Aldila Rogue 130MSI White Golf Shaft Review

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Aldila Rogue 130MSI White Driver Shaft Review

By Russ Ryden, Fit2Score, A Dallas Fort Worth Club Fitter & Club Maker
The Highlands Performance Golf Center, Carrollton Texas 
Golf Digest Certified America’s 100 Best Club Fitter

The Aldila Rogue driver shafts have now all been reissued with 130 MSI prepreg. The Aldila website informs us that Mitsubishi Chemical fiber and prepreg is used exclusively in the shaft. Mitsubishi acquired Aldila several years ago. Aldila and Mitsubishi are one of the few brands, perhaps the only brand, in the business to produce the materials their shafts are made with. Lets look at the EI profiles.

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Russ

Shimada Iron Shafts

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Shimada Iron Golf Shaft

By Russ Ryden, A Golf Digest America’s 100 Best Clubfitter
Fit2Score, Dallas Fort Worth, Texas

In response to a request from a viewer, the Shimada iron shaft data available on my old shaft review page has been resurrected. it has been some time since I measured these and some of the data now shown in the current reviews is not available. The review samples are no where to be found in the shop.

Siimada_EIDfTb

The profiles look much like the new TourTemper XP 95 S flex design, That same design is available in different weights and stiffness.

 

Golf Shaft Deflection

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Modeling Static Load Deflection

By Russ Ryden, A Golf Digest America’s 100 Best Clubfitter
Fit2Score, Dallas Fort Worth, Texas

Understanding the differences in golf shafts has never been easy. Bending is the product of the elastic modulus E and the area moment of inertia I of the beam cross section at a point on the beam. The formula looks like this:

w is the bending of the beam, x is the location and k is the curvature. This is the fundamental science used by all golf shaft designers of significance. It makes simple sense to use the same system to understand their designs.

Working with my friend and technical mentor, Dave Tutelman, I added deflection modeling to my shaft knowledge base. Deflection can be calculated from EI. Knowing the EI of 36 sections of a driver shaft, a composite bend can be modeled with weight as a variable. This illustrations shows the EI profile of two shafts on the left. On the right the shafts are loaded with different weights to model their deflection when loaded.

I picked these two shafts to illustrate the value of knowing the EI profile of golf shafts. These two shafts are both rated by their respective manufacturers as S flex. The EI profile shows the butt and tip stiffness to be about the same. And yet, they show very different bend patterns when loaded as shown on the right.

The loading illustration is what you would see if you used a deflection board. I borrowed this image of a deflection board from GolfWorks.This is a classic tool used by club makers to understand shaft bending properties and to rate stiffness.

Frequency instruments have replaced this instrument in most club makers shops. Frequency gauges give the club maker a number which many software systems translate into stiffness. What is not seen on frequency instruments is the bend profile seen on a deflection board. The shortcoming of deflection boards is that they do not quantify the bend profile, leaving the club maker to compare bend properties with tracings.

Using EI values along the shaft, the deflection profile can be calculated and quantified as shown. This lets shaft engineers translate the matrix of material properties used in the shaft, wall thickness, wall diameter and taper rate into computer simulated bend properties of a golf shaft. All major shaft design companies have created software to model their ideas before they develop prototype shafts.

My EI instrument brings the shafts we play with back into modeling. The club fitter, equipped with EI measurements, understands the bend properties of the shafts he fit with. That understanding is why it was necessary to invent my own instrument and system for measuring golf shafts. The fitters that are authors on this site understand the golf shafts they fit with from this perspective.

The load applied during a golf swing is transformed into shaft deflection. That deflection is what you feel as stiffness when you swing. Feel feedback helps you time your swing. The EI bend profile determines not only the amount of deflection but also the shape of the deflection. And that shape influences how your swing/shaft interaction presents the club head to the ball at impact.

Aldila RIP Alpha Hybrid Golf Shaft Review

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Aldila RIP Alpha Hybrid

By Russ Ryden, A Golf Digest America’s 100 Best Clubfitter
Fit2Score, Dallas Fort Worth, Texas

HB2014AldilaRIPImage

This is not a new shaft from Aldila, it was released several years ago. It was the pioneering release of Reverse Interlaminar Placement in Aldila shafts. It has been used in all subsequent shafts. It has never been clear to me exactly what was done. Their illustrations show bias plies at both the inner and outer wraps of the shaft. Most premium shafts over the last few years have adapted to some variation of this layup design.

What brought the RIP to my attention was the release of the KBS Tour V and the Nippon Modus3 Tour 130 designs. Both have a long stable butt and mid with a rapid loss of stiffness toward the tip in the high tip section of the shaft. When working on my Hybrid fitting system I saw this pattern in the RIP Alpha Hybrid.

AldilaRIPHybridEiDfTbI secured a few more review samples from Aldila and took a hard look at the model. It has really low tip torque numbers and excellent radial consistency. If you are familiar with the table from other reviews you will notice that the format of the balance column has changed. It is now expressed in terms of the midpoint of the shaft. A positive number indicates the balance is above the midpoint, a negative number below the midpoint. This makes it easier to see the amount of counterbalance build into a shaft. What we see in the Alpha is a ‘balanced’ shaft.

RIPHybridDeflecting

In future reviews you will see deflection profiles The EI profiles I have been using may cause some confusion and consternation when looking at the charts. You can see unusual peaks and valleys is many designs. This is not how the shaft bends. That is how the designer tailored the stiffness of the shaft to create a bend profile. In this illustration you can see increasing and decreasing load applied to the EI numbers and watch how the shaft bends in response to loading and unloading.

The Aldila RIP Hybrid shaft profile, what one shaft company tour rep explained as convex vs concave when discussing two popular models, is seeing a lot of play recently. I found an example of two shafts with similar butt and tip stiffness and in my new bend modeling software applied increasing tip loads to the shafts to help me envision how these two extremes compare to each other. LoadingAnamation
This is new methodology, I am not aware of any other software implementation of load modeling based on EI profiles. What we clearly see here is the mid shaft stiffness creating a propensity for a lower launch. What you also see is the importance of matching the load you apply to a shaft. Shafts that are too stiff for you barely bend, giving you a boardy feeling. Shafts that are too soft, bend too much. As they recover from applied load during the reduced acceleration that happens just before impact, they add too much variation to head speed and orientation. That is why being properly fit into a shaft is a huge factor in shot dispersion.

When warm weather returns to Dallas we will get to reaction from the local golf professionals comparing the feel of these two designs.

Graphite Design Tour AD MT Golf Shaft Review

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GRAPHITE DESIGNS TourAD MT DRIVER SHAFT

By Russ Ryden, Fit2Score, A Dallas Fort Worth Club Fitter & Club Maker
The Golf Center at the Highlands, Carrollton Texas

GD AD MT Image

The Graphite Design Tour AD line continues in 2014 with another variation on the theme.  The Tour AD MT has the familiar Graphite Design look. The profile follows the same basic design, stiff butt, rapidly losing stiffness toward the tip, and then sharply gaining stiffness into the tip. The difference in the Tour AD models is the mid section. Starting with the 2011 Tour AD DJ, a mid shaft stiffness bump was added. The placement and degree of this bump sets the launch propensity of the shaft.

In the Tour AD BB, the ‘bump’ is subtle and in the low mid region of the shaft. In the Tour AD GT, it moved back and was more pronounced. The mid section ‘bump’ in the Tour AD MT falls in about the same region as the Tour AD GT, it is followed by a rapid loss of stiffness to 16″ then the shaft quickly gains stiffness toward the tip.

What does that all mean to the golfer. This is a highly successful design that is in use by a number of marquee players.  I see a mid launch, mid spin design that is a good mate for the low launch heads and balls we will see in the 2014 models.

The technical discussion and measurements are available only to registered readers

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Russ

Talamonti Golf Shafts Review

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Talamonti Driver Shafts

By Russ Ryden, A Golf Digest America’s 100 Best Clubfitter
Fit2Score, Dallas Fort Worth, Texas

Phil Talamonti has had a long history in the golf business; President of Wood Brothers, Executive VP of Softspikes, President of SST Puring, and Founder of Advanced Shaft Dynamics. Advanced Shaft Dynamics was Phil’s entry into the shaft alignment business. Several years ago he decided to launch his own shaft company. Early in that process he acquired one of my EI instruments. He used it to validate his designs and check the quality of the shafts he receives from his Chinese foundry. If you have looked around this site, you will see very familiar looking EI charts on the Talamonti Shafts Technology webpage.

I have not tested these shafts, my comments are based on comparing profiles to shafts I know. With this review I created a new category, Boutique Brands. These are smaller companies, with limited product lines, often created by someone with a lot of experience in the golf business.

Talamonti Lite-55

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TalamontiLS55EiGjTbTrue to the description on the Talamonti website, this is a low spin, or perhaps better stated, low launch light weight design. I know this profile and have fit with it in another brand. its a classic low launch design. When I combine a low launch light weight design like this with a normal head weight I find the result is adequate launch with a piercing ball flight. I have had a great number of ‘surprise’ successes with this design when I am fitting someone with overactive hands. I have fit a number of strong players into light weight designs like this and created the perfect driver for them.

 

Talamonti HL-70

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TalamontHL70EiGjTbLike all the Talamonti shafts, the radial consistency of the Talamoni HL-70 is excellent. Every shaft has a subtle dot on the label indicating the ‘ideal’ alignment plane of the shaft. I found all the ‘dots’ to be on the soft plane. Aligning the ‘dot’ up or down will put the hard plane to the club head face. The marks were dead on, which I must credit to Phil’s past experience with SST and Advanced Shaft Dynamics. The dot is subtle, and with the current generation of rotating head driver hosels, not something one needs to pay much attention to. The radial consistency of these shafts makes them suitable for use in any orientation.

The HL-70 design is not a stranger to me or to most golfers. This is the classic Blue Board design. Almost every manufacturer I know offers this design in some form or another. The mid region is soft in comparison to the butt and tip. If you transition aggressively from backswing to downswing you should try this design. it is the biggest seller in the golf business. If you are looking for a mid launch fairway, this is it. The Talamonti HL-70 has the kind of torque numbers you want in a fairway shaft. If you have dispersion problems with your stock fairway shaft, replace it with this shaft.

 

Talamonti LS-70

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TalamontLS70EiGjTbThe HL-70 design is not a stranger to me. It has a mid range loss of stiffness butt to tip, a mid shaft stiffness hump, followed with a rapid loss of stiffness to high tip, where it turns up again to a stiff stable tip. Translation, this is a mid launch, mid spin design, with a solid tip. With this kind of radial consistency, this is a bargain at $225 uninstalled.