Cut down a 3 wood shaft to a 7 wood?

[cg0rd0noo7]

I have a 3 wood shaft that I have laying around that I would like to use in a 7 wood. Can I simply take the grip off and cut the butt end to make it 7 wood length or should I be doing something else? 

[semarlor]

Technically the answer is yes you can, but it would play softer than it does in your 3 wood. Most shafts are tip trimmed more for higher lofted fairway woods to account for a heavier head. If you wanted it to play similar to your 3 wood, you'd need to pull the adapter, tip trim it, reinstall the adapter, and then you can cut the rest from then butt if you still need it to play shorter. 

[cg0rd0noo7]

15 minutes ago, semarlor said:

Technically the answer is yes you can, but it would play softer than it does in your 3 wood. Most shafts are tip trimmed more for higher lofted fairway woods to account for a heavier head. If you wanted it to play similar to your 3 wood, you'd need to pull the adapter, tip trim it, reinstall the adapter, and then you can cut the rest from then butt if you still need it to play shorter. 

 

Got it. That makes sense. I figured it wasn’t just as simple as that. 
 

thank you!

[dwboston]

I just did this.  I picked up a Titleist 7-wood with a no-upcharge Speeder shaft, which is in the 80 gram range with mid launch and mid spin characteristics.  I already had an old Titleist 909F 3-wood with a Diamana Ilima 80-S shaft in it.  I bought an OEM Titleist fairway shaft adapter, had the Diamana shaft removed from the 909F, tipped it an additional 1/2 inch, then cut to length to match the stock shaft on the 7-wood, and regripped it.  I hit both of them head to head and definitely prefer the Diamana Ilima.  It only ended up costing me about $30 for the shaft experiment and it was well worth it.

Edited February 1, 2023 by dwboston

[third-times-a-charm]

You would need to pull the adapter and tip trim the shaft an additional .5" - then reinstall the adapter. Then butt-cutt to length. Just butt-cutting will not give you 'normal' results, but if what you want is a softer tip with additional spin and launch then it's possible that normal is not what you want. Fitting and trimming is all about personal preference.

 

Now there's also another factor here in that OEMs dont have a standard tipping practice. The shaft maker generally steps their 10g/club number tipping recommendations every half inch, but some companies like the one in question Titleist will do 1" tipping for ALL woods. So technically you could drop a 3w shaft straight into a 5w or 7w and be just fine, but youd have to verify the tip trim.

 

 

Edited February 1, 2023 by third-times-a-charm