The Quality of Your Shaft?

[strobbekoen]

air drying doesn't take ages i think ? i read about 2 years, but i am not sure if that applies to wood for cues. either way, i don't think its unfeasible a cue maker does it to some extent.

[Master Blaster]

air drying doesn't take ages i think ? i read about 2 years, but i am not sure if that applies to wood for cues. either way, i don't think its unfeasible a cue maker does it to some extent.

You're quite right, someone who has been in the game a long time, will have been able to lay down a lot of timber, i.e. Parris. Maybe his wood really is 30, 40 yrs old? I know that Powerglide used to air dry their timber and guarantee (on their best and custom cues) that the wood had been dried out for 12-24 years in stacks.

Folk here will say any shaft can be an ultimate, it's just the arrows and they will say it there is no difference between an air dried shaft or a kiln dried shaft. They are completely wrong.

If you apply a lot of heat or cold to a material, it changes, even steel. The Japanese understand why and use great heat to anneal a blade and make it stronger. The opposite occurs with freezing, it can tenderise certain materials, beef steak, wood, etc. When you heat a piece of wood to 100 degrees C, it becomes brittle and when it reabsorbs moisture (which can lead to warping!) once out of the kiln it is never the same.

I and many others can feel the difference between the two types of wood, the contact and sound is different. If you can't tell the difference, maybe you have hard hands and poor hearing? There is another way to speed things up without changing the structure of wood which is to use dehumidifiers or blowers at room temp.

[billabong]

Why not just air dry it instead? Parris has plenty of storage room for ash blanks dotted around. All the blanks from every Ultimate he's made would fit inside my living room. Blanks aren't that big, only slightly wider than the butt of a cue.

Old wood (air dried) feels different to play with, so my custom is going to be made from old wood or it won't be made at all, I'll simply find an old cue from decades gone by and have it modded. But if I knew which cue makers used what, I'd narrow down the list which would be useful.

So you want the list of cue makers from decades ago, and separate them into :-

a / the ones who used kiln dried wood
b / the ones who used a mix of some kiln dried / some air dried wood
c/ the ones who only used air dried wood

Wouldn't it be easier , for the sake of your custom cue, to try out some decades old cues,
select the one that feels best ,
then do the surgery to make your custom cue ( although it'll maybe not play as good as the old cue you started with ).

[Kieran m]

You're quite right, someone who has been in the game a long time, will have been able to lay down a lot of timber, i.e. Parris. Maybe his wood really is 30, 40 yrs old? I know that Powerglide used to air dry their timber and guarantee (on their best and custom cues) that the wood had been dried out for 12-24 years in stacks.

Folk here will say any shaft can be an ultimate, it's just the arrows and they will say it there is no difference between an air dried shaft or a kiln dried shaft. They are completely wrong.

If you apply a lot of heat or cold to a material, it changes, even steel. The Japanese understand why and use great heat to anneal a blade and make it stronger. The opposite occurs with freezing, it can tenderise certain materials, beef steak, wood, etc. When you heat a piece of wood to 100 degrees C, it becomes brittle and when it reabsorbs moisture (which can lead to warping!) once out of the kiln it is never the same.

I and many others can feel the difference between the two types of wood, the contact and sound is different. If you can't tell the difference, maybe you have hard hands and poor hearing? There is another way to speed things up without changing the structure of wood which is to use dehumidifiers or blowers at room temp.

Lol this is funny

[trevs1]

I'd love this question (below) settled if folk know the definitive answers because it's bugged me for some time.

Ok, so if (and I'm a believer) Parris Cues really do have access to secret stores of old ash blanks, then they have the materials to hand plane a superior shaft, e.g. the Ultimate. Ceteris paribus, old wood (air dried not kiln dried) is superior in the eyes and feel of many a player, it just feels more lively, less clunky, more woody on contact. I don't object to kiln dried per se, afterall, if you can buy a Thai O'min off ebay from Welsh Pool for £80, you really should be grateful for a well made cue and not worry about if the shaft is kiln dried. But when you spend £300+, I think it's a different matter. Some will say that buying expensive cues or custom cues is about getting personal specs, or designs. These are great aspects but for me, paramount (in expensive cues) is the quality of the materials and the finish.

I accept that within the two categories there are gradings, AAAA etc, but which cue makers are using old wood and which cue makers use kiln dried wood?

I was asked to take a look at this thread, and seeing as I was at my PC when I received that, here I am. I've not bothered to read the rest of this thread, and in fact, have only read this post, so this is the one I'll reply to only.

There won't be ANY maker using old wood "exclusively" It's just not practical to consider keeping and storing adequate quantities of timber for the length of time required to make it "old wood". Besides, what are we talking about when we say "old wood"... 5 years.?...10 years.?...beyond.? That would be utterly out of the question.

The truth is, that no player (and yes, I mean no player) would be able to determine whether a cue was made from new or older timber by using the cue. Too many variables come into play with regard to whether a cue feels great or not, and the age of the timber is not particularly relevant to that at all. We can debate this until the cows and whatever else decides to come home, but, we will never get anywhere with it.

Why anyone would think newer timber is not as good as older timber is beyond me. The main criteria for timber to be suitable to use for a cue shaft is....

A) Is it heavy / dense enough to provide correct / adequate weight and (hopefully) stiffness to the finished product.

B) Is it aesthetically pleasing enough to satisfy / please an end user.

C) Is it dry enough to be used, in order to accept bonding and to remain stable in service.

Other than these aspects above, it matters little what timber it may be or how it was dried. Now, in saying that, I am not suggesting that any and all timber is fine for building a cue. Obviously there are some species which lend themselves more to this purpose than others, which is why we see maple and ash quite a lot. There are other timbers which would work just fine too though.

As for the drying bit, well, this is debated all over the place for numerous products. However, for cues, a product which is mainly used indoors in centrally heated spaces, low levels of moisture are a good thing. Today, it's not unrealistic to expect some indoor places to have a relative humidity of around 30%, which in turn will dry timber down to crazily low levels. air dried timber will not get anywhere near as dry as that, and so, once it's brought into these sorts of environments, it WILL lose any excess moisture it holds. With that loss can come movement.... bad news.
Now, I am not suggesting that ALL air dried timber will suddenly move about once it's brought into a dry room, not at all. The great thing with well air dried material is the fact that if it has remained stable over long periods of time, it's likely to remain stable in service (as long as that service is somewhere of reasonable levels of humidity) that in itself does not make air dried timber better though.

If a cue is well made and stays straight and true after a long time of being in existance, then chances are it will remain straight and true. Of course, it needs to be kept and used in a fairly stable environment, or it can deviate from true, but in the main, it should be fine. As for playing characteristics, well, as I said in the beginning of this essay, that would be impossible to determine by use alone, it really would. anyone thinking that's not the case and that for some "magic" reason old timber is superior, would in my view be very much misguided.

Each to their own though I guess.

[jrc750]

I have some old wood cues coming up for sale soon Mr Blaster