Finding the seam: blade replacement

[krisdrum 233]

I searched and couldn't exactly find what I was looking for.  How do you find the seam on a stick that you want to replace the blade on that originally a "one piece"?  I want to see if I can convert a stick over to just a shaft I can pop a blade in after my experiment (see below) fails.  I have a heat gun.  I just don't want to randomly cut the shaft if I don't have to.  Is there a way to figure out the seam?  I've visually and touch inspected the shaft to no avail.

 

Context: I picked up an Easton S7 on clearance.  Left hand stick, as I wanted to see if I could teach myself to play "euro style" with my dominant hand on top.  It has been slow and frustrating.  I am much more comfortable and effective with my left hand on top (shooting, passing, stickhandling).  With the lefty stick my stickhandling is a bit quicker (I can move the blade with more speed and finesse), but not all that great in any of the other aspects.  I'm getting to the point I just want to go back to a righty stick. 

 

   

[Giraffe14 23]

There is a thread about it on here somewhere...  I was able to replace the blade from a CCM RBZ 80 by following the advice I read on that thread. 

 

I cut the stick where there was a slight cracking in the paint on the bottom of the shaft.  I then heated up the shaft and used plyers and an x-acto knife to yank out the remaining pieces of tenon.  I then inserted a tapered blade.

 

It took a bit of work, and I have only used the stick for shooting practice in my garage, as it is pretty heavy. 

 

Good luck!

[DRR 112]

If kick point is not a concern, then just pop in a regular blade into the top end, and cut the existing blade off to whatever height you want. It's likely that the top will now be tapered but it's nothing a little tape can't fix. I've done this a couple of times, for practice/ shinny it works well.

 

If you want to preserve the kick point you'll have to do some measuring, I would cut low (conservatively) and see if a tapered blade will fit. You may have to use a caliper or something to get a more exact measurement. Or just go slowly with trial and error, cutting small pieces off at a time, you will eventually get to a point in the shaft where a tapered blade will fit. No guarantees as to how long the shaft is at this point, there's a chance it will be too short as you have probably already cut it down. Nothing a butt end extension wouldn't fix.