JPH10277185A - Golf club head - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an iron club head having a blast marking of a sufficient size and depth as well as a durable characteristic by applying blast work with a blast material of metallic spherical grains of a specified grain diameter after the application of electroless plating to an impact surface of the head. SOLUTION: Score lines are formed in a head body 1 formed of a forged soft iron and polishing work is applied thereto. The body 1 is then subjected to activation treatment with paradium chloride, and subjected to electroless plating with nickel sulfate, dimethyl amine bolane of a reducing agent and plating liquid. The thickness of the plating should be 5-8 μm so as to endure the blast work applied thereafter and allow a specified marking to remain. The blast work is applied by blowing spherical grains of metal with the grain diameter of 0.2 mm or above onto the plating layer of a face 2. At this time, the grain diameter is for example selected from a range of about 0.2 mm to about 1.0 mm so that score lines may not disappear. With such a constitution, the blast marking can be formed evenly substantially over an impact face 5, thereby increasing the amount of back spin of a ball.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an iron type golf club head in which an impact surface made of a metal material is plated.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, iron-type golf club heads have a rust-proof, surface-hardened, Plated for scratch prevention, aesthetics, and other purposes. The plating is usually performed by double nickel chrome plating or nickel chrome plating by electroplating. on the other hand,
To maximize the spin effect on the impact surface and make it easier for the ball to stop on the green etc.In addition, to control the direction and flight distance of the hit ball, blast processing is performed on the impact surface and Attempts have been made to roughen the surface appropriately. For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 5-23720
No. 9 discloses that the face surface of an iron club is divided into an upper region, a central region, and a lower region, and the blast process is performed on the face surface so that the coefficient of friction increases in that order, thereby controlling the directionality of the hit ball. It is described that the distance is improved and the flight distance is increased.

[0003]

However, in the case of the above-described electroplating, which has been mainly used in the past, the thickness of the plating is proportional to the amount of current flowing through the material to be plated, and the iron club head is plated. In this case, since a large amount of current flows to the periphery of the face surface as compared with the central portion, a remarkable difference occurs in the plating thickness between the central region and the peripheral region in the face surface. For example, in the experiment of the inventor, in the case of Ni-Cr electroplating, the plating thickness in the peripheral region of the face surface was 30 μm, whereas the plating thickness in the central region of the face was 5 to 10 μm. Also, from the experimental results of blasting on the plating layer on such a face surface as described above, the trace of blasting around the face surface is significantly shallower than the trace of blasting in the central region. It turned out to be. As a result, as described in
Also in the proposal of -237209, it is expected that a desired friction coefficient cannot be obtained due to a shallow blast mark in a portion below the lower region. Therefore, there is a problem that the spin effect on the impact surface cannot be maximized even if blasting is performed. In addition, in blasting, when using what is called so-called grit with horns in the blast material, there arises a problem that the plating layer is peeled off,
On the other hand, when the size of the blasting material is reduced, there is a problem that the blast mark becomes shallow, and the blast mark at an angle is easily worn out during use of the club. In addition, in addition to the above-mentioned electroplating, although it is a very rare case, an iron club in which blast processing has been applied to plating generally called electroless plating has been marketed.
Glass beads or the like having a small impact force such as glass beads are used as the blast material, and the impact surface is merely visually emphasized by utilizing the special color tone change of the processed surface.

In view of the above, the present invention provides an iron having an impact surface on which a plating process is performed, which is provided with a blast mark having a uniform plating thickness within the surface, a necessary and sufficient size and depth, and durability. The purpose is to provide a club head.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, the present invention provides a golf club head having at least an impact surface for hitting a ball formed of a metal material, after performing electroless plating on the impact surface. A blasting process is performed using a blast material of metallic spherical particles having a particle diameter of 0.2 mm or more to form an uneven surface.

[0006]

Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

In the embodiment shown in FIG. 1, a head body 1 has a face surface 2 and a hosel 3 coupled to the face surface 2, and a plurality of score lines 4 are horizontally arranged in a central region of the face surface 2. The area in which the score lines 4 are engraved is formed as an impact surface 5. Further, the head body 1 is forged from soft iron (S25C), the score line 4 is engraved, and a known polishing process is performed. Next, the face material thus processed is activated with palladium chloride or the like, and then plated with a nickel salt (eg, nickel sulfate), dimethylamine borane as a reducing agent, and a known auxiliary component. It is immersed in a plating bath filled with a solution to perform electroless plating. still,
At this time, the plating temperature is 50 to 60 ° C., and the pH is 8.
It is controlled in the range of 0 to 9.0. In the present invention, the plating thickness by the electroless plating is set to 3 to 10 μm because it is necessary to withstand a blasting process described below and obtain a predetermined trace.
It is said.

In the case of the embodiment shown in the figure, nickel boron having a substantially uniform thickness of 7 to 8 μm is formed on the face surface 2 over the entire area including the peripheral portion and the central portion by the above-described electroless plating. (Ni-B) plating layer is coated.

Next, blasting is performed on the surface of the face that will be the impact surface 5 from above the plating layer using a metal blast material of spherical particles. The average particle size of the blast material at this time is set to 0.2 mm or more from the size of the blast mark required for the required back spin amount. However, when the score line 4 is engraved on the face surface 2, In order to prevent the score line 4 from disappearing during blasting, it is necessary to limit the size of the particle size. For this reason, it is preferable to select the range of 0.2 to 1.0 mm. In this embodiment, a metal blast material having an average particle size of 0.5 mm is employed, and the impact surface 5 shown in FIG. 1 is obtained by using a known injection device at an air pressure of 3.0 kg / cm ² and an injection time of 10 seconds. Was blasted. Reference numeral 6 in the figure
Indicates a blasted surface (uneven surface). The blasted surface 6 is provided in the vertical direction from the leading edge 7 to the top blade 8 and in the left and right direction of the length of the longest score line 4.

Next, in order to verify the effect of the present invention,
A comparative example having the same specifications as the embodiment except that an iron club called a sand wedge of this embodiment and an impact surface 5 on which nickel-chrome plating is performed by electroplating are subjected to blast processing under the same conditions as the embodiment. The backspin amount was measured and compared with the iron club of Example 1. Result is,
It is as shown in Table 1 together with the state of the impact surface after the blast processing. The test machine was a shot robot manufactured by Miyama Co., Ltd., and ten test hits were performed at a head speed of 30 m / sec. Table 1 shows the average value of the back spin amount at that time.

[0011]

[Table 1]

As is apparent from the results, in the present invention, a substantially uniform blast mark was formed on the entire area of the impact surface 5 and a large backspin amount was obtained. In the vicinity of the edge 7, the plating amount was thick and almost no blast mark was attached. Although the blast mark was attached only at the center of the impact surface, the back spin amount was a small value.

According to the present invention, the impact surface of the metal material is plated by electroless plating. That is, the metal ions in the metal salt solution are reduced by the action of the reducing agent without using an external power supply, and are deposited on the object to be plated. Therefore, in the case of the electroplating, the peripheral portion has a large current density due to the nature of electricity and the deposition of the plating film is thick and the center portion is thin, whereas in the electroless plating, a current flows from an external power supply. However, as long as the plating solution is sufficiently distributed, all portions have a uniform plating thickness. Also,
The characteristics of electroless plating are that it has higher hardness and better corrosion resistance than electroplating, and it is very hard and has good abrasion resistance when hard materials are suspended in fine particles in plating solution. Is obtained.

[0014]

As described above, according to the present invention, in a golf club head in which at least the impact surface for hitting a ball is formed of a metal material, the particle size is reduced after electroless plating is performed on the impact surface. The blasting process was performed using a metal blasting material made of metal spherical particles of 2 mm or more, so that the blasting process was performed after the impact surface had a uniform plating thickness by electroless plating. Therefore, blast marks can be provided uniformly, deeply and at a high density at each location.
Further, this plating provides a hard and wear-resistant coating. By utilizing these properties, a face surface having high hardness and excellent durability can be obtained.
Furthermore, since the blast material is made of metal spherical particles and the particle size is made as large as 0.2 mm or more, the so-called shot peening effect improves the durability (impact resistance and abrasion resistance) of the face surface. In addition to increasing the surface hardness and the like, a stable and large spin effect can be obtained by a permanent large blast mark.
Further, since the particles are spherical particles, the plating layer does not peel off.

In the case where the plating thickness is set to 5 to 8 μm, the plating layer can sufficiently withstand the blasting of the metallic spherical particles and has an effective back spin amount on the impact surface. Blast marks can be left. That is, if the thickness is less than 5 μm, there is a concern about the durability of the plating layer. If the thickness exceeds 8 μm, the effectiveness of the blast mark is reduced.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a front view showing a preferred embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 1 head body 2 face 4 score line 5 impact 6 blasted surface (uneven surface)

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A golf club head in which at least an impact surface for hitting a ball is formed of a metal material.
A golf club head characterized in that an uneven surface is formed by blasting using a blast material of metallic spherical particles of 2 mm or more. 2. The golf club head according to claim 1, wherein the electroless plating has a plating thickness of 5 to 8 μm.