Piloted Ivory Joint

Number one on a good day I'm a B player. But I love the game for over 45 years. I have one ivory joint pilot and had Phillippi Cue put it on my Schons. Blind folded I would not be able to tell the difference from a stainless joint. The only difference I can honestly fell is if I change shafts that have different tips. Kamui soft then triangle. But that ivory joint sure looks pretty.

Piloting a joint never improves the hit in my opinion. The only reason for a pilot is for aligning the shaft and butt together. With our modern nice fitting pins a pilot is not necessary.

I prefer a big pin flat faced ivory joint over piloted. That set up seems to hit more solid with better feel. Of course it is all preference and on a cue by cue basis

dave sutton said:

I prefer a big pin flat faced ivory joint over piloted. That set up seems to hit more solid with better feel. Of course it is all preference and on a cue by cue basis

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Hi,

I agree with Dave about big pin and flat faced joint on my cues.

I love machining and polishing Ivory and think it looks great. I have made the decision however to stop putting Ivorys joints on my cues because they have a propensity to crack. If a customer insists, I will oblige but won't guarantee the joint.

My first fancy custom cue I bought was a Bill Stroud Joss West in 1978. It had a Ivory joint and I brought it into the pool room on a sub zero day here in Chicago and the cue had been in my car only for a short time while I had dinner, after a few racks I noticed a crack. Can't blame the cue maker it was my own stupid error.

In the last seven years I have had two failures with Ivory joints and who knows the circumstances it encountered in the field. I still had to fix and refinish the cue at my own expense to keep the customer happy.

With all of the ivory ban stuff out there it seems to me that not using Ivory is better for me in the long run.

Rick Geschrey

cueman said:

Piloting a joint never improves the hit in my opinion. The only reason for a pilot is for aligning the shaft and butt together. With our modern nice fitting pins a pilot is not necessary.

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This is an older thread but I have never seen this before and I must say that I agree with this statement 1000% if there was such a number. I believe also that the pilot is the main reason that many feel that a steel joint gives a cue sort of a dead hit.

Dick

rhncue said:

This is an older thread but I have never seen this before and I must say that I agree with this statement 1000% if there was such a number. I believe also that the pilot is the main reason that many feel that a steel joint gives a cue sort of a dead hit.

Dick

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I disagree 1000%. The only thing that gives a piloted steel joint a dead hit, is a dead shaft. A proper piloted shaft should have a pilot on it long enough that it bottoms in the hole, and on the steel face at the same time. I think some people put too much emphasis on the joint, and butt of a cue, when most of the hit comes from the other end. A great hitting shaft is a great hitting shaft, and will be even if matched to a $30 ebay butt. I know because i've tested this theory due to not wanting to take a high end butt, banging around the bars. I HAD to have the shaft with me tho. I know people that have played with the same shaft for 20+ years, because they can't find one that plays as good as it does, and have changed butts several times. To me, shafts are almost magical, and the good ones are about as rare as unicorns

"A proper piloted shaft should have a pilot on it long enough that it bottoms in the hole, and on the steel face at the same time." Quote: danutz

This statement is totally wrong.
No one does what you're suggesting and there's good reason for that.
It doesn't work.
You can only make contact with one flat surface and it better be the joint collar.
I'm sure you'll hear more about this. Stay tuned kids. This is about to get interesting.
KJ

OK, I may have been a little strong with my statement so in an effort to soften that,
I'll explain to you why you are misguided.
A properly constructed piloted joint does make contact but not by bottoming-out in the hole. It's the side of the pilot contacting the interior wall of the recess at the joint.
It does this for the purpose of aligning the shaft to the handle.
To the best of my knowledge, that is the only reason for the piloted joint.
Today, it's mostly cosmetic.
Trying to get two contact surfaces on different planes to make contact at the exact
same time and with the exact degree of compression is quite a feat in itself.
If you were to somehow achieve this, this ideal condition would last as long as it takes
you to hit the first ball. What I'm saying is that they won't stay equal for long.
Now, when one set of surfaces falls out of equal with the other set of surfaces,
you're risking the condition of a 'buzz point'.
You'd likely notice a significant change of hit also.
If I'm found to be incorrect, I apologize, but I just don't know of any CM that does
a pilot the way you've described.
Sorry for barking.
KJ

Ultra Joint

Please excuse me for asking as I am not a cuemaker. Is Mike Lambros ultra joint considered a piloted joint?

No problem KJ, it's just been my experience, and opinion that like you mentioned with the pilot diameter matching the bore dia., the length of it should be as close to the length of the bore as well. I know the pilot won't seat like the shaft will on the collar, but imo the bore should be filled with the pilot as best as possible, not have .200 of air in there. I'm no vulcan, but i think it's logical that the more surface contact, the better. I think more master builders follow this line of thinking than you might think. All the greats put big fat pilots on their steel jointed cues, that i know of. A proper piloted steel jointed cue always has been, and always will be the king of the cue jungle, and all of the best players i know, use one. IMO, anything else is a well built Mcdermott Sorry, but when people bad mouth THE best joint in cuemaking history, it kinda peeves me off. Wanna talk about a pos joint? Talk about the fad uniloc radial, there's no wonder you need to tap the shaft undersize on that one, it was'nt made to hold things together tight. I'll bet there's a few masters looking down from heaven, laughing their you know whats off at that bs

Quesports said:

Please excuse me for asking as I am not a cuemaker. Is Mike Lambros ultra joint considered a piloted joint?

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If the Ultra-joint you are referring to is the same as I'm thinking of, it's a male
& a female cone mating, so to speak. Still just two surfaces making contact.
And to answer your question, YES, the Lambros Ultra is the Ultra piloted joint.
Some of it's obvious advantages are repeatable alignment of the shaft and considerably
greater surface contact area. It's a great joint, I don't see any downside to it
other than trying to duplicate it.
KJ

danutz said:

No problem KJ, it's just been my experience, and opinion that like you mentioned with the pilot diameter matching the bore dia., the length of it should be as close to the length of the bore as well. I know the pilot won't seat like the shaft will on the collar, but imo the bore should be filled with the pilot as best as possible, not have .200 of air in there. I'm no vulcan, but i think it's logical that the more surface contact, the better. I think more master builders follow this line of thinking than you might think. All the greats put big fat pilots on their steel jointed cues, that i know of. A proper piloted steel jointed cue always has been, and always will be the king of the cue jungle, and all of the best players i know, use one. IMO, anything else is a well built Mcdermott Sorry, but when people bad mouth THE best joint in cuemaking history, it kinda peeves me off. Wanna talk about a pos joint? Talk about the fad uniloc radial, there's no wonder you need to tap the shaft undersize on that one, it was'nt made to hold things together tight. I'll bet there's a few masters looking down from heaven, laughing their you know whats off at that bs

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I probably shouldn't post this but when it comes to a Radial screw joint you don't have a clue what you're talking about.

danutz said:

No problem KJ, it's just been my experience, and opinion that like you mentioned with the pilot diameter matching the bore dia., the length of it should be as close to the length of the bore as well. I know the pilot won't seat like the shaft will on the collar, but imo the bore should be filled with the pilot as best as possible, not have .200 of air in there. I'm no vulcan, but i think it's logical that the more surface contact, the better. I think more master builders follow this line of thinking than you might think. All the greats put big fat pilots on their steel jointed cues, that i know of. A proper piloted steel jointed cue always has been, and always will be the king of the cue jungle, and all of the best players i know, use one. IMO, anything else is a well built Mcdermott Sorry, but when people bad mouth THE best joint in cuemaking history, it kinda peeves me off. Wanna talk about a pos joint? Talk about the fad uniloc radial, there's no wonder you need to tap the shaft undersize on that one, it was'nt made to hold things together tight. I'll bet there's a few masters looking down from heaven, laughing their you know whats off at that bs

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It sounds as though you're saying that today's piloted joints aren't true pilots
and that I would agree with. One notable exception would be the Rundy/Schon pilot
which is still their joint of choice to this day. I would consider it a true pilot.
About the Uni-Loc thing.........all I can say is that I'm not at liberty.

KJ

KJ Cues said:

If the Ultra-joint you are referring to is the same as I'm thinking of, it's a male
& a female cone mating, so to speak. Still just two surfaces making contact.
And to answer your question, YES, the Lambros Ultra is the Ultra piloted joint.
Some of it's obvious advantages are repeatable alignment of the shaft and considerably
greater surface contact area. It's a great joint, I don't see any downside to it
other than trying to duplicate it.
KJ

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Thanks KJ, I thought it was but wanted confirmation...

Paul Dayton said:

I probably shouldn't post this but when it comes to a Radial screw joint you don't have a clue what you're talking about.

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No worries, it would'nt be the first time, and probably not the last. Just my opinion of them, and stuff i've heard, and read. I'll bet they don't stand the test of time, and are just one of the many overated fads out right now. Hell, there's people paying $20-$30 to rub lipstick on their layered tips too, lol, how funny is that? I'll take a single layer triangle with a fiberback, on a ivory ferrule, with plain old masters chalk over any of that junk, any day. Call me old school I'm still trying to figure out how people are forking out big$$ to play with a sleeved dowel, lol. I think i'd rather have an old fullsplice that took alot of time to build, over something that was thrown together lickety split, thanks to the doweling ,or coring technique. There sure are some pretty dowels out there tho, is'nt there?:wink: