JPH0694516B2 - Golf ball surface treatment equipment - Google Patents

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an apparatus for surface-treating a golf ball.

[0002]

As is well known, as a golf ball, a solid single layer ball, a two-piece ball having a solid core coated with an outer cover made of balata resin or a thermoplastic resin, and a wound ball having a wound core coated with an outer cover similar to the outer cover. Etc. are provided. These golf balls are mainly coated with a pigmented paint and a clear paint. This surface coating not only plays an important role in holding stamped letters, numbers, marks, etc., and maintaining gloss and aesthetics, but also reduces air resistance and improves flight performance of golf balls. Have significant meaning. Urethane-based paint is usually used for this coating, but simply applying the paint coating on the surface of the molded golf ball body will provide sufficient impact peeling resistance to withstand the intense impact of a golf club. I can't do it. Therefore, various surface treatment methods have been tried for the purpose of improving the adhesion between the golf ball body and the coating layer, but sufficient performance cannot be obtained yet, and there are many problems in the manufacturing process. Is the current situation. For example, the method of flame-treating the golf ball body and then applying the coating has a risk of fire and burns, is not preferable in the process, and is insufficient in the effect of improving the adhesion. In addition, the method of roughening the surface of the golf ball body by sandblasting, etc. also has the drawbacks that the effect of improving the adhesion is insufficient and that the shape of the dimples molded on the surface is significantly damaged.

[0003]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and it is possible to impart a high impact peeling resistance to a paint coating layer on the surface of a golf ball and to keep the safety of the manufacturing process high. It is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus for performing surface treatment of a golf ball that can be manufactured.

In order to achieve this object, the inventors of the present invention have made earnest studies, and as a result, exposed the golf ball body to a low-temperature plasma atmosphere of a non-plasma-polymerizable gas, and then applied the coating to the ball body and the coating. The inventors have found a golf ball surface treatment apparatus capable of improving the adhesion with the coating layer to a level capable of withstanding high-speed repeated impacts, and arrived at the present invention.

[0005]

The golf ball surface treating apparatus of the present invention is used for bringing the golf ball body into contact with a low-temperature plasma atmosphere of a non-plasma-polymerizable gas when coating the surface of the golf ball body.

The low temperature plasma (so-called glow discharge plasma) used in the present invention can be generated by applying an electric field to a non-plasma polymerizable gas at low temperature and low pressure. The non-plasma-polymerizable gas is an inorganic or organic gas that does not form a high-molecular-weight polymerized film in a plasma generation state, and as this type of gas (hereinafter, referred to as a processing gas), for example, argon, Inert gas such as helium and neon, halogen gas such as chlorine, hydrogen chloride, bromine, bromine cyanide, tin bromide or halide,
Sulfur, sulfurous acid gas, sulfides such as hydrogen sulfide, oxygen, nitrogen,
Ammonia, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, hydrogen and the like can be mentioned. These processing gases are used alone or as a mixture.

Among these processing gases, when oxygen gas, a mixed gas of oxygen gas and other non-plasma polymerizable gas, or a mixed gas of argon and argon and other non-plasma polymerizable gas is used, Particularly, the surface treatment effect is high and a strong adhesion can be obtained in a short time treatment. The reason for this is unknown, but when oxygen gas is used, the emission ultraviolet spectrum of oxygen plasma contains many short-wavelength components, and the outer surface of the golf ball, for example, an ion-crosslinking resin, is in the short-wavelength ultraviolet region. Due to the deep absorption, the surface treated by oxygen plasma may be uniquely modified.

However, the plasma gas containing oxygen may cause over-treatment or ashing if the conditions are set incorrectly.
It is necessary to pay sufficient attention to the control.

In this respect, argon gas has substantially the same powerful effect as oxygen and is easy to handle.

The processing gas is introduced into the processing container and turned into plasma. A suitable gas pressure for generating low temperature plasma in the processing gas in the container is 10 to 0.01 Torr.
Is.

It is necessary to apply an electric field in order to generate plasma in the processing container, and as the electrode type, either an internal electrode system or an external electrode system can be adopted. The former has a drawback that it is difficult to increase the industrial size of the device because it requires an insulating cylinder.

As a power source for supplying electric power to the electrodes,
Power supplies of direct current, low frequency, high frequency, microwave, etc. can be applied, but in order to efficiently induce and start discharge induction, it is preferable to use a high frequency power supply of 1 kHz or more. When a high-frequency voltage is applied to the processing gas to generate low-temperature plasma, it may be necessary to match the internal resistance of the power supply with the discharge impedance.

The surface treatment method for a golf ball using the apparatus according to the present invention depends on the type of material forming the surface of the golf ball body (eg, balata resin, thermoplastic resin, metal salt reinforced peroxide crosslinked resin, etc.). However, it is effective when applied to a golf ball made of any material, and can exhibit strong adhesion between the surface of the golf ball body and the paint. In particular, an ionically crosslinkable thermoplastic resin, which has been widely used as an outer covering material of a golf ball in recent years due to its excellent impact fracture resistance, such as Surlyn resin (trade name of DuPont, a copolymer of ethylene and an unsaturated monocarboxylic acid). The present invention is extremely effective, since no effective surface treatment method has hitherto existed for a resin having a heat-changeable metal cross-linking, etc. . In the low temperature plasma used in the present invention, the gas atmosphere temperature is at most about 80 to 100 ° C.,
Since it is less than that, the desired surface treatment effect, that is, the appearance is excellent and the design shape is more faithful, without damaging the molding shape of the substrate and dimples etc. of the surface of the golf ball made of a material that is relatively high in temperature. You can get the reflected ball. Further, the state of close contact between the surface of the golf ball body and the paint is extremely stable over time without deterioration due to environmental factors such as temperature, humidity and light, and without causing discoloration or discoloration of the paint.

According to the present invention, the golf ball body is produced by generating a non-plasma polymerizable gas, preferably oxygen gas, argon, a mixed gas of oxygen gas and other gas, or argon and other gas, which is generated in a vacuum container provided with internal electrodes. A device for treating the surface of a golf ball body by bringing it into contact with a low-temperature plasma atmosphere of a mixed gas with a gas. Specifically, a multi-stage shelf as shown in FIG. A device for low-temperature plasma treatment in which the main body of the golf ball is placed in.

The surface treatment apparatus for a golf ball according to the present invention will be described below more specifically with reference to the drawings.

In FIG. 1, (1) is a gas introduction and leak valve system, and a predetermined flow rate of gas is introduced into the vacuum container (2) through a gas cylinder, a pressure reducing valve, a variable leak valve (or a mass flow meter) and the like. . Prior to gas introduction, the air in the vacuum vessel (2) is removed via the valve (5). (3) is a vacuum gauge, (4) is a high frequency power supply system, (6) is an electrode, and (12) is a shelf.

In the plasma processing in such an apparatus, a golf ball main body (8) which has been previously shaped and removed burrs and the like is placed on each shelf (12), and then the valve (5) is placed inside the vacuum container (2). Degas via vacuum. After that, a required amount of processing gas is introduced into the container (2) by the gas introduction valve system (1), and plasma discharge is performed for a certain time.

Further, in the device of FIG. 1, it does not matter if the earth and the electrode are exchanged.

The body of the golf ball which has been subjected to such treatment is coated with pigment and finish clear paint to obtain a golf ball.

In the apparatus of the present invention described above,
Since the golf ball main body for treatment has the balls arranged in a single layer on each of a plurality of shelves in the container, the surface of each ball is completely plasma-treated, which is very preferable.

Therefore, the golf ball main body treated by the surface treatment apparatus of the present invention is preferably coated with a pigmented paint and a finish clear paint, and the peeling phenomenon does not occur during use.

[0022]

EXAMPLES The present invention will be described in more detail below with reference to examples.

In the examples, the tape peeling test means that a cross cut is put on the surface of a painted golf ball with a knife, an adhesive tape is pressure-bonded to cover the cross cut,
This tape is a test method for observing the state of interfacial peeling when the tape is rapidly peeled off. The repeated hitting test is a test method for repeatedly hitting a golf ball at a head speed of 70 m / sec and observing the peeled state of paint. .

[0024]

[Reference Example] 200 golf ball main bodies, which were covered with a thermoplastic ionomer resin, had dimples formed thereon, and had burrs removed, were processed by the apparatus shown in FIG.
That is, 200 balls are placed in the rotating basket (2), the lid of the processing container is closed, and then the valve (5) is pumped.
The air in the container was exhausted through, and when the pressure reached 10 ⁻³ torr, oxygen gas was supplied into the container through the valve (1), and the pressure was adjusted to 1 torr.

The rotation of the rotating basket was set to 4 times / minute and 13.5.
The ball was treated by applying a high frequency of 6 MHz at an output of 400 W for 3 minutes. The treated balls were coated with a pigmented paint and a clear paint, and then subjected to the above-mentioned cross patch test and repeated ball hitting test (A) plasma-untreated balls, (B) plasma-treated balls without rotating the rotating basket. And (C) the adhesion of the plasma-treated balls by rotating the rotating basket was comparatively evaluated, and the results are shown in Table 1.

[0026]

[Table 1] As shown in Table 1, the obtained golf ball has an extremely high interfacial adhesion between the Surlyn resin outer coat and the paint, as compared with the plasma-untreated ball, regardless of whether the ball is left stationary or stirred. It was found that the appearance was smooth and excellent.

[0027]

Example 1 Using the apparatus shown in FIG. 1, one ball was placed on each ball holder, the holder was inserted between the high frequency electrodes, and treatment was performed with oxygen gas. In this device, plasma gas is generated in the electric field between the insertion electrode and the ball holder, the entire surface of the ball is exposed to the atmosphere of plasma gas, and uniform treatment is possible, so the adhesion is also the same as in the rotating basket of the reference example. It was almost the same.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic vertical sectional view of a device of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic vertical sectional view of a reference device.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 ... Gas introduction valve 2 ... Vacuum container 4 ... High frequency power source 5 ... Air discharge valve 6 ... Electrode 8 ... Golf ball body 12 ... Shelf

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A vacuum container equipped with a gas introduction valve, a high frequency power supply and an air exhaust valve, a multi-tiered shelf for accommodating a golf ball body disposed in the vacuum container, and upper and lower parts of each stage of the shelf. And a surface treatment apparatus for a golf ball having an electrode disposed on at least one side thereof.