My take on the bowling alley shafts that Jim Pierce markets with his cues:
Jim Pierce recently made one of his bowling alley shafts for a Mike Wheeler cue that I had him refinish. There has been a lot of hype around that these shafts are "special" or are somehow better than other shafts out in the market. In my opinion, they are actually inferior to a grade A shaft that good cuemakers provide with their cues. The overall quality of the wood itself would be discarded by most cuemakers who want "quality" maple. ie....ring count, color, density, tone, etc...
Jim Pierce suggests that his bowling alley shafts are nice and heavy, which is probably true. However, the weight results from the thickness of his taper (there is alot of wood in the rear of the shaft). As far as hit is concerned, I did not care for the playability at all. I found it particular ackward to "stroke" with and did not care for the taper or the sound or feel that the shaft had. Of course this is all subjective and just my opinion. To each his own.
I have voiced my views of Jim Pierce's workmanship and customer service in the main forum which can be viewed here:
http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=267593
For those that don't want to read through all that, suffice it to say, I consider his workmanship on a cue that I sent to him to be sloppy and of poor quality. He somehow managed to botch a simple refinish. If anyone wants to discuss this I would be more than happy to....just pm me.
Jim Pierce recently made one of his bowling alley shafts for a Mike Wheeler cue that I had him refinish. There has been a lot of hype around that these shafts are "special" or are somehow better than other shafts out in the market. In my opinion, they are actually inferior to a grade A shaft that good cuemakers provide with their cues. The overall quality of the wood itself would be discarded by most cuemakers who want "quality" maple. ie....ring count, color, density, tone, etc...
Jim Pierce suggests that his bowling alley shafts are nice and heavy, which is probably true. However, the weight results from the thickness of his taper (there is alot of wood in the rear of the shaft). As far as hit is concerned, I did not care for the playability at all. I found it particular ackward to "stroke" with and did not care for the taper or the sound or feel that the shaft had. Of course this is all subjective and just my opinion. To each his own.
I have voiced my views of Jim Pierce's workmanship and customer service in the main forum which can be viewed here:
http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=267593
For those that don't want to read through all that, suffice it to say, I consider his workmanship on a cue that I sent to him to be sloppy and of poor quality. He somehow managed to botch a simple refinish. If anyone wants to discuss this I would be more than happy to....just pm me.
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. I don't really understand the point of getting on here and knocking a guy, especially to th e extreme that the op has...I don't care who you are...you talk enough trash tome you are eventually gonna get a response....so then I take that response and post it in a forum to support my argument about what a bad guy he is...please! Seems funny to me that theop has a history of working with " horrendous" cue makers that butcher his stuff...maybe he should switch to knitting or crochet....