Greens Cups Refurbishment
The golf course maintenance staff at Birmingham (Michigan) Country Club changes out its cups four times each season. The club needs 18 cups for regulation greens and nine for the practice green, meaning it uses 108 cups total per season. Refurbishing regulation aluminum cups was chosen instead of buying new ones. To make the cups look new, they were sand blasted and powder coated inside and out. To protect the bottom of the cups from being painted, a 1⁄16th-inch-thick round stamped metal plate “jig,” suitable for electrostatic painting, is held in place with a ½-inch diameter metal rod held in place with nuts and a large washer at the bottom of the cup. Fifty reusable jigs were built so 50 cups could be painted at one time. One-hundred-eight new cups cost approximately $3,780 vs. $1,620 per season using refurbished cups. The sandblasting and painting cost $15 per cup, and the hardware and metal stamping cost $200 one time. As the cup’s flagstick hole gets larger over time, the idea is to buy only one set of cups each year to rotate with the refurbished cups. Daniel P. Dingman, superintendent, and Bruce Hepner, restoration architect, are proud of their work.
Modified Bearing Puller
This OTC Bearing Puller ($250), for removing bearings from Toro and John Deere fairway reel rollers, model TOR238900A, available from K-Line special tools and local Toro distributors, was modified by welding it to 1½-inch square tubing on either side as mounting arms and then bolting it to the workbench. The nut is protruding the edge of the workbench so the box wrench can go around and around unobstructed. The end of the fairway mower roller is heated with an oxygen acetylene torch, while the equipment manger’s other hand operates the bearing puller at the same time. Spacers are also put on the mounting bolts to raise the square tubing to accommodate larger diameter rollers. It took about 30 minutes to modify the bearing puller. Equipment manager Ted Austin and superintendent Eric McCormick of the McCall (Idaho) Golf Club, along with renovation architect David Druzisky are very creative together.
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