Method of treating rubber composition with cure inhibitor to create soft skin in golf ball core
AssigneeAcushnet Company
InventorsMichael J. Sullivan, Brian Comeau, Douglas S. Goguen
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method of making a golf ball comprising the steps of providing a preform comprising an uncured polybutadiene composition; coating the preform with a first cure-altering material; curing the coated preform at a predetermined temperature to form a crosslinked golf ball core having an outer surface having a first hardness and a geometric center having a second hardness greater than the first to define a negative hardness gradient; and forming a cover layer about the core to form the golf ball.
Claims18
A method of making a golf ball comprising the steps of:
- providing a preform comprising an uncured polybutadiene composition;
- coating the uncured preform with a first cure-altering material;
- curing the coated uncured perform at a predetermined temperature to form a single unitary crosslinked golf ball core having an outer surface having a first hardness and a geometric center having a second hardness greater than the first to define a negative hardness gradient;
- and
- forming a cover layer about the core to form the golf ball.
A method of making a golf ball comprising the steps of:
- extruding a polybutadiene composition the form a cylindrical extrudate;
- cutting the extrudate to form an uncured polybutadiene preform;
- uniformly coating the uncured preform with a cure-altering material comprising a first antioxidant;
- curing the coated preform to form a single, unitary crosslinked core having an outer surface having a first hardness and a geometric center having a second hardness greater than the first to define a negative hardness gradient;
- centerless-grinding the cured core to form a uniformly-spherical core having increased surface roughness;
- forming an inner cover layer about the uniformly-spherical core;
- and
- forming an outer cover layer about the inner cover layer to form the golf ball.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.