Earlier this week Cobra Golf made headlines with the announcement of the first consumer-ready 3D-printed irons — the Cobra LIMIT3D. There are only 500 sets of these limited-edition clubs available worldwide and they go on sale in June, with a price tag of $3,000 for a 4-PW set.
With these irons coming to market soon, we at the Fully Equipped Podcast had a lengthy discussion about how 3D printing has evolved the club design and engineering environment and allowed designers to push the boundaries of mass properties and rapid prototyping.
“When you consider the costs of producing unique dies to make a forged set of irons it’s in the tens of thousands of dollars range, and because of that process, those dies will wear out over time” Ryan Barath, GOLF’s senior equipment editor said. “With 3D printing, if you have the design file and one of these 3D printers… you can manufacture (print) club heads out for infinity because the file can’t just wear out like a forging die, and this allows for small changes to be made during the R&D process without having to produce new dies.”
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We also found out during the podcast that our very own Kris McCormack, who had to sign an NDA, was involved with the R&D team at Cobra during the development process to provide feedback on the project.
Jonathan Wall was asked by Gene Parente about how the new Cobra Limited irons fit in and compare to other irons in the marketplace. “They’re slightly smaller than the Cobra King Tour irons,” Wall said, “and they have up to 100 grams of tungsten loaded into the heads to offer what Cobra claim to be a better player focused iron with the forgiveness of a much larger game improvement club.”
For the full podcast, including an interview with Cobra’s VP of innovation and A.I. Mike Yagley, check out the link below. You can also find the Fully Equipped podcast on YouTube.
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