As there are more lacrosse brands making different lacrosse equipment than ever, particularly shafts and heads, sometimes your head can become wobbly and loose as a result of different specs and standards. Not to mention, wear and tear from daily practice and constant contact with a ball or a stick could also lead to a wobbly head.
Hence, once you identify such an issue, you should always make sure to address it immediately before practice and prior to real games to ensure best practice results and game performance.
That said, if you are someone who doesn’t mind the wobble, let me know in the comments below as there could be some potential upsides to which I am not aware!
Without further ado, let’s take a look at a few ways you can fix a wobbly lacrosse head.
How is a lacrosse head fixed on a shaft?
When you buy a lacrosse head and lacrosse shaft separately, you ideally want to use two screws to keep the lacrosse head firmly in place if the head provides two screw holes. Once it starts to rattle, it’s often either because the screw isn’t tightly snug against the shaft due to worn down or the head and the shaft are made based on slightly different specs.
Here are a couple of ways to fix this:
Try to tighten the screw
The simplest solution is often the right solution. Maybe you haven’t been taking care of your head as you should have. So, check and see if the current screw is tightened. Use a Phillips head screwdriver to tighten the head.
Replace the old screw with a new one
Pretty straightforward. If you start to see the old screw begins to wear down, time to get a new screw. The typical lacrosse screw is a ⅛ inch screw that you can find in any local hardware store. If you want to buy lacrosse screws, check out this colored screw from ECD.
Drill a new hole
The most secure way to fix a head onto a shaft is to screw in the front and back holes. If your head lacks one hole, you can drill a new hole for the screw.
However, if you aren’t savvy enough to make sure the hole will perfectly get screwed in, I wouldn’t recommend this method unless you have tried all other methods.
Use cutoff shooting strings before sliding the stick in
Take a piece of 2 inches cutoff shooting string and wrap it on top of the shaft to eliminate the extra space that is causing the rattle. Once you place the shooting string over the top of the shaft, slide the head in nice and slowly and keep it snug.
If wrapping the shaft on both sides appears to be too thick, you can simply drop half of the shooting string inside the shaft and the other over to the outside of the shaft to take less space.
Use tape before screwing the stick in
The most popular way to stop the wobble is to wrap the shaft around with either electrical tape or athletic tape. I personally like electrical tape better as it’s waterproof, durable and very thin. Pretty straightforward process: all you need to do is to cut a few inches of the tape, wrap it around the end of the shaft where you slide the head onto. This will stop the rattle as the tape reduces the empty space.
One note, however, is that you shouldn’t make it too tight to the point that you can’t take the head off. As long as it doesn’t wobble, you are good to go.
Check out this simple and easy video by lacrosse star Paul Rabil on how he uses tape before screwing:
Conclusion
Now you have learned a couple of ways to fix a wobbly or a loose lacrosse head. I recommend you to test them out and see which one gives you the best result. In addition, as a part of your preparation before practice and games, it’s always a good practice to check your head to ensure it’s tightly screwed to the shaft.
Small things like this have a great impact on your performance and growth, so make sure to address them immediately!
If you also want to cut your lacrosse shaft, learn the step-by-step guide here.
