Warped / crooked cues

[poolqjunkie]

I have to respecfully disagree that Canadian ash is poor.

Of course any wood be it maple or ash may warp but it is not really a matter of climate more so than poor wood quality or/and poor technique as well as storage and handling issues.

Dufferin cues are now all produced in China. I am not sure if the wood is from Canada anymore.

I have come across many old Canadian cues made with Canadian ash which are still very straight.

[kgene]

No disrespect to Canadian Ash as I do have a couple of 1/2 cues that are ash and play very well and have kept straight. I seem to have less luck on the 3/4 ash and full length ash. I was told by an area cue maker that I bought the cues from that ash is pretty stable wood and a good piece of wood with good grain will stay straight if there is some expansion or contraction because of weather. He quoted a certain percentage that the wood was dried to. Was either 8 or 12%.

Don't want to try any liquid or steam on the cue yet. Worried about another possible problem of swelling or distortion to the wood which I would have to sand off or reshape. The weights give me more control on the direction of the bend.

[Cateran]

That is a Canadian made Dufferin Ash 3/4 Spirit Cue that I'm straightening out. The same model that I bought about 5 years ago that started to warp in the shaft. Went back to Dufferin to get a replacement shaft but they were all warped. Something about the Canadian climate I guess. Yeah I've had better luck with the 1/2 maple cues. The one I"m working on I bought because I liked the grain on the shaft and got a big discount because it was warped. Although I would really like to buy a good quality English cue, I'm worried about it warping because of our climate. Now at least if I do get one I know how to straightening it if it starts to go.

I can't see why Canadian weather would have any more or less of an effect on cues than UK weather. I live on the westcoast and I'd say our weather is pretty close to what one gets in (for example) Glasgow when it comes to humidity and temperature. And I don't hear any of the Scots guys here complaining about warped shafts. Anyway, aren't most cue makers using North American Ash for their shafts?

[poolqjunkie]

I think you will find that a cue made in your local area with the proper technique and high quality wood should stay straight be it a 3/4, one piece, or half jointed cue.

However, a lot of the cue makers in Canada in the old days were not really equiped to nor knowledgable in building one piece or 3/4 cues. They were more proficient in building half jointed cues. Some of them have gotten the half jointed cue technique down to an art but when you ask them to build a 3/4 cue, they had to venture into an unfamiliar territory and would need to experiment. Also, their best wood stock were most likely already cut down to fit their 1/2 joint shafts, so they may have to use newer wood for their 3/4 or one piece cues.

Even for a mass production company like Dufferin, they have only produced one 3/4 cue model, is that right? The rest of their cues are all half jointed, with the exception of their one piece house cues. I dont think they would buy new or modify their existing equipment just to produce one model of snooker cues so they were probably producing them with their house cue set up. Dufferin also made most of their cues in maple. They may be more comfortable and experienced dealing with maple because of that. I have seen some half jointed ash cues made by them but they were not very expensive cues, which leads to my assumption that they probably did not have high quality ash for their cues to begin with.

3/4 and one piece cues require different set up to build--if someone is equiped to build 1/2 cues but tries to modify his equipment to build 3/4 cues, he may or may not do a very good job. It is just because he would be doing something he does not have lots of experience in and is not familiar with.

I am just trying to say that just because a Canadian built 3/4 cue has lower quality does not mean there is necessarily something wrong with the climate.

Anyway, if you get lucky, you may get a super monster players out from a batch of Dufferin. When you do, you should hold on to it and try your best to fix it like what you are doing now. Good luck!