1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a plasma welding method for a golf club head. Particularly, the present invention relates to the plasma welding method of tilting a plasma nozzle a predetermined angle with respect to the golf club head for avoiding obstruction of a neck portion or a hosel of the golf club head. More particularly, the present invention relates to the plasma welding method for welding on a connection line, within a predetermined section, between a striking plate and a club head body.
2. Description of the Related Art
Referring now to FIGS. 1 and 2, a conventional golf club head includes a club head body 91 and a striking plate 92 mounted to the club head body 91, as disclosed in TWN Patent Pub. No. 585,792, entitled “golf club head and manufacturing method therefor (II),” TWN Patent Pub. No. I225,421, entitled “golf club head structure,” TWN Patent Pub. No. I226,251, entitled “connecting structure for a striking plate with a golf club head,” and U.S. Pat. No. 6,099,414, entitled “golf club head and method for producing the same” etc. A connection line 93 exists between the club head body 91 and the striking plate 92 which are welded by a suitable welding method. In welding operation, a variety of welding methods, such as tungsten inert gas (TIG) welding, laser welding, plasma welding or other suitable welding methods, may be selectively used.
The above plasma welding may be selected to weld the club head body 91 and the striking plate 92, which carries out advantages of high-energy, high-accuracy, high-speed and high-quality welding, and further minimizes or attenuates a heat affected zone of material in a welding process.
In plasma welding operation, a movable plasma nozzle 94 is disposed on a slide track (not shown) and aligned with the connection line 93 existing between the club head body 91 and the striking plate 92. Subsequently, the plasma nozzle 94 is moved downward to an operating level above the connection line 93, and welded along the connection line 93 by an automatic welding process. The club head body 91 has a neck portion 91 and a hosel 912 connected thereto. It should be noted that the neck portion 911, however, is located between the hosel 912 and the club head body 91 and extended upward from a level of the striking plate 92. The neck portion 911 may unavoidably obstruct or interfere in a runway of the plasma nozzle 94 in the plasma welding since the neck portion 911, to a certain extent, is too close to the connection line 93. Consequently, the plasma nozzle 94 running at the operating level cannot pass through above a section of the connection line 93 adjacent to the neck portion 911 of the club head body 91 due to interference with the neck portion 911.
As explained above, the automatic plasma welding process is only suitable for welding the other section of the connection line 93 away from the neck portion 911 of the club head body 91. Meanwhile, other suitable welding methods, a TIG welding method for example, may be used to manually weld the section of the connection line 93 adjacent to the neck portion 911 of the club head body 91. Such welding method may cause poor quality, increased deformation and low efficiency of welding on the connection line 93 adjacent to the neck portion 911 of the club head body 91. Accordingly, such practice, however, may limit the welding process to carry out to be a complete automatic welding process. Hence, there is a need for improving the plasma welding process for the golf club head.
The present invention intends to provide the plasma welding method of tilting a plasma nozzle a predetermined angle with respect to a golf club head for avoiding obstruction of a neck portion or a hosel of the golf club head in such a way to mitigate and overcome the above problem. This permits the plasma nozzle passing through a connection line adjacent to the neck portion of the golf club head in the plasma welding process. Accordingly, the plasma welding method carries out a complete automatic plasma welding process so as to improve the welding efficiency and quality.