George Nicoll was an accomplished Scottish club maker who made beautiful instruments. Mike Just’s Precision line is cloned off of Nicoll’s designs. Nicoll clubs seemed be growing more popular through 2013, so I thought I’d begin assembling an original set for the fun of it. I found a mashie niblick on-line and bought it. When it arrived, the shaft was not in good shape so I decided to replace it.
I began looking for the hosel pin. I couldn’t find it. I looked for a week or more, off and on, still cannot find it. I measured average distances from edge of hosel to pin hole on other clubs to see if that would help. Still can’t find it. I called three club doctors much more experienced than I who all said, yes, there “should be” a pin, keep looking. I began to guess and tap with a nail set thinking it was hidden under the chroming. I’m not happy that the nicks aren’t producing a pin sticking out the other side. I still couldn’t find it.
SO, I cut the shaft off and began to drill out the hickory tip from the hosel expecting that the drill bit would hit the pin. No pin! Rather, after cleaning out the wood pieces, I discovered two stubs projecting perpendicularly from the inner walls of the hosel. Wow. Never seen that before. I asked several senior club experts and they all said they had not as well. See the photos below.
How did they originally affix the shaft? Perhaps like some smaller lightbulbs (e.g. flashlights), there were L-shaped grooves in the shaft tip so one inserted the shaft and turned it one-half revolution to secure the head? Much more precision and care would be required to take that approach to hiding a pin hole. I wondered a while about how one could make that kind of L-shaped keyhole on a tapered shaft at exactly the right depth both from the tip and into the shaft. Not being a craftsman, I deferred. My resolution, I’m a bit embarrassed to say, was to put a pin in the new version, so I drilled a 1/8” hole through.
But I’ve still got the issue of what to do with the stubs. I’ve tried grinding them down with a drill bit stone, but the stubs are hard, so that’s not going so well. Hence, the project is not yet completed. It lies awaiting more insight and perhaps a fitful nighttime dream to suggest a solution. Or perhaps one of you experienced readers has a solution?
I’m not a collector, rather a hacker/player and maybe I should have saved this for posterity? Is it a rarity? Too late now, though, and I’d still like to turn this into a playing club albeit one with a story. Any ideas, thoughts, comments, suggestions, insights or … criticisms?
