Theory of low deflection cues
- Thread starter riedmich
- Start date
I was being physcicious (spelling) but I can see that's went over some heads but just how many Democrats have you heard that believe the world is only 6,000 years old, the universe built in 7 days as said in the bible, don't believe in evolution nor most other sciences.
Dick
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Your point is?
A while ago, I made a couple of special shafts that were extremely light in construction and quite stiff. One had more flex than the other as I made a mistake in the layup.
The stiffer shaft had more ball sideways movement than the shaft with more flex.
Both were of a similar frequency, but the stiffer shaft had the slightly higher frequency reading.
These shafts were very light in the front end, when placed on two identical scales, one at the tip end and one on the joint end, the tip end weight reading was 15 grams for both shafts.
The lightest shaft a customer has shown me was 29 grams.
The 29 g front scale shaft played between the 2 shafts that I had made according to the owner of the wood shaft.
Even though the stiff light cue was quite a bit lighter than the wood shaft, it did not have a lower ball movement from centreline with as close an offset than can be tested on a table situation.
Interestingly the lighter shaft could have quite a bit of weight added to it before it was noticeable in the amount more of the ball sideways movement to equal the wood shaft.
So it appears that there is a limit as to how light and flexible you can go to reduce the ball sideways movement. After that point, any lighter did not have any measurable reduction in movement.
At this level, tips made as much of a difference as the ability of the player to stroke the ball.
We did not test the different chalks available at the time, but this was before the new chalks that are out now.
Softer tips showed more movement than hard tips.
The trick is producing a consistent compromise that is what you like with a reasonable cyclic fatigue life.
Neil
Hello Neil,
meanwhile I made some more tests and learned also more about improving my technique. I think like this:
1) First of all the technique of the pool player, especially how effective you can apply spin to the white ball, decides how far offcenter you have to hit the white ball and thereby indirectly how much deflection / squirt you have or not. If I tune my cuestick and my technique to apply much spin by hitting the white ball only a few millimeters offcenter, this is the utmost factor when we are talking about the deflection that is felt by the player. And of course how much my technique affects the deflection / squirt relation.
2) If it is going about the limit of endmass and stiffness where it doesn't affect deflection any more, I made similar experiences to you. I made a couple of testshafts using a special laminated construction and varying weight and stiffness, and I experienced these limits similar to you. And my experiences are that endmass and stiffness both affect deflection. I cannot give the evidence by my own tests, how much it mixes with the facts that I told in my first paragraph, but if it is going about endmass and stiffness, my feel is that endmass is a bigger factor than stiffness.
The situation at these questions is im my opinion, that the cuesticks' performaces and player abilities - likes and dislikes - are such various that it is not possible to talk about thes questions in a pure objective way. Dr. Dave tried to describe the endmass effects mathematically / physically, and I think he really did a great job! And it seems to me, that it will be much more complex if one tries to describe the stiffness' and tip's rules of how they affect deflection and squirt.
But it's OK, it would be boring having everything written and calculated on paper ;-) And the cuemakers must have some secrets of how to build great players.
Have a nice weekend everybody
Michael
meanwhile I made some more tests and learned also more about improving my technique. I think like this:
1) First of all the technique of the pool player, especially how effective you can apply spin to the white ball, decides how far offcenter you have to hit the white ball and thereby indirectly how much deflection / squirt you have or not. If I tune my cuestick and my technique to apply much spin by hitting the white ball only a few millimeters offcenter, this is the utmost factor when we are talking about the deflection that is felt by the player. And of course how much my technique affects the deflection / squirt relation.
2) If it is going about the limit of endmass and stiffness where it doesn't affect deflection any more, I made similar experiences to you. I made a couple of testshafts using a special laminated construction and varying weight and stiffness, and I experienced these limits similar to you. And my experiences are that endmass and stiffness both affect deflection. I cannot give the evidence by my own tests, how much it mixes with the facts that I told in my first paragraph, but if it is going about endmass and stiffness, my feel is that endmass is a bigger factor than stiffness.
The situation at these questions is im my opinion, that the cuesticks' performaces and player abilities - likes and dislikes - are such various that it is not possible to talk about thes questions in a pure objective way. Dr. Dave tried to describe the endmass effects mathematically / physically, and I think he really did a great job! And it seems to me, that it will be much more complex if one tries to describe the stiffness' and tip's rules of how they affect deflection and squirt.
But it's OK, it would be boring having everything written and calculated on paper ;-) And the cuemakers must have some secrets of how to build great players.
Have a nice weekend everybody
Michael
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Hi,
What an awesome thread this is. I love it when info like this is revealed and all of the experience and opinions from some "Heavy Hitter CMs".
Life is good on AZ ask the cue maker!!!!
Rick
What an awesome thread this is. I love it when info like this is revealed and all of the experience and opinions from some "Heavy Hitter CMs".
Life is good on AZ ask the cue maker!!!!
Rick
How does one "slow roll a ball with a great amount of energy"?
LOL, I meant a great amount of english.
Funny! Some may have thought, oh man this is a shot of a magician or a jedi master.
)Good job, you explained it well.
Have been using Juma for my ferrules for some time now. It is not as light as the material used by other makers of LD shafts. At times I use material that is even heavier than Juma and have found that the change in squirt between the different materials is negligible. Squirt is not totally determined by end mass. Barioni's testing proved this regardless of those that believe it all has to do with end mass and from the small bit of his postings I have read confirmed my ideas about squirt and how to reduce it while maintaining a hit (feel) as close to a one piece shaft as possible. How much "work" the shaft does is also dependent on the butt of the cue, not just how stiff or flexible the shaft is.
KJ, I do the same sort of demo but use a pop can and whatever is handy to push it.
As for what Predator knows about deflection (squirt) read their patent and see just what it was they patented.
KJ, I do the same sort of demo but use a pop can and whatever is handy to push it.
As for what Predator knows about deflection (squirt) read their patent and see just what it was they patented.
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Yea..... same thing here........ LOL
LD shafts, deflection, squirt, more spin smaller tip, less accuracy smaller tip........... this discussion never ends.
Get a good maple shaft the diameter that feels good to you and your style of play and learn how to use your own cue. Play the game.\
JMHO
Kim
You'll wonder perhaps, but I think more and more like you expressed it. The type of shaft (diameter, taper, stiffness, low deflection or not) must fit to your personal preferred feelings, to your technical skills and also to your butt! There may not be a general explanation how low deflection shafts work and why you can play with low deflection,.And if I only see how many opinions there are when it goes about the question - what is better, big diameter or small diameter? - than I can assume how much more difficult it is to discuss about low deflection reasons. Interesting question, but pretty useless.
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StraightIn
Registered
I don't know if the current low deflection theory is sound or not but the testing I have seen is flawed to say the least. I do not claim to be an expert but I am an avid student of the game. Let me try to explain my thoughts on the subject. The theory of the offset hit with the cue tip on the cue ball is governed by three (there are more) very important parameters. The center of gravity (CG) of the cue stick, the CG of the cue ball and the angle of a line drawn through the two CGs and the center line of the cue.
Let me ask this question. If you install a cue shaft which has a lighter tip, in what direction does the CG of the cue shift??? It shifts towards the the but end of the cue. What happens to the angle of the two CGs versus the direction of the cue???? The angle gets smaller. The smaller the angle the less side force imparted to the cue ball from the cue. Most low deflection shafts are quite a bit lighter than standard maple shafts so they all move the CG of the cue towards the butt end reducing this angle. There is a fourth parameter which changes this angle and that is the size of the cue tip. This also affects this angle between the two lines.
Here is my next question?? Would you get the same reduction of deflection if you used your standard shaft and just moved the CG of the cue towards the butt the same amount as using the lighter shaft????? You would also have to make both versions of the cue weigh the same.
Now to even further muddy up this water there is a fifth parameter that may outweigh all of the others. Every player bridges at a different distance and also holds the butt at a given point. These hand positions will change the effects seen by moving the CG of the total cue to the butt of the cue. How hard the cue is gripped also plays a role in this discussion.
I know myself I like cues with a certain balance but until now did not know why. Maybe this is something I picked up on playing the last 40 years and never realized why.
Now you know why I don't like the testing methods used when running these deflection tests. Just installing a lighter shaft should reduce deflection due the change in cue CG and reduce the angle. The overall cue weight is lower and this also plays into the equation. The same goes for how and where the test setups grip the shaft.
Just some thoughts.
Let me ask this question. If you install a cue shaft which has a lighter tip, in what direction does the CG of the cue shift??? It shifts towards the the but end of the cue. What happens to the angle of the two CGs versus the direction of the cue???? The angle gets smaller. The smaller the angle the less side force imparted to the cue ball from the cue. Most low deflection shafts are quite a bit lighter than standard maple shafts so they all move the CG of the cue towards the butt end reducing this angle. There is a fourth parameter which changes this angle and that is the size of the cue tip. This also affects this angle between the two lines.
Here is my next question?? Would you get the same reduction of deflection if you used your standard shaft and just moved the CG of the cue towards the butt the same amount as using the lighter shaft????? You would also have to make both versions of the cue weigh the same.
Now to even further muddy up this water there is a fifth parameter that may outweigh all of the others. Every player bridges at a different distance and also holds the butt at a given point. These hand positions will change the effects seen by moving the CG of the total cue to the butt of the cue. How hard the cue is gripped also plays a role in this discussion.
I know myself I like cues with a certain balance but until now did not know why. Maybe this is something I picked up on playing the last 40 years and never realized why.
Now you know why I don't like the testing methods used when running these deflection tests. Just installing a lighter shaft should reduce deflection due the change in cue CG and reduce the angle. The overall cue weight is lower and this also plays into the equation. The same goes for how and where the test setups grip the shaft.
Just some thoughts.