Very little wows us anymore at MyGolfSpy. We’ve seen just about everything…or so we often think.
We desperately want to be blown away.
That was the goal behind the creation of #ThePimpList. There are absolute artists working for the golf companies and we wanted to offer an outlet for them to show off their work in ways that standard off-the-rack stuff simply doesn’t allow for. We wanted to see what would happen if the biggest motivation behind the design of a golf club was to make jaws drop.
We wanted to see something we hadn’t seen before. We wanted to be wowed.
That was our plan, and so #ThePimpList was born.
A Snake in the Grass
What the team at Cobra Golf produced was the absolute biggest surprise of the #ThePimpList. I mean, let’s be honest, most of what we’ve seen from them has been fairly straightforward. They don’t have a custom program. They don’t have a face of the brand like Bob Vokey or Roger Cleveland. When it comes to wedges, Cobra tends to stick to the routine.
The wedges they submitted for #ThePimpList were anything but. We’ve never seen anything like this from them before.
Cobra actually submitted 4 wedges, and while under normal circumstances we’d probably have been partial the the Tour Trusty with the MyGolfSpy logo stamped into an otherwise blank face, we were absolutely blown away…stunned…dumbfounded by two of the company’s other submissions.
Given our reaction…and your vote, we wanted to dig a little deeper to give you a behind the scenes look at the people, the ideas, and the execution that went into creating these two jaw-dropping PimpList favorites.
The Cobra Team
Doug Roberts – Director of R&D Club Design
Cameron Day – Golf Club Industrial Designer
Jose Miraflor – Director of Product Creation
Matt Johnson – Machinist
Brett Viboch – Club Technician
“Cau” Chau – Master Modelmaker
The Challenge
After hearing about #ThePimpList from Jose Miraflor, Cobra set up a meeting to brainstorm ideas. The feeling inside Cobra was that the other companies would likely present finely stamped patterns on wedges. Cobra wanted to do something completely different from the rest of the field. How Cobra zig when everyone else zags?
Cobra felt their designs needed to be different, fun, techy, and cool.“Cool stuff that Works” is the Cobra brand. Their designs had to be Bad Ass!
It didn’t take long before the team had some awesome ideas. The next step was execution. The Cobra team wasn’t sure how its ideas would turn out, but they knew they’d have fun finding out.
The Idea: Damascus Wedge
Cobra believed that Damascus Steel would give their wedge a unique look.
For those who don’t know, Damascus Steel is created by stacking layers of different types of steel together before forge welding the individual layers together and manipulating them form a unique pattern. It’s not unusual for Damascus Steel to be made up of hundreds, even thousands of layers.
Creating quality Damascus Steel is a time-consuming process, but Cobra felt that, if machined correctly, the grain pattern would present a very cool design element.
We’re inclined to agree. Quite honestly, we’ve never seen a Damascus wedge before, and when we saw it for the first time…it was basically one of the biggest holy shit! moments in the history of MyGolfSpy.
With the initial design settled, Cobra Designer, Cameron Day, was asked to add a little Cobra flair to the graphics design.
Cobra loved the idea of the material technology showing through, combined with a new Cobra logo presentation on top.
Damascus Wedge: Execution
Cobra’s Cameron Day quickly went to work, using design software to create the look and model in CAD the 3D graphics. Machinist, Matt Johnson was assigned the difficult task of finding, treating, and machining the steel.
Once Cobra secured blocks of 1018 and 1025 steel blocks, the blocks needed to be forged.
The steel block was squared and then 100% machine milled into the final wedge shape.
Next the wedge was sent to heat treat. The red material is molten sand.
Cobra’s Master Moldmaker “Cau” Chau machined the face and scorelines.
To complete the vision for the Cobra Damascus Wedge, Brett Viboch added the paintfill, finish, and final and did the final assembly of the product.
The Idea: Raw Weld
In the spirit of being unique, Cobra’s Doug Roberts knew that “raw” look could be cool. He had seen previous tour wedges with small weld designs and Cobra believed that:
- The weld would create an interesting visual and color.
- Weld could also present an interesting feel to the treatment of the steel.
Raw Weld Wedge: Execution
Doug Roberts made a quick 3D CAD model of the Design Concept.
Cobra’s Machinist, Matt Johnson machined 100% the wedge shape.
Next Matt added the weld design and heat treatment.
Brett Viboch handled the sole grind and the polish while Cameron Day added in the detail stamping design.
Finished, Paintfilled, and Assembled.
In keeping with the “raw” theme, Cobra added a completely blank grip, similar to a racing tire rubber.
Forging Damascus
For those interested in how Damascus Steel is made (and who have 30 minutes to kill), here’s an excellent into video that explains exactly what it takes to create the contrasting beauty that is Damascus.
Carolina_Golfer2
7 years ago
That is one of the coolest things I’ve seen. Both of them turned out awesome.
So cool of Cobra to really go outside the lines here.