch — Although potentially great in the wind golfers typically will find the lower launch angle generated by blades makes it harder for them to stop the ball on the green.
Unwanted shot shaping — Due to a combination of mishits and other swing issues blades again give with one hand and take away with the other when it comes to shaping shots. Tongs are used to hold the steel while shaping it on the anvil. They are also used to place steel in the forge and retrieve it, and for quenching the steel.
Forge - The tools mentioned above allow you to shape the steel once it's hot. To heat the steel requires a forge. Types of forges include coal , gas and electric. Most bladesmiths have one of these three for their main forge. The time and temperature can vary greatly depending on the steel used and the bladesmith's own technique. Quench tank - A large metal container full of oil, the steel is submerged in the quench tank after it has been shaped.
The oil used in the quench tank improves the hardening of the steel. Slack tub - This is simply a large barrel or container of water used to cool the steel and tools. Additional tools - Most bladesmiths have some or all of the tools listed here to round out their smithy.
Also, a complement of standard tools, such as screwdrivers, saws, pliers and wrenches are useful. Once the tools are in place, then the bladesmith needs to decide what he is making and what kind of steel to use The alloy used is almost always a form of carbon steel. But too much carbon decreases the flexibility of the blade, making it brittle and more likely to break. Jim Hrisoulas, author of "The Complete Bladesmith," recommends a steel with a carbon content of around 60 to 70 points.
In steel, carbon content is listed as points with each point equaling 0. Therefore, a 70 point rating means that the alloy has 0. Don Fogg actually uses steel. However, the higher the rating doesn't always mean better steel. A process of careful heat-treating allows for very hard blades that are resilient and tough.
Photo courtesy Don Fogg Knives The steel in a sword should have a carbon rating of 60 to 70 points. Most of the steel alloys include one or more of the following elements, each one providing certain advantages and some disadvantages. While the elements listed below are the most common, there are many others that may appear in an alloy. Before choosing a metal, the bladesmith creates a design for the blade and determines what the most important characteristics for that blade will be.
For example, a slim blade like a rapier needs to be very flexible while a broadsword needs greater hardness and strength. The bladesmith also decides what method to use for creating the blade. This will determine which metals can be used, particularly stainless steel alloys. Stainless steel is incredibly difficult to forge and temper properly, but a bladesmith can purchase stainless steel bars and grind them into shape using the stock removal process.
In stock removal, a sword blade is made by taking a stock piece of steel and removing portions of it by cutting and grinding until you have the desired shape. Most bladesmiths prefer the flexibility that forging provides them with when creating custom swords. A forged blade is created by heating the metal and pounding it into shape. Forged swords may contain a single metal or a combination of metals. The easiest and most common form of forged sword uses a single steel alloy to create the blade.
Designs are sometimes engraved or etched into the steel to simulate the more complicated pattern welding and Damascus blades. Pattern welding , also called laminate steel or pattern-welded Damascus steel see below , uses two or more metals combined together during the forging process.
Typically, layers of a steel alloy are combined with layers of a softer metal, such as nickle. The layers are folded onto each other numerous times, which helps to further remove any impurities in the metal. It also greatly multiplies the total number of layers. If a bladesmith starts out with three layers of nickle sandwiched between four layers of steel, then a single fold will double the number of layers to Another fold would make 28 layers and a third one would create a total of 56 layers!
As the folding continues, the softer metal welds or glues the layers of steel together to form a single whole. The softer metal layers give the sword greater flexibility without sacrificing the hardness of the steel needed for the cutting edge. Once the blade is complete, it is given an acid wash that brings out the contrast between the metals used. The patterns created by the different metals add incredible beauty to the blade and can be quite intricate.
Damascus Steel A technique that was considered lost for many centuries, true Damascus steel has often been confused with pattern-welded steel. In fact, many sword makers and sellers still refer to pattern-welded blades as Damascus steel. Verhoeven, A. Pendray and W. Dauksch published an article in the September issue of the Journal of Metallurgy about Damascus steel that turned the sword-making world upside down.
They assert that true Damascus steel is wootz steel. Wootz was a form of steel made in India that had a very high carbon content. When the steel was forged, some of the carbon would separate into bands. These bands would appear very light in color and the rest of the steel would become quite dark when polished and etched.
The result was a highly contrasted pattern. As bladesmiths learned how to work with the wootz steel, they discovered that they could make the patterns very intricate by changing the angle of the blade in relation to the bands of carbon and steel.
Traditional bladesmiths tend to use coal forges, but many others prefer the gas or electric forge. Steel becomes red hot around to degrees Fahrenheit to degrees Celsius and glows orange at about F C.
Most steel alloys should be worked somewhere within this range. If the steel is cooler and appears bluish in color, it can be shattered by the hammering. Conversely, the steel should not be heated any higher than F C unless specified by the alloy's use guidelines. After the steel is heated, the first step is called drawing-out. When you draw out a piece of steel, you are increasing the length of the steel and reducing the thickness.
In other words, you are flattening it into the basic sword shape. By hammering along one edge, the bladesmith can make the length of steel gradually curve to create a curved sword. Next, the bladesmith begins to taper the blade. Tapering is used to create the tip and tang of the blade. It is accomplished by hammering at an angle, beginning at the point where the taper should start and continuing to the end of the blade. Often, the tapering will create a bulge in the blade's thickness that will need to be drawn out.
Once the tang is complete, the bladesmith will normally use a tap and die set to make threads on the end of the tang for the pommel to screw onto. The bladesmith will continue to work on the blade a section at a time. He does this by heating that part of the blade usually about 6 to 8 inches, or
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