Diamana BF Tip Trimming (Dumb Question?)

[FirePro]

Hi all

 

Purchased a new uncut MCA Diamana BF 80 TX and normally I have an idea of how to tip but this ones got me weirded out.  Below is the EI chart which my question is regarding the tip, it starts stiffer and reduces in stiffness for a small portion then obviously increases in stiffness after that.  My question is if I tip this shaft will it play less stiff because of this?  I don't have much experience reading these graphs and have only looked at some briefly and can't remember seeing a tip get softer before increasing in stiffness.

 

[third-times-a-charm]

Yes, but no, since you are also butt trimming. The EI profile in the tip would have to drop much more sharply for you to do make the tip softer by tipping as opposed to what needs to be done for the effect of the head weight for each club in the tipping recommendation matrix.

 

Go by what Mitsubishi says in the PDF.

[MFBach]

You will see a similar, but more exaggerated profile in a lot of GD Tour AD shafts. A lot of people are going to refer to any shaft that is Butt Stiff-Mid Soft-Tip Stiff as a “blueboard” or simply “blue” profile. Some of those shafts, like the ever popular AD DI, have a more pronounced transition from the Butt to Mid, and even more noticeable transition from Mid to Tip. 
 

It came up recently in a different thread and I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but I did notice later that GD does in fact recommend leaving 0.5” of the parallel tip in tact above the hosel in their trim instructions. I can only assume this is because at a certain point, because if the products design, the shaft’s performance, profile, or integrity does become negatively affected by over tipping.
 

I’ve used it as a general rule of thumb for other shafts and projects anyway, but I t makes sense to me that tipping a shaft to be inserted to a point that places the end of the parallel tip in line, past, or below the top of the hosel at full insertion could/would alter the original design and performance by partially eliminating a portion or the tip section of the profile, especially in a shaft with more pronounced changed from section to section. 
 

To answer your question, it depends. You have 3” of parallel tip to work with, so to be on the safe side, find the BBGM of whatever club/adapter you’re using, then subtract that number + 0.5” from the 3” parallel tip. That’s you’re “safe” tipping limit, in my opinion. 
 

If you’re less concerned about altering profile, plenty of folks will tip a shaft without the additional 0.5”, insert the tipped shaft with only the BBGM measurement taken into account, and play it without concern.
 

Either way, I’ve always thought if you’re maxing out the tipping limit on any shaft, you’re probably in the wrong weight/flex/profile to begin with, but there is a safe range in there for you to decide how much tipping is needed without worry about the shaft playing softer or ruining it. 

[Valtiel]

This sort of concern has been brought up before, and while there is occasionally some disagreement on the topic, the fact of that matter is that EI profiles like this are designed to communicate the degree of stiffness change over the length of the shaft but not actually stiffness itself. This means a shaft that "turns up" at the end of the profile like the BF or any of the multitude of a shafts that share that same type of design aren't actually increasing in stiffness, merely decreasing less based on the fact that a golf shaft has a fixed amount of stiffness it is expected to lose as a function of it's taper from butt to tip (larger diameter = stiffer). You can manipulate this otherwise fixed stiffness loss by layering stronger materials and increasing wall thickness, which is what we see in shafts like the BF. Tipping will have *less* of an impact as other designs, but the shaft doesn't actually get softer when you tip it. 

Edited July 30, 2022 by Valtiel