Have any of you AZers had any luck with hanging your shafts to staighten them. My 20 year old Black cue has some pretty good wobble to both shafts.I see a few hangers for sale that claim to be able to work by letting gravity do its thing. I hate to throw $ away on something unless it works..Thanks......Chuck
Shaft straightening
- Thread starter chuckg
- Start date
straightening a cue
Those hangers are not really effective. The shaft lacks sufficient weight for gravity to overcome the curve. I suppose if you had the ability to attach sufficient weight to the shaft and enough time, you might see some effect. What those two variable would be is an unknown factor.
Those hangers are not really effective. The shaft lacks sufficient weight for gravity to overcome the curve. I suppose if you had the ability to attach sufficient weight to the shaft and enough time, you might see some effect. What those two variable would be is an unknown factor.
cuemister
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Depending on the pin size, Home Depot carries 5/16x14 and 5/16x18 bolts you can buy and attach weights too. Then screw them into the shaft where the butt pin would go and hopefully the weight would pull it straight. Most of Richrds Cues come with a 5/16x14 pin size. Hope this helps.
If you can find a 5/16-14 threaded bolt in a hardware store you must be a magician. That is a priority thread that only cue makers use and are only sold by cue parts dealers.
Some have claimed that they had their shafts straightened but in all the years I've worked on cues I have never seen one straightened for longer than a few hours.
Dick
I have seen cues with a slight wobble straighten out by hanging the whole cue up for awhile by using a rubber band and wrapping it around the shaft then leaving it to hang for a few days. I have never actually seen it used but I have seen the end results when people said they used that method and what they showed was straight as an arrow
A local cue maker straightened out a shaft for me one time using a unique method. The shaft was noticeably warped, we are talking heavy bend in it. He put it in this homemade tray type holder where he could roll it by hand. Now the end where the tip is had graph paper, and as he rolled it you could see the tip move from square to square. A perfectly straight shaft would stay centered on the graph paper. As he rolled it, he would mark the shaft at the joint where the tip went lowest and then took the shaft to his table saw (a nice flat surface) and lifted up at the joint bending the cue where he had marked it.
He put a lot of bend into it but there was never a snap crackle or pop sound, and after a few times going back and forth the shaft went from having a big bend to a slight wobble. He did say that it may warp back, but after several months the shaft stayed about the same with just a slight wobble.
Come to think of it, I remember him also steaming the shaft before bending it. All I know is it worked and the shaft was a lot better to play with when he was done.
He put a lot of bend into it but there was never a snap crackle or pop sound, and after a few times going back and forth the shaft went from having a big bend to a slight wobble. He did say that it may warp back, but after several months the shaft stayed about the same with just a slight wobble.
Come to think of it, I remember him also steaming the shaft before bending it. All I know is it worked and the shaft was a lot better to play with when he was done.
I straightened one!
I had a radial pin Predator 314 that I stopped using when I sold the cue that I bought it for. It sat around for a long time - probably a few years - and sometime during that stretch, it developed a curve in it. It wobbled when rolled on the table.
I put a pencil mark on the ferrule to indicate which side I wanted to be up when it is lying flat. I laid it on a flat surface, put a weight on the high spot and left it that way for several months. Since the straightening, it has been lying on a carpeted floor underneath a bed for about a year.
Recently a friend asked me about the shaft because he has a new Jacoby with a radial pin joint. I pulled it out and examined it closely. It was still perfectly straight. He bought it from me knowing its history.
I don't imagine many people are willing to wait months like I did in this case, but it did work.
I had a radial pin Predator 314 that I stopped using when I sold the cue that I bought it for. It sat around for a long time - probably a few years - and sometime during that stretch, it developed a curve in it. It wobbled when rolled on the table.
I put a pencil mark on the ferrule to indicate which side I wanted to be up when it is lying flat. I laid it on a flat surface, put a weight on the high spot and left it that way for several months. Since the straightening, it has been lying on a carpeted floor underneath a bed for about a year.
Recently a friend asked me about the shaft because he has a new Jacoby with a radial pin joint. I pulled it out and examined it closely. It was still perfectly straight. He bought it from me knowing its history.
I don't imagine many people are willing to wait months like I did in this case, but it did work.
I have had luck using a couple of books propped at either end of the shaft and using a 5 lb weight with a towel placed on the shaft to bend it the other way. I have also seen people use magazines and do the same thing but leave it there for a while. When the shaft finally rests on the table remove the weight. In my case it has taken 2 or 3 days for this to work.
As a college kid hard up for cash and working in a pool hall I was always buying and selling used cues..... In a few instance I would get a steal on a cue that had warped.....
I went to Lowes and bought a 4x8 sheet of peg board and proceeded to cut it into 8 1x4 pieces... I used the peg holes to line the sheets up and glued them together....
I could then insert wooden pegs and use them to put tension on a shaft wherever the warp was to straighten it..... A few rubberbands across the shaft around the pegs would hold the shaft in place and I could move the pegs row to increase tension if the shaft was being troublesome and not responding.....
Anytime I was straightening one I kept the peg board in the bathroom leaned up outside of the shower for a few days and then moved it out into a less humid area....
I didn't get all of them 100% straight using this method but I did straighten out a bunch of them to the point that the roll out was barely even there and quite a few of them ended up as straight as arrows.......
I went to Lowes and bought a 4x8 sheet of peg board and proceeded to cut it into 8 1x4 pieces... I used the peg holes to line the sheets up and glued them together....
I could then insert wooden pegs and use them to put tension on a shaft wherever the warp was to straighten it..... A few rubberbands across the shaft around the pegs would hold the shaft in place and I could move the pegs row to increase tension if the shaft was being troublesome and not responding.....
Anytime I was straightening one I kept the peg board in the bathroom leaned up outside of the shower for a few days and then moved it out into a less humid area....
I didn't get all of them 100% straight using this method but I did straighten out a bunch of them to the point that the roll out was barely even there and quite a few of them ended up as straight as arrows.......
It can be done, I have fixed a bunch myself...I read up on it and took several views from several different cue builders and came up with my own scheem..I built a lenghthwise adjustable straightening rack with a dial indicator to find the problem area...Used the info I read about here and from the internet and it has worked out really well...I never tried the hanging method...I guess if the hang it from the rafters with a bowling ball on the end of it long enough it might work..
There are ways to reasonably straighten a shaft but personally I don't believe hanging to be an effective way of doing so.
And you're probably correct. I don't see that there is enuff weight on a shaft to correct a warp just by hanging.
There is an effective enuff way to straighten a laminated shaft. I have used the method on 2 of my Pred shafts. There is still a slight roll to them but they are much better than they were.
Unique sells a shaft straightener jig. Even if you take a warp out of a shaft, I doubt you could get it perfect and at that, you'd have a large chance that the warp will come back in time.