Step 6: Whipping the Shaft
The final step is winding new whipping thread on the grip and shaft for added security and reinforcement.
Not only does whipping thread add some personality and flair to your club, it also serves a purpose.
In this Hickory Hack, I share my method for adding whipping thread to hickory clubs while showing off the bells and whistles on the whipping stand I bought from Hickory Golf Workshop in Vermont (scroll to the bottom of this post for the video).
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While whipping a club is a simple project, having the right tools makes all the difference between it being a breeze or pulling your hair out. When it comes to whipping a club, I highly recommend you pick up a whipping stand. It was the first thing I purchased for my workshop and it’s turned out to be the most indispensable tool in my hickory golf club repair kit.
This whipping stand features two cradle options for holding a club; I like to use the top cradle for whipping the shaft and bottom of the grip, and the bottom cradle for whipping the butt end of the grip. Both cradle options position the club nicely to utilize the spool stick that holds the whipping thread for you as you wind. If you use a clamp to secure the stand to your workbench, the top cradle is also handy for any variety of tasks where it helps to have the club elevated.
Another handy tool I picked up from Hickory Golf Workshop is a plastic thread puller. You can get by without as you’ll see in the video below, but it’s one of those things that makes whipping multiple clubs in one session more efficient.
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As I mentioned, whipping thread actually serves a purpose in addition to looking good. In the days before modern glues and epoxy, many clubheads were fitted to a shaft with a precise fit aided by the friction of some whipping thread. I’m often surprised when resetting clubheads for play to find a single strand of thread wrapped around the hosel cone was all that was keeping that head relatively tight after more than 100 years.
During the golf swing, the shaft is stressed most from the area above the hosel to about halfway up the shaft. Adding sections of whipping thread in this area will help reinforce the shaft, especially on clubs where you take a full swing like a brassie or driver, where you'll usually see one section of thread several inches long above the head. As a general rule, I’ll wind one section of whipping thread on a niblick that I only use for chipping, two to three sections of thread on a mashie niblick and mashie, and at least three sections of thread on a mid-iron. For a club that’s primarily used for extracting a ball from deep rough or sand, like a spade mashie or specialty niblick, I recommend winding two or three sections of whipping because of the stress you’re putting on the club when you strike the ground. You’ll also want to be sure to add ample whipping along a repaired crack in any shaft for one more final layer of reinforcement.
When applied to both ends of a grip, whipping thread is mostly a decorative finish, but it does help keep the leather wrap from slipping in the event the tacks start to come loose.
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In the hickory era, whipping was linen thread coated with pitch; today, it’s coated with wax, but it still works the same. Crawford Threads is the primary supplier of waxed linen thread for hickory golfers today and offers it in a wide variety of colors. Their 4 cord, 50 gram weight thread is an excellent all-purpose whipping thread for “modern” hickory golf clubs; for pre-1900 gutty clubs, I recommend a more period-authentic thread like this thicker, 139-gram waxed thread in black from Tandy Leather:
