Harbor log · 02 Jun 2026
Nylon versus aluminum stock
Most collars on modern irons are nylon because nylon turns cleanly and takes a polish without pretending to be jewelry. Nylon also takes on water. That sentence is the whole humidity business in miniature. Aluminum does not drink the lake. Aluminum galls paint, shows every zipper scratch from a range bag, and needs a slower tool. Neither material is a personality. Both are choices, and the wrong choice is usually an installer using whatever was in the nearest bin.
We keep nylon in a sealed cabinet with a card. If the card has gone pink, the stock does not go on a gamer. Pegboard nylon from a mixed bag has already lived a warehouse life. It gums the lathe. It mushrooms in a wet July. It shrinks along the turn in a dry January. Cabinet nylon still lives in Ohio weather once it is on the neck, but it starts honest. Starting honest is the entire advantage. We cannot climate-control a trunk. We can climate-control a drawer.
Aluminum shows up on some woods and on a few putter necks. Metal will not bloom white after a week at Maumee Bay. It will, if the OD is proud, chew the hosel paint into a gray step that no ring can un-chew. We dry-mock metal against the paint before epoxy. If the paint is already a mess from a previous proud ring, we say so. A new aluminum collar will not restore a factory line that has been galled twice. It will only be a shinier witness.
Color on metal is anodize or paint, not a molded dye lot. That matters when someone wants an amber wood collar to match a nylon iron set. They will not match. They can rhyme if you squint. Tess will not squint on your behalf. She will put the metal blank next to the nylon iron under the lamp and then at the window. If you still want metal, we turn it. If you wanted a family and you are getting a cousin, we would rather lose the job than invent a match that fails on the first sunny Saturday.
Tool marks are a metal problem more than a nylon problem. Amber nylon shows marks; black nylon hides them; aluminum inventories them in any color. Corinne turns metal slower and stops earlier. A last pass that would be vanity on nylon is vandalism on aluminum. We also warn about range-bag zippers. A metal collar on a fairway wood that lives in a noisy bag will look used in a month. That is not a defect. That is the material telling the truth about the bag.
If you ask us to put aluminum on a set of irons because you heard it “doesn’t swell,” we will talk you out of it unless you have a reason that survives the window test. Irons want nylon. Woods can go either way depending on the head. Putters are case by case and usually slower. The tariff is different because the time is different. The lake does not care which one you pick. The paint does. The drawer does. Pick on purpose.