[no_mind_golfer]

if you took a strip of sheet metal say 1 inch wide by 6 inch long and wrapped it around the end of the dowel and attached it to a weight, it's stiffness would prevent it from "releasing" in the plane of the golfswing while still allowing to rotate out of the plane of the swing (provided it doesn't bind up) if indeed it were subjected to a force that caused it to want to rotate out of the plane of the swing. I submit there is no force that causes it to want to rotate out of the plane of the swing.

Generally speaking..
Any object (a shaft for instance) will naturally want to rotate about an axis defined by its angular momentum vector. But all real objects are constrained to rotate about random axis which due to manufacturing tolerances is never aligned with the angular momentum. This unavoidable misalignment between angular momentum vector and axis of rotation causes imbalance forces. (Lathe imbalance for instance). But this has nothing to do with the face of a golf club opening and closing.

What we have with a golf club is the CG of each element of its contruction (head and shaft) wanting to find their way ONTO the plane of rotation (not off of) the plane of rotation. But... the club head being attached to the hossel is forced to rotate off plane (against its natural inclination) as the golfer's hands cause the shaft to rotate about its longitudinal axis.

nm golfer

I cannot clearly understand your experiment. Do you have a small flexible piece of string of finite length (eg. 3") between the nut and the peripheral end of the dowels stick? If yes - then I can imagine the string following the plane of clubshaft movement with the hex nut dragging behind in the same plane. However, what happens if you attach the hex nut to the peripheral end of the dowel stick with a piece of rigid metal about 3" in length and then move the dowel stick in a rounded arc - as if you were swinging it like a golf club across the front of the body?

Jeff.