From creating whimsical toys to printing gigantic sculptures, 3D printing has made the possibility of creating dreams into reality come true!
3D printing is an art that is not only restricted to professional use and can be employed for jackleg activities too. It is the process of the fusion of thin layers of material to create physical objects.
The devices used for 3D printing are known as 3D printers. In short, 3D printing allows you to customize an object to exact, specific/individual specifications.
The 3D printing workflow, as a whole, empowers both individuals and organizations to take control of their own design and all the manufacturing processes.
“They say golf is like life, but don’t believe them. Golf is more complicated than that” Gardner Dickinson, American professional golfer.
Ever since the 16th century, golf has been regarded as a famous game worldwide, giving rise to its increasing demand day by day, especially in the United States.
Its popularity is that golf is not considered a game only, but a wholesome experience too. Therefore, this highly enthusiastic game requires top-hole playing equipment giving way to 3D printing, which enables the sprinkle of its magical printing techniques to print unmatchable golf clubs to make your grip target-guaranteed.
And since, additive manufacturing offers the opportunity to 3d print in both the materials, titanium, and stainless steel through selective laser sintering. Therefore, the idea of making sturdy and optimal golf clubs become possible.
During the past years, 3D printing was employed by the golf club manufacturers for prototyping, but as time went by, the procedures began to stretch their way through to complete manufacturing, hence, taking over the golf club industry.
The performance of these Golf Clubs depends on a multitude of factors, which may include their weight, surface area, the shape of the contact face and depth of the cavity, the groove design that may include the shape’s pattern and depths, club angle, bounce angle and many more.
To create the best and optimal golf club, a designer must have to experiment with each of the mentioned features in order to meet the complete requirements.
If traditional manufacturing methods would be used for doing so, the manufacturer could lose thousands of dollars in the wink of an eye.
The steps taken at each stage of development would be hardly profitable. But thanks to 3D printing, the explorations performed by the developer at every stage of prototyping become faster, easier, and better.
Since this process does not require investment in tooling, unparalleled levels of customization are possible with the least expense in hand.
Examples of a few industries that had charmed their businesses and revolutionized the golfing experience by engaging 3D printing as their ultimate manufacturing method are mentioned below:
Cobra Golf Putter Club
The speed and versatile options offered by 3D printing compel numerous famous industries to employ it in their manufacturing methods. An example may be Cobra Golf, one of the leading golf club and golf equipment manufacturers, which recruited 3D printing in their way towards ultimate industry revamp.
At first, Cobra Golf had partnered with the companies HP, SIK Golf, and Parmatech to collaborate in the printing of a limited edition putter club using HP Metal Jet Printers.
This printing technology allowed the high-volume manufacturing of metal parts and ended up in the mass production of golf clubs. According to Cobra, 3D printing has made the process of production faster and improved the product’s quality and precision.
The process of prototyping and testing the designs was faster than the traditional manufacturing methods. Cobra has even been working on the King SuperSport- 35 that is featured with a fully 3D printed metal body and an amazing intricate lattice structure.
This optimizes its weight distribution along with the delivery of the highest possible MOI in a blade shape. Cobra has by now developed 35 different design iterations in just 8 months
Taylormade Sim Fairway Club
The TaylorMade Golf is another golf Club industry that has partnered with FormsLabs, an SLA 3D Printer manufacturer, to create prototypes while designing their SIM Fairway golf club. The TaylorMadeSIM MAX Fairway is a multi-material fairway wood construction with a steel body and carbon crown.
The main goals of TaylorMade Golf were to add improved features to their SIM Fairway club involving a lower center of gravity and better turf traction.
Using FormLabs’ SLA Printers, which use a laser for bonding the resin particles together in some areas to form various parts, the Golf Club industry meets their expectations in the release of their reliable SIM Fairway Club.
TaylorMade quickly tested newer shapes for the weighted inserts, at the time of rapid prototyping, which enabled it to finalize an outstanding design.
Krone Golf KD-1
Krone golf had developed the KD-1 by partnering with CRP Technology and CRP Meccanica, which is an Italian company that uses 3D printing and other technologies to help companies execute their projects.
The KD-1 is a composite driver clubhead whose face is made in Ti6AI4V. Krone golf had used SLS 3D printing and a special material called Windform SP for the manufacture of this equipment.
Windform SP is a strong carbon composite material that helps create dimensionally accurate and precise parts. The previous manufacturing methods used by the company were highly labor-intensive, countermanded easy customization of parts, and did not yield dimensionally correct objects.
The High-performing CNC machining and Additive Manufacturing solved all of these issues. The combination of 3D printing and CNC Machining sped up the manufacturing process and saved time.
Even though the company has now become radio silent, its KD-1 Still remains an amazing example of the ultimate power of 3D printing.
Callaway Golf Odyssey Putter
Callaway Golf, another leading golf club industry had partnered with GE Additive’s team and Titomic, an American company that patented Titomic Kinetic Fusion Technology is termed as “the world’s largest & fastest metal 3D additive manufacturing technology”, to create their ravishing Odyssey R-Ball Prototype.
The line of Callaway’s Odyssey putters is one of the best top-selling clubs in the market. This product had used the method of 3D printing to add internal geometries and various designed supports for overhangs in the putter head’s design and thermal stresses.
Perhaps, you have your own custom golf club design and want it to get 3D printed without buying your own 3D printer. Well, that is not a matter to worry about at all, as you can always refer to the stupefying 3D printer services, which may help you print an amazing customized golf club.
Golf Club 3D Printer Services
Examples of such 3D printer services may include Craftcloud, which is an astounding 3D printing service that can deliver all over the world at the best prices.
Using Craftcloud’s platform is quite easy to use and reliable. Craftcloud provides various metal printing options including aluminum, titanium, and a few other grades of steel. It even offers CNC Milling services.
Proto3000 is another company that offers and sells high-quality equipment for 3D printing. It even offers DMLS (Direct Metal Laser Sintering) and BMD (Bound Metal Deposition) services, which are significantly cheaper.
JawsTec offers CNC Machining and 3D printer services and specifically indicated that its services can also be used for creating 3D printed golf clubs. They mostly provide services for multi-jet fusion 3D printing like propylene, nylon 11, nylon 12, etc.
Their metal material options include MS1 steel, Monel K500 MK5, 316L stainless steel, and more. All you have to do is to fill out their order forms in which you will have to mention the type of metal material you want and the types of services you are looking for.
Conclusion
If you are interested in printing your own 3D printed golf club rather than buying yourself a ready-made 3D printed golf club that may cost a few hundred dollars, then, of course, there are ways for doing so too. But since consumer 3D printers are quite limited in building volume, you can only print the head of the club, which is not printed in metal.
That is because most of the retail 3D printers mostly print in photosensitive resin, which may cause your golf club’s head to break instantly as it strikes against the golf ball at a typical swing speed.
Some popular 3D-designed golf club heads may include a putter having a 16mm sleeve diameter(3 hours printing time), Titleist 7-iron having an ability to fit any 0.37-inch shaft, 60-degree wedge, having a golf club wedge head at a 60-degree angle and, a rake.
But if you really want to print metal golf clubs and you are not concerned about the metal 3d printer cost at all then you could always buy one to build your own dream golf club.
3D printer companies such as the Desktop Metal and Markforged, both offer expensive yet high-quality machines, which are capable of printing in a number of various types of metals such as the H13 Steel, 17-4 PH stainless steel, and, even copper.
