Clean With Coke – Try This At Home!

About 10 years ago I was lucky enough to get a Titleist Vokey prototype sand wedge from a friend. It was the first time I had played with a raw finished club, or “rusty” finish. That treatment is now the most popular on the professional tours and with most amateurs. Some claim that rusty clubs produce more backspin, and others just like them because of the reduced glare and the worn look. After 7 or 8 seasons in the sandy turf of Florida with my trusty rusty, I developed a wear spot on the face, and eventually I had to replace the wedge. I’ve tried to keep hitting it, but I simply can’t get the ball to stop with no grooves left.

I’m glad I kept it around, because it turned into the perfect test subject for my weekend science experiment. I got an email a few weeks ago about all the weird things you can do with Coke, like clean your toilet and dissolve a t-bone steak in 2 days. It has been going around the internet and the things in it are mostly false, but it got me thinking, would the acid in a bottle of Coke do anything to remove the rust from an old club? I set up a rig in my garage to test it out, and the results were shocking! Let’s take a look at my experiment and the findings.

Below is the before picture of my beloved wedge. It’s been sitting in a humid Florida garage all summer, rusting away. You can see the nice wear pattern from years of solid hits on the range and course. I sure wish I could hit it like that still… Anyway, moving on…

The picture below shows my test set up. I filled a cup with Coca-Cola Classic, and suspended the wedge in the cup from my swing weight scale so that half the face was in the coke, and the other half stayed out. I didn’t submerge the entire wedge so that I could see what the difference was, if any, between the soaked and un-soaked side. How did the Coke do? Scroll down to find out!

The below picture shows just how powerful the acids in a bottle of Coke can be. I soaked the wedge in the Coke for 24 hours, removed it and rinsed it in water to remove the stickiness. I was quite shocked to see that the rust was gone and the finish had been stripped down to the raw metal!

If a bottle of Coke can strip metal and destroy rust and oxidation on your wedge, what the heck is it doing to our stomachs? The photo below shows another view of the difference. Obviously, soaking a raw metal club in Coke overnight can remove rust! I suppose you could do this with any acid, but most commercial acids can melt your skin, and can’t be purchased at the corner store in a 2 liter bottle for 99 cents! If you have an old club at home that you want to remove the rust from, forget about scrubbing it, just give it a Coke soak!

Hope you liked my little science experiment. If you want to get the latest articles as they are posted or just want to keep up with the latest at intothegrain.com, be sure to use the link on the top left to “like” our facebook page and let me know how we are doing!