I had an interesting finding tonight while re-shafting my 3 wood. I thought I would share it. It is only a single finding, so don't base conclusions on it, but I found it interesting.

I had a Fujikura Tour Platform 27.3 shaft that I got off ebay that I had plans to install in my 3 wood. Although it is old, I like the shaft. When I removed the grip, there was an SST PURE sticker on it, with an arrow pointing down the shaft. I figured I would bearing spine align it, then FLO it to check against the SST Puring.

With the bearing spine aligning I found that the NBP aligned exactly with the SST PURE arrow. With FLOing, however, I found that the shaft was oscillating in an over pattern with the SST arrow down the target line. With rotation, and oscillation tests, I found the FLO line to be a good 10 degrees off the SST line. It may be a minor difference, but when the FLO line snapped in, it was obvious. When I turned it back to the SST line, sure enough, the over oscillation re-appeared.

What does this mean? Perhaps the shop guy at the SST purring session was careless about his application of the SST sticker. Perhaps the FLO straight oscillation doesn't agree with what the SST machine says. A sample of one in a test may not be determinant of accurate results. Or, maybe even my methods were faulty.

I must say, however, that when the FLO oscillation method snapped in to straight oscillations, it was unmistakable. And, it certainly didn't match up with what the SST sticker directed. Both the FLO alignment, and SST alignment oscillation discrepancies were repeatable and uncanny. I found that interesting.

Does it matter? Don't know. I don't know how much puring, or FLO aligning matters. I consider FLO aligning "insurance" to make sure that my shaft is not bending in ways that I don't want through the swing. As I do my own club work, it is my time that is the only added expense, not some extra fee that adds up quickly throughout my set of clubs.

I saved the SST PURE sticker, and taped it on my bearing spine aligner as a reminder about the careless work that may be done at a shop -- I would not expect an SST Pured shaft to oscillate anywhere but in a straight line. The shaft, as it turns out is toast -- there were splits in the shaft at the club head end that made it unusable. Too bad, I like that shaft. I might have another laying around.

Anyone have experience with SST PURE'ing being at odds with FLO aligning?

Cheers!