Density of cue shafts and BP

[poona]

Got to admit, I never considered the grain/chevron/arrow spacing, angles, darkness, lightness, etc, etc, until I stumbled across this board.

I still stand by my statement to a certain cue maker that I would be happy to use a poor looking shaft which plays fantastic than a fantastic looking shaft that plays poorly.

I understand why people want aesthetics due to the beauty of the final cue, but is a cue at £1000 (not naming any names) really worth it?

Worms, can, opened.... *runs*

[Particle Physics]

[QUOTE=trevs1;656878]

The thing with cue shafts is simple. They need to be of adequate weight, AND, adequate stiffness, in order to offer the opportuntiy to produce a reasonable playing cue. The issue with grain pattern and arrow marking means nothing at all, not one tiny bit.

*Disagree big time. Grain pattern is very important for feel (and density, weight and how solid the shot feels). You can't take a bit of wood with loads of grain and chevrons and make a flat belly ash cue as smooth as maple in feel. If there are chevrons underneath, you're gonna feel them, and if you can feel them, it's affecting you. No two cues ever feel the same across the bridge and in the cue hand; that's because they wood is different! OP: go to a club and try your mate's cues, some will feel good, and some won't, and that's down to the feel of the shaft amongst other things, and the shafts one likes will be different to the shafts one doesn't.

[Particle Physics]

Got to admit, I never considered the grain/chevron/arrow spacing, angles, darkness, lightness, etc, etc, until I stumbled across this board.

I still stand by my statement to a certain cue maker that I would be happy to use a poor looking shaft which plays fantastic than a fantastic looking shaft that plays poorly.

I understand why people want aesthetics due to the beauty of the final cue, but is a cue at £1000 (not naming any names) really worth it?

Worms, can, opened.... *runs*

I agree and disagree with you. Yes, one is always going to prefer a shaft which does the biz, regardless of looks, but I wouldn't want to play with anything other than a flat belly now; it's smoother than anything Parris and co could produce, because it's damn near perfect, and it didn't cost a song. You can't make a flat belly with horrible, ugly wood, because grain pattern is important. All the cue makers saying we can't find the ash folk want; well how come a lot of the commercial cue makers can? Perhaps they have people dedicated to finding wood from every which corner. In which case, maybe a small, bespoke cue maker who is rather expensive isn't the correct choice? I think what these small quantity cue makers are really saying is 'we can't afford to buy a lot of boards from the right sources, and so, we have to use some ash that customers wouldn't prefer if given the choice'. Whereas larger concerns can choose from a lot of boards that they purchase, so the shaft it right. It seems from what I've read on TSF, small quantity cue makers face diseconomies of scale, and are reluctant to chuck out the grade B stuff, when they can make a shaft out it. Well, for the prices some of them charge (no offence to cue makers on here charging reasonable amounts); that isn't good enough. If they can't make a shaft as nice as Mastercraft, Phoenix, Cue Craft etc, etc, etc, they're in the wrong game.

If one orders a Rolls Royce, one expects the wooden dashboard to be of a better quality and standard than an MG. If it's not, what's the point? Same with cues.

[The Doctor]

Take club cues as an example. A company makes hundreds of these a year and if you look at most, they will be poorer quality than a bespoke cue maker. However, there will be some really top class shafts in among these club cues. Therefore, you are likely to find a few beauties because of the volume of cues being made and not because they are picking out the best wood.
It's not easy to pick top end ash from a blank, not at all, but you can make a perfectly good playing cue from an ash that's not 100% grain perfect.

[trevs1]

Dear me, I despair, I really do.

This thread serves as a fabulous reminder of why I post so little here any longer.

[snooks1000]

Im in disbelief at some of the rubbish written in this thread. Speechless

[Soty94]

Density of cue shafts and BP

Have any cuemakers out there have considered rating cue shafts by some form of weight to frequency to length correlation (assuming moisture content at time of measurement is the same) a la golf club shafts? Ultimately, what happens on the table is governed by the laws of physics. If cuemakers (wink and a nod to the larger manufacturers who have the means and budgets to do this sort of testing) more closely looked at shaft properties rather than how many chevrons etc. I think there would be many more high quality playing cues out there. By establishing a means to properly analyze shaft properties, cue making and buying may be more accurate to what a player needs in terms of feel. Plus, it opens up a new revenue stream for coaches and cue makers alike to properly fit someone for a cue. I know it sounds a lot like some kind of snooker PGA, but hey, look what it did for golf. Snooker needs a new strategy to bring it back to a proper stage for it to be appreciated the way it used to be.

[sunny3909]

@Trevor White
I am a century player and like several players I play by the arrows and if the arrows are not straight in line or say going towards left or right it is gonna distract my sighting big time.
Thats were top cuemakers like you get into play where you are able to find balance b/w aesthetically looking shafts as well as stiff and rigid shafts for perfect feel and playability.

[sydneygeorge]

Has anyone noticed any difference in the way a cue feels when played with the arrows facing down ?
I think I can on my cue, it feels more positive and it does not appear that the tip shape is contributing to this.
Perhaps I need phychiatric counseling.