What finish on Maple Shaft to keep it white?

[MikeWooldridge]

I will not even recommend using water at all.

i have to disagree with that.

sweat and grime from hands builds up no matter how hard you try to keep hands and cue clean.

dirt, by nature, sticks. so it needs something to 'lift' it from the surface.

so some moisture is required from time to time, just to cut through the dirt a little.

a very light wipe down with a damp cloth, then buff dry, brings cues back to super smooth every time without any danger of harming the finish.

but i agree one must be careful. it must not be 'wet' or allowed to stay on for more than time it takes to wipe the cue up and down then buffed dry immediately.

Mike, which brand of Danish oil will you recommend?

erm, dunno. aurora cue oil?

Isn't Danish oil just a kind of polymerized linssed oil but much thicker?

no idea. all i know is it behaves very differently to any type of linseed oil.

happy new year airin, keep up the good work.

[trevs1]

In a slight divergence to the usual discussion of the use of different finishes on cues; raw linseed oil, bee's wax, others, etc.; I have a slight recollection of Pooljunkie (Aurora Cues) mentioning a different finish that, specifically on a maple shaft, does not discolour the wood, unlike linseed which can colour the wood to a golden/light brown. Which in traditional snooker cues (and ash mainly) is preferred but in US pool cues, white shafts are preferred.
My question, what finish would maintain the maple's white colour and not allow any discolouring as it ages? Also what finishes stop UV discolouring of any other woods (as in splices)? I have a Masur/Karelian birch splice which has changed from white to gold by the light, how to stop this?
Cheers

Maple, along with many other "white" timbers, will darken over time. The process is mainly due to oxidation, but UV light also plays a part in it. There isn't a great deal you can do to stop it altogether.

Some maple shafts will be naturally paler than others, and this is just simply due to the fact that some trees will have different growing conditions to other trees, and so the timber yielded will (or can) be variable. Most other timbers are just the same, and vary from one piece to another not only in grain but colour also. It is natural after all. Maple sapwood and heartwood is virtually indistinguishable, so there's perhaps not going to be huge variation for that reason, but I could be wrong on that.

The best way to keep maple very pale is to finish it with a thick surface coating of some sort, like lacquering or a similar process, to "trap" the timber underneath and stop air / dirt getting to it. Not the ideal solution really.

I have no idea whether any chemical treatments would improve the colour retention, but there are chemicals that can mimic the appearance of older, more golden maple, but that's kind of defeating the point here I guess.

You'll probably have to put up with it getting darker over time.

[poolqjunkie]

Just out of curiosity, do you folks in the UK have various names for the maple for sale in the store like Big Leaf Maple, Sugar Maple and things like that or do they just call them Canadian maple, or North American maple in general?

[DeanH]

As a "customer" and not a "maker", I have only come across the terms Canadian and North American in regards "types" of maple.

[trevs1]

[QUOTE=poolqjunkie;612477]Just out of curiosity, do you folks in the UK have various names for the maple for sale in the store like Big Leaf Maple, Sugar Maple and





Not really, it's either hard (or rock) maple or soft maple here in the UK. The terms you use are perhaps more commonly used in the US.