Chunkylover77
Proud JakeNation Member
Graphite is where the real playahs are now!
Cast vs Forged - The Master Debate
Graphite is where the real playahs are now!
Tmex
Paul Casey, WINNER!
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I should have gone graphite with my forged DPCs. Would have been the softest irons ever. Well except for Mizuno hehe
Tmex
Paul Casey, WINNER!
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I do miss my C Kua shafts. they're probably going in at some point down the road. I guess we both can attest to the difference in feel with graphite shafts on the club.
Dont make me sick Colt on you chunkyshovellover lol
SharkHat
Aquatic Headwear Fanatic
I love how casting introduces air bubbles, but since forged comes from a "solid bar" of metal there's apparently no chance for air to get in.
Umm, how did they make the bar Mark?
Umm, how did they make the bar Mark?
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It was forged out of the earth before it was forged into a mizuno lol.
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makes sense!
BigLeftyinAZ
Well-known member
I thought this was a good read
[h=2]Cast vs. Forged — A Revisit[/h] June 26, 2012
Several years ago I wrote a couple of articles about cast vs. forged and cavity back designs versus blade designs in irons. Those articles are still getting readership and comments to me on a regular basis. These two areas of club design generate more confusion and fairy tales than anything out there.
So, once again, I’d like to dive into this subject and see if I can’t help you cut through the clutter and hype to understand just what all this is about.
Casting and forging are the two primary ways to make an iron or wedge head. Casting allows more precise repeating of the shaping and nuances of the design because it requires less hand work to finish the head. Forging has generally been credited with delivering better feel. But it’s not that simple. Casting itself does not make an iron “hard”. (Every stick of butter ever made was cast!) But when golf club companies started casting iron heads, they used a stainless steel alloy called 17-4, which IS a very hard material. Through the years, softer stainless alloys have been explored and used. And top wedges are made of cast 8620 carbon steel. While not nearly as soft as a true forging, they are darn close. We’ve tried casting irons out of steel alloys that were so soft they wouldn’t hold their lofts and lies through a round of golf.
One of the biggest influences on “feel” is the shaft of the club. Graphite shafts dramatically soften the sensation of impact compared to steel shafts. Some shafts just have a different feel of impact than others. And shaft companies have created a number of inserts for the shafts to mitigate the shock waves of impact. For years, tour players and those in the know have tricked up their irons with wood dowels and corks in the tip of the shaft to soften the feel of impact, and mitigate vibration.
Over the past few years, nearly all cavity back irons use some kind of plastic insert in the back of the face to additionally deaden or soften the shock of impact. That’s because one of the main factors of feel is the amount of metal behind the ball at impact. Blades traditionally are thick there, and whether they are cast or forged, blade designs will deliver a more solid or softer feeling of impact. Thin faced irons, whether they have a plastic insert or not, cannot match that feeling of “solidness”.
And the other attribute of the thicker face is that distance control is more precise. A thin-faced, low CG, perimeter weighted iron at the long end of the set is fine, as any shot 30 feet long or short at 175+ yards is totally OK. But as you get closer to the hole, that becomes less and less acceptable. A gap wedge shot that is 30 feet long or short is horrible, right?
So, there is a short treatise on the subject of feel, forged vs. cast and blades vs. perimeter weighting.
http://blog.scorgolf.com/2012/06/26...ium=email&mc_cid=097cdd9f3a&mc_eid=358999843f
[h=2]Cast vs. Forged — A Revisit[/h] June 26, 2012
Several years ago I wrote a couple of articles about cast vs. forged and cavity back designs versus blade designs in irons. Those articles are still getting readership and comments to me on a regular basis. These two areas of club design generate more confusion and fairy tales than anything out there.
So, once again, I’d like to dive into this subject and see if I can’t help you cut through the clutter and hype to understand just what all this is about.
Casting and forging are the two primary ways to make an iron or wedge head. Casting allows more precise repeating of the shaping and nuances of the design because it requires less hand work to finish the head. Forging has generally been credited with delivering better feel. But it’s not that simple. Casting itself does not make an iron “hard”. (Every stick of butter ever made was cast!) But when golf club companies started casting iron heads, they used a stainless steel alloy called 17-4, which IS a very hard material. Through the years, softer stainless alloys have been explored and used. And top wedges are made of cast 8620 carbon steel. While not nearly as soft as a true forging, they are darn close. We’ve tried casting irons out of steel alloys that were so soft they wouldn’t hold their lofts and lies through a round of golf.
One of the biggest influences on “feel” is the shaft of the club. Graphite shafts dramatically soften the sensation of impact compared to steel shafts. Some shafts just have a different feel of impact than others. And shaft companies have created a number of inserts for the shafts to mitigate the shock waves of impact. For years, tour players and those in the know have tricked up their irons with wood dowels and corks in the tip of the shaft to soften the feel of impact, and mitigate vibration.
Over the past few years, nearly all cavity back irons use some kind of plastic insert in the back of the face to additionally deaden or soften the shock of impact. That’s because one of the main factors of feel is the amount of metal behind the ball at impact. Blades traditionally are thick there, and whether they are cast or forged, blade designs will deliver a more solid or softer feeling of impact. Thin faced irons, whether they have a plastic insert or not, cannot match that feeling of “solidness”.
And the other attribute of the thicker face is that distance control is more precise. A thin-faced, low CG, perimeter weighted iron at the long end of the set is fine, as any shot 30 feet long or short at 175+ yards is totally OK. But as you get closer to the hole, that becomes less and less acceptable. A gap wedge shot that is 30 feet long or short is horrible, right?
So, there is a short treatise on the subject of feel, forged vs. cast and blades vs. perimeter weighting.
http://blog.scorgolf.com/2012/06/26...ium=email&mc_cid=097cdd9f3a&mc_eid=358999843f
Perkins Rooster
Active member
I play Pings so I'm no forged snob, but if you watch the video he freely admits that his 'perception' of feel may have no basis in fact at all. He also admits that there may be absolutely no difference in his performance whether he hits cast or forged. He plays Mizuno because he perceives that they make a superior forged product, so bully for him I say.
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- Admin
- #661
That is all correct. However he also speaks about the cast product as if it is "not quite as good" until the end with air bubbles and distance issues (at times).
Chunkylover77
Proud JakeNation Member
We sure can man. I really like the benefits and I really see no drawbacks with todays top of the line graphite shafts
Chunkylover77
Proud JakeNation Member
Dang it I keep forgetting to go ChunkyColt when I want to be taken seriously.
Super Tuna
You can't scale this!
A Mizuno reviewer discussing why forged feels softer and that guys like Lee Westwood must really be amazing because cast clubs will cause distance variables.
Techy questions related to that:
A: Is there anything stopping anyone from maker a thinner faced forged head?
B: Presuming they could, would it then be possible to eliminate the so called "jumper" shots from thinner faced cast irons at the expense of some ball speed? Or is that what Mizuno, for example, see's the JPX 800 Pro's as?
Virtual fist bump!
Gosh I loathe that analogy when it's trotted out.
tgtt
Well-known member
I've probably hit fewer clubs here than anyone but I just recently hit my 1st forged clubs (Titleist AP2s and Nike VR_S) and I LOVED them both.
The forging process pounds the air bubbles out of the billet.
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- #667
But you dont think that compressing it would do the same thing? Or how the technique of vacuum casting has changed casting in everything?
Honest question.
Perkins Rooster
Active member
I love this topic. Makes me smile. I must be a g-d wizard because my current cast irons feel just as soft as my previous forged irons. They even sound the same. Maybe my hands are just to calused and manly to feel the subtel nuances in cast or forged irons. I did have a priest bless my current irons and ask Jeebus to bestow upon my substandard cast irons "a forged and buttery feel. Amen". I guess that's proof there is a god.
SharkHat
Aquatic Headwear Fanatic
No guys, really ... I think the face of my 9I is a micron or two out of spec.
So anyways, about the video. Mark's terminology isnt the best there, especially at the start where he says with forged they, "cut" the shape of the clubhead. Not exactly true. The only time they cut anything is when they remove the flash or when they machine a pocket into the back of the club.
Honestly, JB, Ive worked with engines enough and seen enough broken engine parts that were cast and saw the air pockets in the parts to not believe that golf clubs are any different.
Have cast clubs gotten better in recent years? Yes but with a cast product there are certain things such as the air pockets and inconsistencies in the metal that you arent able to avoid. Its just the nature of which process you choose and having certain tradeoffs with that process.
Ive played many sets of cast clubs and theyre not bad clubs, theyre very good actually but the sound at impact is completely different.
Forged and cast clubs are different on a molecular level because of the way their shapes are formed: poured into a mold vs pounded into shape.
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*Shakes head in disgust*
Chunkychunker's shovel irons with graphite shafts always feel soft. Tearing up a patch of sod before the ball will do that for you.
Tapping and crashing with the new updated/downgraded Tapatalk.
SharkHat
Aquatic Headwear Fanatic
So you're honestly saying that forging completely eliminates the possibility of air pockets and metallurgic abnormalities, based on the fact that you've seen broken cast parts that happened to have air pockets in them?
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- #675
But how many forged products have you worked with to know what the differences are? And furthermore, doesnt that go against exactly what casting clubs is for (in fact the video says that very thing I believe)...Consistency.
And if that were the case, how come in blind testing nobody can tell the difference it seems, including Tour Players (in the interview we posted)?
And lastly if that were the case, why in fact would ANY tour player use a cast club? Inconsistencies do not work well when you are earning a living, yet some of the best players in the world do so and continue to do so.