Wood Movement and Splicing Cracks

[Guy3103]

Straight to the point - how or what are the ideal conditions to keep a cue in perfect condition and prevent it from being involved with the threads title?

Or perhaps a better way to ask it, even though it was explained to me half a dozen times before, what causes wood movement and eventually a splice on your cue to develop a crack?!

Is there an ideal room temperature or a humidity level? Is it best to keep a cue in a case or have it standing on a rack? If it is a butt jointed cue, would it be ok to have the cue jointed all the time or is it better to have it in 2 pieces?

I guess I should have put up these questions up a long time ago but I'm starting to get really frustrated with my cues cracking one by one so it's now or never!!! How frustrated?! I'm actually thinking on giving up the whole thing of keeping a collection, I mean what's the sense if you can wake up one day to find that all your cues have cracks on them!!

Many questions so really any input will surely be very helpful!

[jrc750]

Wow something wrong somewhere, never had a cue crack before.
Do you have heating on full blast or something ???

[perpetualboredom]

Ditto, no problems here and i have old/new cues some cased, some racked and some leaning against a wall (no they didnt instantly banana either) - any particular make of cue?

[cyberheater]

I keep mine in my case by the front door. It's a pretty stable temperature there. I've not had any cracks so far.

In what environment do you keep yours?

[worldcuesports]

I know how temperatures and humidity would be different but in looking after cues I think it would be the same. Regular oiling is one as there needs to be some moisture in the timber but not two much. Over here I fix a lot of cues where the timber has never been oiled and the timber grain has opened up and then there's others that a sealer has been used and the moisture is trapped. There are products for wood stabilising and I have dipped my cues in it. This comes from companies in the USA cue components who are in florida and would have had the issues sending to drier climates and made this product.

Then if your home and don't have a table then you need to take it out of the case. Leather cases have up and down ridges in most of them and your cue could be pushed in the wrong direction. I use the rubber hangers for all of my cues and hang them up as the natural weight of the timber is pulling down and that has worked well.

[bigandyg]

I doubt if they are cracks, just the splices drying and rising in line with the splices, takes only minutes to repair. Only happens as dense wood like ebony can take ages to dry out, another reason why the really expensive cues have a long waiting time.

[JimB]

A mixture of location + time of year + humidity levels can have dramatic effects on wood in general, not just cues.

Typically in Winter humidity levels drop, in the UK (October to March) ambient air humidity can be very low then bring home central heating into the equation and you've just added to the problem ... you're drying out already dry air ... it's not unusual for a home to be lower than 40% humidity at this time of year and wood starts to loose moisture below 40%, this means the wood will start to slowly shrink exposing glue joints and stressing the wood fibres.

Sounds scarey doesn't it !

Wood is at its happiest (most stable) in an environment with air humidity levels between 40% and 65% and remember it's far less destructive for wood to gain a wee bit of moisture than to loose it.
We see this alot in the acoustic guitar industry, it's a pain.

You can buy cheap digital hygrometers to keep an eye on humidity levels for less than £10, they are not as accurate as the wet/dry bulb type but good enough to let you know if things are getting to dry or wet, the digital ones have an accuracy of +/- 5% to 10%.

I would think Moscow suffers from very dry conditions in winter and is most likely the cause of your problems.

Hope this helps mate.