The Ryder Cup on TV is actually one of my favorite sporting events to view.

 As one writer terms it,

Ryder Cup:Where Golf meets College Football.

Its’camaraderie,competitiveness,patriotism for country and oh, cyanoacrylates. The whole venue gets me every time. I was hoping for a different outcome this year, but you have to hand it to the Europeans, what a comeback!……….and yes, most of the golf clubs used by both the shocked US and Europeans yesterday, be they irons, putters, woods or a wedge, and regardless if they use Ping, Callaway, Titlelist, Mizuno or other manufacturers are assembled using cyanoacrylates, often known as super glue.

 

 I’ve seen broken shafts before, primarily due to player misuse ( i.e. throwing it at a tree, though not at a Ryder Cup match!) but I have never seen a head lob off, so I assume just about all use cyanoacrylate; it has the strength and curing properties to adhere disparate surfaces, just as long as you dispense cyanoacrylate with no exposure to air or moisture, it does exactly what end users want it to do. 

Most of the SmartDispenser^® for CA customers in the manufacture of golf clubs use the cyanoacrylate fluid to bond the head grommet to the shaft, the grommet is a rubber ring on the shaft. The SmartDispenser^® automated version that is specifically designed for cyanoacrylate dispensing  is a positive displacement fluid dispenser that removes unreliable moisture-filled air from the dispensing process, ensuring that premature curing due to this air does not occur, and that the end result is superior bond strength.

Available in thin fluids or gels, the cyanoacrylate adhesive reacts with moisture ions on the surface of the conjoining substrates, thus creating the bond. The cyanoacrylate bond strength is greatly impacted by the application of the cyanoacryalte to the substrates; too much cyanoacrylate may keep the bond from curing properly while too little cyanoacrylate may cause the bond to fail. Yup, just like in golf; its’ all about knowing how long, how short, how straight, how high, then hit it with  precision and repeatability.

Since golf clubs come in different sizes, SmartDispenser^® customers require different amounts of cyanoacrylate dispensed, depending on club design. For example the cyanoacrylate dispense amounts may range from .011cc-.022cc. This visual chart, shows you just how small that can be.  Again, with cyanoacrylates, once a golf club Process Design Engineer determines the optimum dispense of cyanoacrylate; one that gives the best bond, not too little, not too much, the cyanoacrylate dispenser has to be “spot on”.  During the design process, a scale is typically integrated with the  SmartDispenser^® to determine this “sweet spot” , as seen in this short video.  The repeatable. volumetric dispensing using a stepper motor coupled with an ability to store and quickly call up 32 different programs on the SmartDispenser^® , make it an ideal system for the Process Engineer to then specify it for the golf club’s manufacturability process.  Addtionally, the automation and timing sequences for the cyanoacrylate dispense cycle need to be precise and, the golf manufacturers use a variety of ways to do this, utilizing the 12 pin I/O for  communication with their  programmable logic controllers for easy integration into any automation system.

Speaking of timing, Rory has got to get his time zones straight…he is one my favorite players to watch, if for no reason than my Irish parents loved his Dad’s story and Rory’s devotion  to him.  

Also this article is a great inside look at the camaraderie on the US team between Keegan Bradley and Phil Mickelson.

I have not been able to find instances  in football and, certainly not the gentleman’s game of golf, where cyanoacrylate is used for medicinal purposes like when I learned about its’ uses to patch up NHL  players quickly so  they could get back on the ice.  Since I cannot make myself watch boxing or the extreme fighting matches these days, I have not viewed any new medicinal uses of cyanoacrylates, but I did learn from one reader that Kodak originally engineered cyanoacrylate for battle wounds during Vietnam.  If  anybody has examples of wound sealing cyanoacrylate from “civilized” sports, send them to me. Last time I blogged about the NHL instances, I even had a doctor dad  submit a video of him using cyanoacrylate to “put together” a huge gash on a kid at his son’s hockey game!   Send me examples of others……..my gory colleagues seem to relish them, then they play “topper” and quickly launch into grusome tales of their own sports’ injuries !