TPS Response questions

[ktang 34]

Recently I acquired a broken Synergy and a broken Response, both broken at the blade. I was able to cut the Synergy at the fuse point and insert a tapered blade following your instructions from other posts - thanks for sharing.

I'm having more trouble finding the Response's fuse point. Has anybody made this cut?

Also, this LH Response seems to taper more on one side than the other. Is this to increase the snap on the shots, or is my stick warped?

I also notice a groove on the bottom edge of the shaft along the taper. What is this for?

Thanks in advance...

[EBondo 233]

i had no problem cutting both of my responses at the part to make it tapered. granite mine were both Juniors but i had no problem. on my stick, there was a line on the stick that i could use to make the cut.

[Gongshow11 1]

u can heat up the response and pull the blade out i beleive

[Jbone 0]

I tried that with a RR and the graphite melted. Not like a liquid but I could bend it in half.

[dieselbro 0]

Yeah, I recently tried heating up and taking out the blade on my Rubber Response. And well it turned out to be a nightmare. I ended up heating it up too much and the hole blade hosel was flexy and I ended up cutting it cleanly at the fuse point. Then I had to hollow out the end of the shaft so I couold fit a tapered blade in it, btw there was alot of foam and extra material in there too.

[Squirrel 0]

This is how I do it and it works real good. Just leave some rubbing alcohol in the bottom of the shaft for about a week and then heat it up with a heat gun and it slides right out.

[Ogie Oglethorpe 14]

If you have a Tflex shaft, or your converted synnergy, measure where the tflex shaft opening is equally as wide as where your broken TPS shaft is. Then, cut about 1/2 to 1 inch below that (closer to the blade). Auger it out, and work your way up (cutting) until the tapered blade fits.

u can heat up the response and pull the blade out i beleive

You must be confused with a different stick, as I don't think you can do that with at TPS Response (not the seniors, at least). I think they, like Easton, fuse something over the joint.

I have heard people do that with Vapors and M1's though.

[kovalchuk71 212]

I cut my R+ right at the fuse point and chiseled all of the stuff out...It took me a good hour and a half, but it turned out great and I still have it now

[ktang 34]

Well, thanks for the suggestions everybody.

I thought I would be too chicken to try the heat-and-pull thing because, with my lack of patience, I would probably overheat it and warp the shaft. Or set it on fire. :o Then I would lose my Cdn$5 investment. So I decided to go with the cutting method.

I still couldn't find the fuse point (they are easier to see on the Synergy and newer R+, though), so I used Ogie's method of comparing the shaft width on the Response against my T-Flex's with vernier calipers. I then double-checked by measuring the wall thickness at the butt end, doubling that, and adding the thickness of a T-Flex hosel. (Measure twice, cut once!)

Because there is a very gentle taper to the shaft there could be a wide range of cutting points. Also, if the Response and T-Flex have different wall thicknesses (and they do at their butt ends), or if the Response has different wall thicknesses on the butt and blade ends, the calculations would be off.

So, I stuck a rod down the shaft from the butt end to measure where it hit the foam etc. and measured 2 inches below that. This point was within the range determined above, so I cut it there (by hand, with a mitre box).

There was hard foam there from the blade interior, so I drilled it out. There was soft foam a little higher up, and I was able to blow it out (like blowing a dart through a blowgun). (I wonder what the soft foam is for? It was doubled up and stuffed in loosely. Maybe for damping vibrations?)

That left a rectangular sleeve (like a blade tenon) still inside the shaft, which I started to file out. But it was taking too long and I'm impatient, so I gave it a blast of heat over the gas stove and used a loose washer + screw to grip above the sleeve, and I pulled mightily. It didn't budge. :( Then I chickened out on the heat thing.

So I will try beans1314's rubbing alcohol method, and if that doesn't work I will chisel, rasp, and dremel the rest out.

Then I plan to cut higher up the shaft, bit by bit, until the T-Flex / R2 blade hosels fit in.

I will post my results in case somebody else comes along and needs more ideas about converting OPSes into tapered shafts. I have seen some horrid workmanship on these types of salvage jobs at the rink and wouldn't want anybody else to ruin a shaft or have their blade boomerang out.

[whbd18 0]

if you dont want the paint to come off dont use rubbing alcohol on tps sticks the paint will rub right off

[Squirrel 0]

if you dont want the paint to come off dont use rubbing alcohol on tps sticks the paint will rub right off

Thats why you put it inside of the shaft.

[ktang 34]

So, I tried the rubbing alcohol in the shaft for a week, followed by heating and pulling, and I still was not able to pull off the remaining tenon. However, it seemed to make chiseling out the connecting tenon easier (easier to split the carbon fibre layers).

Then, as Ogie suggested, I cut up a little at a time until the tapered hosel fit in.

The shaft / wood R2 combo shot pretty well. This is the first time that I have used a short-hosel blade, and I'm still getting used to it.

I guess that I should try to get broken Innos or Bauer X?? sticks next time if I just want to heat and pull.

Originally I asked about the stick's having more taper on the right side than the left (this was a left-handed TPS Response OPS, Model C8). I thought about it a bit, and designing more taper on the forehand side could let that side be flexier than the other side to add more snap (more material=more flex). This would be similar to the English yew longbows, which had the younger, flexier wood on the enemy side, and the older, stiffer wood on the archer's side.

I still haven't figured out why the groove would be deeper on the bottom than on the top, though.