I've found that electrical tape works well for masking. Stretchy enough to conform to the curves, tough enough to withstand the sand blasting, and doesn't tear when you remove it.
Let me know how the fc4000s go. I tried to Cerakote the face, but it looked too shiny to me. I made a video of it on the channel. Let me know what you're thinking about how to refinish the face. I'd love to know how we can do it at home.
@@BradMeehan luckily, the faces are in pretty darn good shape, as are the rest of the clubs... so far i have cleaned them up and knocked off the surface rust spots, and they look really good, they do need a good polish though, which i am not currently set up for, but am working on that and then re paint fill... i am hoping i can get away with not pulling the shafts, as the original brunswick crown ferrules are in great shape too... the clubs that need the most work are the peraimmons, as the finiah has been chipped pretty badly, thankfully the wood is sound, as is the whipping, so those will be a sand down and revarnish...
I just finished up a set of Wilson Fat Shafts for a buddy and he wanted me to use chameleon nail polish his wife had for the paint fills and I gotta say...they actually look incredible in the sunlight
I absolutely love these irons, my Dad gave me the predecessor to these, (but looked essentially the same), the Double Eagles in the 70s as my first clubs, a 2 iron was standard issue very different to my clubs of today, (although I do still keep a 2 iron in the bag).
@@BradMeehan Brad, I know that the original black Flame Ceramic finish MacGregor used cannot be faithfully reproduced in the way you have with Colokrom, but have you any thoughts on how a similar appearance could be restored?
@@graemetaylor4149 That's my next video! Check out Cerakote, which is a ceramic coating used on firearms. I haven't tried yet, so the video should be an interesting experiment. Looks promising as an option for the ceramic faced Macs. We'll see!
Dad has a complete set of those Colokroms and he just told me the other day to start going through all of his old sets of clubs. There were two sets of Macgregor irons and two Macgregor persimmon woods. Would love to have all of of those completely restored and back to original factory finish!
I'm a Wilson forged club fan and have a few sets that I play and collect. However, as much as I love my Wilsons, the M75/M85 Colokrom irons are some of the prettiest irons made in my opinion.
Mine too - I even have the re-issues from ~1985. I love the look. Did you see MacGregor released a modern version called the MT86 with the same wingback (no copper face, but CLASSIC look)? Check it out: www.macgregorgolf.com/more-pages/mt86-irons/
and again...Electro-Therapy in action... Hey Brad, just picked up a pitching wedge of the same model. Mine is pretty bad, but I might be able to resurrect it. I Will see if I can getter done.
Brad your work is amazing bring these clubs back to life .❤. just curious how do these restored golf clubs match up compared too the clubs we have in our bag today ? Cheers Gordon
Love your channel! Please keep making golf club restoration videos. Have you ever restored clubs to a brushed metal finish? I’m working on some old Cobra Baffler Blades and I love the brushed look after sanding. Just not sure how to maintain that look without them rusting quickly.
I've done some experiments with textures like brushed or matte. You could still nickel plate over the brushed metal and it will still show the linear scratches - just a touch shiner, but protected. Take a look at the Wilson Dyna-Powered video i made and look at the area by the logo. That area was nickel plated but it still looks muted versus shiny like the polished areas.
About plating a club... sometime you use nickel plating and some other time chrome... in which case on is better than the other to use... or is nickel used to help the chrome to better stick as an under layer?
In these videos, only doing nickel plating. Chrome is very expensive and not suitable for the home without a lot of safety equipment and disposal methods. The bright nickel looks like chrome, meaning it has brightener added so it's not as yellow as nickel. Chrome is more durable than nickel, so if you can find a plating shop that is reasonable, you can send the club heads there to be plated.
Love your videos…are you getting artsy with this ..or do you have a way of researching specs of each club..ie which color goes where..copper face etc etc…?
I try to stay close to the original as possible so there's a bit of research that happens. This model (Colokrom) had the copper faces. They were also reissued in 85. I have a book that describes each iron and there's a vintage golf forum on WRX that has a group of guys who are walking encyclopedias. Look up the Macgregor Centennial irons for a really cool face that is copper and chrome. I'm going to try and replicate it on a similar club called the Macgregor AT1.
Do you have any experience with doing other finishes? Black Oxide, oil can etc. Would love to see your take on it as your videos seem to show process a lot clearer than others!
Hi, Charles. My next video is going to be a black ceramic coating tutorial. However, I had to fly up to Michigan to take care of my mom, so it be a few weeks until I can make it. Stay tuned and please subscribe!
It really pulls out the impurities through an electrical charge on the part you're cleaning and the solution that's drenched in the wand. My newest video I'm editing now has a good visual of how well and fast it works.
How did you get the club face off the shaft? I have a set 1986 jack niclaus irons mcgregor irons and I can’t get the clubs head off. I tried heat, and at this point I am guessing they may be twisted on?
Absolutely beautiful. I am a little slow but did you buff them and then re nickel plate them and just brush on the copper. My 1956 M85s have no rust but copper showing through the chrome and a strong copper plating still on the face. Yours were so shinny after you buffed them I thought they would be just copper under the chrome. I guess I missed something.Also did you soak them in vinegar first. Well I don't expect you to give a plating 101 class but it does look great.
Thank you. Under the chrome, there is a layer of nickel over the copper, so I just polished the remaining nickel, re-nickel plated the whole thing to fill in any gaps, then brushe plated the copper face. I didn't use vinegar but instead used a dilute muriatic acid and water, which gives similar results. If you decide to try this, the nickel will bond directly to the copper on your clubs.
Is the electroplating at the end completely necessary? Will the club rust if not done? If only a buffing wheel is used, not deburring wheel, is electroplating still needed?
How did you get into the golf club refurbishment it is something I would like to get into but don’t know where to start do you have any recommendations
I bought some old junky clubs at a thrift store that I could ruin and bit by bit learned how to polish metal, re-plate nickel, etc. Mostly watched a lot of RU-vid videos then adapted what they were doing into a smaller scale for golf clubs. I realized NO ONE else was applying these techniques to golf, so it's mostly trial and error to find what works best for these small club heads. My advice is to buy a club you have no attachment to, ruin it, then un-ruin it. If you can make it even a little better than the condition you got it in, then you're successful. Then, you keep practicing until the steps you do are YOUR steps that you've adapted to fit your working style or level of perfection. I'm still learning too. That why I keep trying vastly different types of clubs in each video.
@@donovanstyger7913 Sure thing. Check out the description in the video for links to all of the equipment used in the process. Let me know if you have questions so you can be successful.
I've tried it and it sucked. The plating doesn't come off uniformly so if you leave it sit, the steel pits as the remaining nickel is removed. I generally leave the remaining nickel intact since I'm going to plate it anyway. Remember: I'm the laziest guy I know, so I want to do as little work as possible wand still get the highest quality results. Leaving OEM plating in place saves you tons of time and effort on the scale we're working.
They're a bit different. The nickel strike is used on bare steel to allow copper or other incompatible metals to bond to the steel. They need a thin layer of nickel to stick to since they can't bond to steel, but nickel will bond to steel, then copper will bond to nickel. The nickel activator is used to prep nickel (that's already on a club) to take on new bonds of more nickel. If not, it becomes sort of dormant, for lack of a better word, and you won't get a good bond. This gets it "active". I think there's a time limit to begin plating after activation. Like, within a few minutes.
My best advice is if you don't own one, buy the biggest one you can afford. It will be able to power real sand blasters paint guns, nail guns, polishers, etc. Mine sucks.
hello sir~ I salute you for your work. i am living in sauth korea. can i ask you questions? 1. I wonder what kind of medicine you use in the 5 minutes and 17 seconds video. 2. And do you polish the grooves? As a subscriber, I am also interested in restoring, so I ask you a question, so please reply even if it is annoying.
Also, loving your videos. I just picked up a set of Golden RAM Tom Watson grind blades that I am keen to play around with and try to bring back to their glory days.
Mine stinks. It's a very small compressor to fill tires, but still works for this application. If you don't own a compressor, I would buy the largest one you can afford. That will help you with air tools, paint guns, blasting cabinets, etc. Don't go cheap on the compressor. Get a big one.
If you’re afraid of how to get the shafts back on then i don’t think you should consider grinding out dings on the sole or giving the heads a muraticacid bath…
I had it at .5 amps. Still learning the optimal settings, so I'd start slow-n-low. It takes more time, but you're less likely to "burn" it. Also, if it does burn, you just polish it with a soft wheel and white compound.
will the deburring wheel remove or diminish the chrome plating? I have a set of Titleist 735-cm and I don't want to have to re-plate with chrome or alternatively plate with nickel.
I agree with Manuel. If you use too much pressure, are too aggressive, or do it to long, it will *eventually* get through the chrome. It's best to practice on a garage sale club so you get a feel for too little or too much.
They are large pieces of pure nickel. They are used to donate nickel to your club. The nickel ions leave the anode and attach to your club. This is how electroplating works. It's called a 'sacrificial anode' because its giving up nickel to go somewhere else.
You can with modern epoxy and the right tip size or shims. You'll just have that hole in the hosel where the pin was. It'd be an aesthetics thing, not really a function thing.
It's water and muriatic acid. You could use vinegar too, but it takes longer. It's just a dilute acid bath to remove the rust and etch the metal a little before sanding away the scratches.
@@justinbruce9779 that should be OK. You could use larger container and do all of them but the caveat is that once you strip them, the exposed steel will start to corrode pretty quickly. This is why I do one at a time so I can start polishing right away and not leave them to rust on the bench.
@@DancingD44 For me, I'm not playing it because it looks so cool. But you could. Guns are coated in nickel, so it's durable - but just not "chrome-durable", if that makes sense.
