Acrylic/PMMA/Perspex/Plexiglass as ferrule material

FrantaB

Registered
Hello,

I´m sorry as this got a bit lenghty.
I´ve searched high and low as a lurker around this wonderful well of pool knowledge and elsewhere and found just one example of using acrylic for a ferrule, but no info about how it plays.

I´m teaching my hand some things up from scratch again after an injury, so I´ve lost almost everything from technique and subconscious "feedback library" I had. Well, I hand´t ever my own cue in the past, I poked the balls with house broomsticks, or borrowed cues of friends of mine, some of them of pretty decent quality. To learn again and get a hint about what to have custom made, I acuired something what seems like old medium-line Players or so grade of cue, well used-but surprisingly straight and quite good piece of wood on the shaft.
I want to use it to learn again and as a cheap test bed to get idea what I like and what I don´t like with the hand I have now.

I need a new ferrule for it, because the one which was "fitted" has all inner diameters oversized and the thread is tapped crooked, resulting in very uneven wall thickness and even with my still "semi-dead" hand I can tell that the squirt varies wildly because of this.
I liked "medium-hard" ferrule-ivory is great, a sharp tackdriver, but for an experienced player which I´m not. Linen or cotton phenolic are still too hard for my taste.
ABS-or some plastic along these lines-this was +/- OK, but I have no idea which breed of it it was, so the info is pretty useless, as these plastics varies a lot in mechanical properties.
Other ferrules I played with-I have no idea about what the material was.

Given what I have on hand and within reach, a piece of Perspex bar is the lightest material I have around. So I´m thinking of using this, which has the added benefit of being black, so better to see where the tip is relative to CB.
The ferrule is for 2/3 threaded 5/16-18 tennon, originaly 1" long, capped, 12,7 mm shaft. I can go along these lines, or make it uncapped and I can use thin coton-phenolic or carbon board under the tip.

Any opinions about this? If acrylic is known for poor performance or just straight shitty hit, please let me know. All decent ferrules I could locate are just undersized for 3/8 thread, so no viable options except some PVC or so material which I don´t care for, being too soft with a dud hit for my taste.

Thank you very much
 

Cornerman

Cue Author...Sometimes
Gold Member
Silver Member
Hello,

I´m sorry as this got a bit lenghty.
I´ve searched high and low as a lurker around this wonderful well of pool knowledge and elsewhere and found just one example of using acrylic for a ferrule, but no info about how it plays.

I´m teaching my hand some things up from scratch again after an injury, so I´ve lost almost everything from technique and subconscious "feedback library" I had. Well, I hand´t ever my own cue in the past, I poked the balls with house broomsticks, or borrowed cues of friends of mine, some of them of pretty decent quality. To learn again and get a hint about what to have custom made, I acuired something what seems like old medium-line Players or so grade of cue, well used-but surprisingly straight and quite good piece of wood on the shaft.
I want to use it to learn again and as a cheap test bed to get idea what I like and what I don´t like with the hand I have now.

I need a new ferrule for it, because the one which was "fitted" has all inner diameters oversized and the thread is tapped crooked, resulting in very uneven wall thickness and even with my still "semi-dead" hand I can tell that the squirt varies wildly because of this.
I liked "medium-hard" ferrule-ivory is great, a sharp tackdriver, but for an experienced player which I´m not. Linen or cotton phenolic are still too hard for my taste.
ABS-or some plastic along these lines-this was +/- OK, but I have no idea which breed of it it was, so the info is pretty useless, as these plastics varies a lot in mechanical properties.
Other ferrules I played with-I have no idea about what the material was.

Given what I have on hand and within reach, a piece of Perspex bar is the lightest material I have around. So I´m thinking of using this, which has the added benefit of being black, so better to see where the tip is relative to CB.
The ferrule is for 2/3 threaded 5/16-18 tennon, originaly 1" long, capped, 12,7 mm shaft. I can go along these lines, or make it uncapped and I can use thin coton-phenolic or carbon board under the tip.

Any opinions about this? If acrylic is known for poor performance or just straight shitty hit, please let me know. All decent ferrules I could locate are just undersized for 3/8 thread, so no viable options except some PVC or so material which I don´t care for, being too soft with a dud hit for my taste.

Thank you very much
I know,some people raise their eyebrows if I answer in a Cuemaker thread, but the rules actually allow me to as an SME.

Acrylic / PMMA isn't impact friendly, unless you use the higher impact version (Implex). As it is a thermoplastic, it can melt. Burnishing the leather tip might give you a surprise.

Anyway, I'd pass, but there have been several instances of Cuemaker using even worse thermoplastic as ferrules. All silly, IMO.

Freddie <~~~ oh, Mrs. Robinson!
 
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FrantaB

Registered
Implex, that´s the word!

I should add that I don´t move the balls at high speed and rarely I get the ferrule in contact with the cloth (maybe that´s why I always had a hard time to make a runback over table lenght).
I always burnished by piece of leather handheld, so this probably does not bother me
 

ideologist

I don't never exaggerate
Silver Member
Implex, that´s the word!

I should add that I don´t move the balls at high speed and rarely I get the ferrule in contact with the cloth (maybe that´s why I always had a hard time to make a runback over table lenght).
I always burnished by piece of leather handheld, so this probably does not bother me

You'd be surprised how often a ferrule slides against the cloth on a firm draw shot. Some of those plastics would fog up from that kind of friction

Also implex plays like crap on a shaft, use juma if you want a soft ferrule
 

M.G.

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
You will most probably run into problems due to the impacts and friction issues.
Plexiglass for sure is not the proper material for that.
Any Acrylic also has a low friction/melt resistance.

If you're adventorous and have money: do a very thin walled and short Titanium ferrule, in the style of how the Snooker cues do their ferrules (screw into wood and glue shut). Just thinner walled.
Good way to reduce your end mass.

For other problems just use the AZB magic ferrule material from j2pac :thumbup:

Cheers,
M
 

j2pac

Marital Slow Learner.
Staff member
Moderator
Gold Member
Silver Member
You will most probably run into problems due to the impacts and friction issues.
Plexiglass for sure is not the proper material for that.
Any Acrylic also has a low friction/melt resistance.

If you're adventorous and have money: do a very thin walled and short Titanium ferrule, in the style of how the Snooker cues do their ferrules (screw into wood and glue shut). Just thinner walled.
Good way to reduce your end mass.

For other problems just use the AZB magic ferrule material from j2pac :thumbup:

Cheers,
M

My ferrule is causing other problems? ;) :thumbup:
 

FrantaB

Registered
I managed to unthread the ferule, to find out that the tennon threads are mostly glue on the lower portion of the tennon-so I´ll have to replace the tennon anyway in the future. Spent some time with thread chasing file to get the mess cleared somehow so-so, but it is "just not toast".
So I bite the bullet, right now I´m in process of making an acrylic ferrule. I´ve found a piece of blac acrylic which has less "dry" sound upon tapping it than a known piece of Perspex, yet is somewhere a tad above 90 Sh D hardness and a bit harder than Perspex. Will try what it will do and will report back.
But any fruther sugestions are welcome
 

j2pac

Marital Slow Learner.
Staff member
Moderator
Gold Member
Silver Member
I managed to unthread the ferule, to find out that the tennon threads are mostly glue on the lower portion of the tennon-so I´ll have to replace the tennon anyway in the future. Spent some time with thread chasing file to get the mess cleared somehow so-so, but it is "just not toast".
So I bite the bullet, right now I´m in process of making an acrylic ferrule. I´ve found a piece of blac acrylic which has less "dry" sound upon tapping it than a known piece of Perspex, yet is somewhere a tad above 90 Sh D hardness and a bit harder than Perspex. Will try what it will do and will report back.
But any fruther sugestions are welcome

The Shore D hardness of any given material, does not necessarily factor into its usefulness as a ferrule. At some point you'll need to be careful that "hard" doesn't equate to brittle.
Good luck.
Joe P
 

FrantaB

Registered
OK, so 1" black acrylic ferrule is done. Upon polishing, I let the polishing fabric strap to dry to produce some heat and to check the edge, if some deformation occurs. So-I burned three fingers and no kind of heat damage is visible.
The shaft is dirty, without binging it down some 0,008" I can´t get rid of the rest of the chalk deposits. The reddish tint is given by sealing the wood with shellac-and the dark red is the only one I have prepared right now. Going to put probably a Triangle on it and test it tomorow.

acrlylicferrule1_res1.jpg
 

FrantaB

Registered
I´ve put on one of the harder Elkmasters and set it for about dime radius.

Initial impressions from today´s long afternoon, after some chat-and-shoot games of 14.1 and some carom billiard (yup, with a pool cue-now I know why they are different).
For pool, compared to original ferrule, there seems to be less deflection. Not much, but at practice shots where I expected the cueball return from the cushion about 1/3 ball dia off the tip, it seemed to be more like 1/4 off (on 9´ table).
Also, I have some serious trouble to play soft, tender shots or position attempts-where the force with original ferrule or so-so maintained house cue gave me just enought to pot in corner across full lenght of the table along the rail and some little roll-off, the same stroke pots the OB, the CB returns from the far side cushion and not infrequently runs from near side cushion about 1/4 lenght uptable again. With brand new unpressed Elkmaster... For first two hours, sometimes I had an impression I´m realy shooting the CB.
The amount of english I can apply now seems a bit insane to me. In fact, any imperfection in aim or hand coordination results in unintentional english. At times, as I´m learning again from the begining, it is kinda frustrating. Hope to make time for some table time tomorow-the initial impression is fairly good, with lively playability.
 
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