kiln drying wood

JoeyInCali

Maker of Joey Bautista Cues
Silver Member
Wood tone doesn't matter.
Just use one-piece oak dowel from McFadden Dale.
They all sound the same.
Make sure you core all straight grain Brazilian Rosewood with oak.
They'll hit better.

Happy cue making.


She also does a brief demonstration. She does it as simple as Eric Crisp explained to me on how to do it.
Don't listen to Eric.
Listen to the professional parabolic taper cue maker.
You want a muffed hit. Not a loud cue.
 

Joe Barringer

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Hi,

Maybe in the future the handles or butts of cues can have a notch carved or will be whittled like tuning forks too!.. LOL :idea2:

Comparing Guitars to pool cues makes no sense to me. Pool cue don't have strings and you don't hit balls with guitars!!!!

Rick



I agree. OK, we beat the tonal nonsense to death and everyone pretty much agrees that it's nonsense; would that be a fair assessment? Assuming that the tone of a shaft makes no difference let's discuss weight and density which are far more important than harmonics. And now some wise guy will come up and say that with the tone he can select the denser shafts. I give up. I'm going to have a cigar an coffee.

I want all of you to have a great weekend.
 

scdiveteam

Rick Geschrey
Silver Member
Isaac Newton introduced the mathematical notion F=MA (force equals mass times acceleration. Frequency and amplitude are basically non factors or have very close to zero effect in the physics of imparting force from a cue to a ball, just saying.

IMO, a quiet cue or a loud cue has little to do with the out come although a hard tip and ferrule can make any cue a noise machine. Some players like loud, some like quiet. No one way is the right way unless you have a closed mind.

When one bases an argument on someone else's urban legend they buy into the evil that I have described and keep up perpetuation of the non sense.

I will choose Newton as my credible higher authority others can choose their authorities as they please.

I guess if you were building plane jane cues exclusively for example "hypothetically", one could be looking for advertising features that presume they know some metaphysical secrets also! People like that kinda stuff!!!!!

Parabolic Tapers have little to do with sound, they have everything to do with deflection attributes behind the bridge not tip end mass and are geometries that can be measured exactly and built with repeatability. This does have a huge effect of the way a cue performs, for the good or bad?

BTW, how does one train for, quantify or qualify any tonal stuff and apply them to the wood combination's out come? Pretty heady stuff and "you will have to take my word on that type of thinking" must be trusted. I guess you must be tied into the metaphysical universe called BS!!! LOL

I would like to win the lotto but refuse to play because I understand the odds dictate the outcome, not wishful thinking.:nanner::kma:
 
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Joe Barringer

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Isaac Newton introduced the mathematical notion F=MA (force equals mass times acceleration. Frequency and amplitude are non factors in the physics of imparting force from a cue to a ball, just saying.

IMO, a quiet cue or a loud cue has little to do with the out come although a hard tip and ferrule cam make any cue a noise machine.

When one bases an argument on someone else's urban legend they buy into the evil that I have described and keep up perpetuation of the non sense.

I will choose Newton as my credible higher authority others can choose their authorities as they please.

BTW, how does one train for, quantify or qualify any tonal stuff and apply them to the wood combination's out come? Pretty heady stuff. I guess you must be tied into the metaphysical universe called BS!!! LOL

I would like to win the lotto but refuse to play because I understand the odds dictate the outcome, not wishful thinking.

Yes I like the info that a harmonic guy uses another harmonic guy to prove his point.

You have it all wrong. You take a shaft with a b flat tone and couple that to a front with a c sharp tone then add an e tone handle with a f tone butt sleeve and you have a BS tone cue.

Let me say this. I can make any cue hit with that 'tink' sound when you hit the cue ball or with a deeper sound just by adjusting something on a cue. You can give me a dead hitting cue and just by doing this certain little something, the cue will come alive. In-other-words, I can adjust the tonal hit of a cue after it is together. And no I'm not taking on any work and no I'm not going to explain it any further. The point is that listening to wood is nonsense when constructing a cue as all the parts change the tones once it's all together.

It would make sense if we were using the wood in the same shape as when you checked the tone. However, since we're cutting it down so many times and then adding inserts or not, rings, collars, tenons, different ferrules and different tips, I don't see any validity to the tone of a 1" x 30" dowel has to do with the final result.

It's a beautiful day out in the neighborhood and is this horse dead yet?
 

Lexicologist71

Rabid Schuler fanatic
Silver Member
I've beaten people with the cue I made myself. I've beaten people with my Schulers. I've beaten people with Schmelkes. Which hit best? I did.
 

QMAKER

LIVE FREE OR DIE
Silver Member
California

One observation: everyone who has made this tonal quality claim seems to emanate from California. Are there any cue makers who share this belief that they can pick shafts by tone reside on the east coast?

Joe: Please tell me that this isn't an off hand slur to those of us (shaft bouncers) who live in the "LAND of FRUITS and NUTS". :wink::wink::wink::wink::wink::wink::wink:
 
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rhncue

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member

Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe Barringer
"One observation: everyone who has made this tonal quality claim seems to emanate from California. Are there any cue makers who share this belief that they can pick shafts by tone reside on the east coast?"

I believe George Balabushka was from the East coast. He believed in tonal qualities rejecting around 90% of shaft wood.

Dick
 

jschelin99

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I’ll probably get flamed from the anti-Joe clan, but here goes…

As with many people that post here, Joe Barringer has strong opinions and is not afraid to share them. If you read back through any of Joe’s posts *without bias*, you will find that he begins with intelligent debate, asks cogent questions, and shines a light on what he believes is incorrect information. It’s only after he gets dragged down into the mud that he gets a little dirty, and nor do I blame him.

Undoubtedly, some AZ’ers have grown to dislike Joe, which I assume only makes him happier. What those in the “dislike” camp are forgetting is that Joe will not back down from an argument. Joe believes very strongly is his points, just as others believe very strongly in theirs. Add to that each side’s dislike for the other, and we get monkeys throwing poop. After the dust settles, many people wonder why Joe is such a jerk, when in fact, he was basically taunted into his position.

I have only been active on AZ for about a year, and obviously am not privy to every “Joe vs. the World” interaction, nor do I care to be. I, for one, have come to like Joe’s straight forward call-it-like-he-sees-it manner. I have ordered materials from Joe for years, and have only had two minor problems which he quickly fixed. Yes, I have read how others have been “screwed over” by Joe, and that’s unfortunate. No, I don’t need to hear the details.

p.s. Just because I’m defending Joe on this thread doesn’t mean I agree with every single point he believes.
 

scdiveteam

Rick Geschrey
Silver Member

Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe Barringer
"One observation: everyone who has made this tonal quality claim seems to emanate from California. Are there any cue makers who share this belief that they can pick shafts by tone reside on the east coast?"

I believe George Balabushka was from the East coast. He believed in tonal qualities rejecting around 90% of shaft wood.

Dick

Again a lot of urban legend stories in cue making for sure. If you don't see something with your own eyes how can you really present it as evidence about the so called old timers. "Objection Your Honor, on grounds of Relevancy " Stories tend to get exaggerated over time.

When I personally go through a new bunk of 200 5/4 kiln dried maple planks from the UP and stored indoors at my local hardwood supplier I get about 2 planks that I like. That's about 1% and I don't listen for tone. Weight and grain straightness seems to be pretty important too and if you focus on that I think what ever tone qualities that exist outside of the ferrule and tip will take care of itself.

BTW, if you put one of those Kerry Zylr Ivorx ferrules (From California)on a piece of soft macaroni I am sure you will get a ring no matter what secrete wood combo knowledge your selling!! LOL Joe B pointed out the fact that he could adjust the sound a cue hit makes very easily. He was right.

So George B was culling shaft wood for many reasons I am sure. If 90% were from sound there had to be 20 times the amount of dowels he collated and classified from for other reasons.

There is reality then there is perception to reality. Only a keen observer understands the difference and I think Joe B is a keen observer who understands this subject with a expert's knowledge. I don't think he is bullshitting anyone or needs to be corrected with mystical innuendo.

JMO
 
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Joe Barringer

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Someone posted that George Balabushka was a tonal expert, bounced his shafts and rejected 90% of his shaft wood. I love the way people throw around percentages. Are you sure it wasn't 88.9% or maybe it was actually 86.75%. I heard someone say it was 90.22%.

I have a question and I know this is not going to be shared by many but...
Was George Balabushka a great cue maker who made great cues?

I don't think he was and I owned one. Did you see him bounce shafts? I know you weren't there and you "heard" it from the largest Balabushka collector or something like that. If he did bounce shafts, the baby kangaroo should bow in honor.

More ridiculous chatter. We've already dispelled the notion that cue makers cannot pick shaft wood based on the tonal characteristics and this only proves that Balabushka didn't know what he was doing either or it made for great showmanship.

I don't have the time to discuss nonsense. I'm done with this thread as it's now going to go into the sublime.
 

JoeyInCali

Maker of Joey Bautista Cues
Silver Member
Again a lot of urban legend stories in cue making for sure. If you don't see something with your own eyes how can you really present it as evidence about the so called old timers. "Objection Your Honor, on grounds of Relevancy " Stories tend to get exaggerated over time.

When I personally go through a new bunk of 200 5/4 kiln dried maple planks from the UP and stored indoors at my local hardwood supplier
I get about 2 planks that I like. That's about 1% and I don't listen for tone. Weight and grain straightness seems to be pretty important too and if you focus on that I think what ever tone qualities that exist outside of the ferrule and tip will take care of itself.

BTW, if you put one of those Kerry Zylr Ivorx ferrules (From California)on a piece of soft macaroni I am sure you will get a ring no matter what secrete wood combo knowledge your selling!! LOL Joe B pointed out the fact that he could adjust the sound a cue hit makes very easily. He was right.


JMO

Are those cut and made for pool cues in mind ?

Melamine rings a lot more than Ivor-X.
So do Aegis.
Why don't use pick some soft and light maple then use Ivor-X, let's see if it rings. You can use Chinese-made Mooris too if you want.
No matter what secret construction you might have.
Or any secretion.
 
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snipershot

Go ahead.....run for it.
Silver Member
Well, since this thread is way off topic already, I might as well add my two cents about tonal qualities. I've had cues that looked amazing, but I couldn't get them to "ping" or "ponk" for nothing. Changed ferrules and tips, I actually tried several different tips. I tried the shaft on a different cue, and a different cues shaft on the other cue. The result? The dead hitting cue had a dead butt and a dead shaft. Didn't matter what I did, it hit very dead, and it had very little resonance. I sold the cue and kept on playing with my old one. Now that I'm making cues, I'm trying to make em all have that nice "punk" sound by using a couple specific types of joint material and ferrule material and so far I've had limited success. I've had a few that go "thud", but most of em hit pretty good, in my opinion. Ironically, the bestie sounding cue I've made is a simple true sneaky, wood to wood, 5/16 14 phenolic piloted joint cue from an old house cue. The points are way off, and I just used wax to seal it. Looks very plain, but hits like a truck. I guess its all part of the puzzle. Lol.


Joe
 

jschelin99

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Snipershot,

I kept meaning to say this about your avatar pic:

Booze, pool, guns. I like all three individually, but no two go together well. And, all three together is a baaaaaaaaaaad combination.

:)
 

Sloppy Pockets

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Here is an interview with Linda Manzer.

Other than being an interesting interview for many of us that can appreciate craftsmanship no matter what were building, she also touches upon
tonal qualities of wood and how she selects wood for her guitars.
She also does a brief demonstration.

Linda's demo is merely showing how the tap tone changes as wood is removed from the piece (it gets lower in pitch). I don't believe that the actual frequency will tell you much about the quality of the raw wood itself, which is what I think a lot of folks here seem to be saying. If the pitch changes with mass, shape, and size, how can it tell you anything about the wood itself?

Resonance is different.

In my own work (violin bow making) I have spent an extraordinary amount of time feeling the resonance of the wood when struck. I was taught how to do this by a disgruntled employee of my bow making teacher, William Salchow (Bill wasn't volunteering this information). I think it is essential to getting a great sounding bow.

To feel the vibrations properly you must hold the wood at the nodal point, same way you listen for the tap tone. You find this spot experimentally by moving your hand up and down the stick until you feel the strongest pulsations when tapping the other end.

I have found that two different sticks cut from the same plank can be very different in the power of the vibrations. Some sticks even have two distinct modes of vibration, and they can vibrate in and out of phase and quickly cancel each other out. The ones with the most powerful vibrations with the longest sustain seem to make the best sounding bows, and this sustain seems to be there at all stages of the construction of the bow.

How this might apply to cues I haven't a clue, but I fully intend to continue the practice once I start making them. I seriously doubt that there will be any effect on the actual power of the hit, but I'm thinking it could possibly be a way to help predict which shafts might feel and sound the best for an individual player's preference.

BTW has anyone heard of a device called a "Lucchi meter"? It is an instrument that bow makers use to sort out wood. It measures the longitudinal velocity of the wood vibrations (how fast sound travels from end to end). In theory, the higher the reading, the harder and denser the wood. A lot of top bow makers swear by it. Wish I had one, but they were over $2K that I looked.
 

qbilder

slower than snails
Silver Member
Linda's demo is merely showing how the tap tone changes as wood is removed from the piece (it gets lower in pitch). I don't believe that the actual frequency will tell you much about the quality of the raw wood itself, which is what I think a lot of folks here seem to be saying. If the pitch changes with mass, shape, and size, how can it tell you anything about the wood itself?

Resonance is different.

In my own work (violin bow making) I have spent an extraordinary amount of time feeling the resonance of the wood when struck. I was taught how to do this by a disgruntled employee of my bow making teacher, William Salchow (Bill wasn't volunteering this information). I think it is essential to getting a great sounding bow.

To feel the vibrations properly you must hold the wood at the nodal point, same way you listen for the tap tone. You find this spot experimentally by moving your hand up and down the stick until you feel the strongest pulsations when tapping the other end.

I have found that two different sticks cut from the same plank can be very different in the power of the vibrations. Some sticks even have two distinct modes of vibration, and they can vibrate in and out of phase and quickly cancel each other out. The ones with the most powerful vibrations with the longest sustain seem to make the best sounding bows, and this sustain seems to be there at all stages of the construction of the bow.

How this might apply to cues I haven't a clue, but I fully intend to continue the practice once I start making them. I seriously doubt that there will be any effect on the actual power of the hit, but I'm thinking it could possibly be a way to help predict which shafts might feel and sound the best for an individual player's preference.

BTW has anyone heard of a device called a "Lucchi meter"? It is an instrument that bow makers use to sort out wood. It measures the longitudinal velocity of the wood vibrations (how fast sound travels from end to end). In theory, the higher the reading, the harder and denser the wood. A lot of top bow makers swear by it. Wish I had one, but they were over $2K that I looked.

I think you have a very 'sound' grasp on the subject (pun intended). You will likely build some of the best playing cues ever. You seem to be educated in an area that the majority of cue makers ignore or discount. I have for years studied & experimented in attempt to educate myself and find patterns in harmonics that equate to playability. I have done pretty well & built some great playing cues. But your experience & knowledge is another level altogether. I'll be interested in seeing how you progress as a builder, and hopefully someday get a chance to sit down & have a beer with you if our paths ever cross.

Perhaps i'm biased. But I don't think so. I have a problem solving train of thought, always have. The trigger to my "discovery" of how harmonics relate to playability was that I wanted to solve the problem of building two identical cues that played nothing alike. I had my dimensions down, components were consistent, but every cue had it's own character. I didn't simply accept that it's because there are variances in wood characteristics. I wanted to know how & why. Why isn't a piece of maple the same as every other piece of maple? Years of accumulative experience & knowledge revealed the only major factor is harmonics. It's not grain count or color or straightness of grain, or even weight. It's pitch of tone & strength of tone, and nothing else. Once I had that little fact figured out, I could then begin building around it and note patterns in the results. Almost immediately my cues were better, far more consistent, and playing better & better. It wasn't anymore wondering if the cue would play ok or not, making an educated guess as to how it would likely perform, then having to hit balls with it to know for sure how close I got. Nope. I could now know exactly how the cue would perform before I built it, how it would feel, the hardness of the hit, etc. Every piece of wood's harmonics are considered & factored, matched with other pieces to create a specific tone & resonance that I believe is paramount for playability. Regardless of wood species, taper shape, dimension, etc., the cue will play just like every other cue that has the same harmonics.

Sorry for the lengthy post. It's a subject I am most passionate about regarding cues. Lots of other builders, even wood suppliers, think i'm nuts. That's just fine with me.
 

Sloppy Pockets

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I think you have a very 'sound' grasp on the subject (pun intended). You will likely build some of the best playing cues ever. You seem to be educated in an area that the majority of cue makers ignore or discount. I have for years studied & experimented in attempt to educate myself and find patterns in harmonics that equate to playability. I have done pretty well & built some great playing cues. But your experience & knowledge is another level altogether. I'll be interested in seeing how you progress as a builder, and hopefully someday get a chance to sit down & have a beer with you if our paths ever cross.

Eric, thank you for the kind words. They are just what I needed, as I seem to be stalled in this whole pursuit at this point. Still no electric in the new shop as the young man I was paying to do this up and left, leaving me with coils of Romex coming out of every outlet. I am not an electrician. Anyway, sorry for what follows, but I just had to get it out...

You got me to thinking: "Why not start roughing shafts out by hand?"


This is the only way to make a violin bow. They do not lend themselves at all to machine production, not fine bows at any rate. Every step of the way the work is done with simple block planes, scraping planes, knives and files, guided entirely by the eye except for the very final taper, which is done with either a set of graduated gauges, with a dial caliper, or with both.

All along the way, you are constantly getting feedback from the wood, either by thumping it against your hand or just by listening to the tone of the wood as you plane it. The tools will speak to you if you listen to them. You are always holding it in your hands, flexing it and noticing how the strength and sound changes as it gets thinner. Your subconscious records all of these details, but you have to listen and feel for them. Trust me, they are there. With the "traditional" method of cue making with machinery, it's kinda hard to do that over the sound of the lathe and a screaming router, very far removed from your sensitive fingertips.

Another thing that I intend to carry over into cue building is to avoid any semblance of mass production. All of the great bow makers made only one stick at a time. This is the only way to keep these tiny details that each stick presents to you fresh in your mind.


Bow making is fiendishly difficult. There is 0.000% room for error as you reach the last stages, and any mistake - even one careless stroke of the file - will quickly send the stick out to the garden to stake up your tomatoes.

You start out with about 1/4 pound or so of pernambuco wood, and spend several hours roughing it out, leaving it oversized in all dimensions. If there is anything that feels wrong with the stick at this point, is goes in the scrap bin. Then you have to put a substantial bend in the wood using heat. About 1/3 of all sticks break at this point, revealing hidden shakes and checks that "healed" themselves to the examining eye (you guys all know how frustrating tropical hardwoods can be). These go into the wood stove. You get about 17 seconds worth of heat from a cracked $150 bow blank.

After heating and bending, the bow blank will be horribly twisted. You make no effort to prevent this, in fact, you want it to happen since it relieves hidden stresses in the wood which would just cause it to warp in the future. There are fine bows in existence that are over 200 years old and are still straight as an arrow and twist free when viewed from the top, in spite of them being under tension from the hair all the time they are being played (the depth, of course, has a substantial curve as part of the design). Makes me wonder how a cue can get a serious warp in it after just being laid at an angle against a wall.

The twists are all planed out by hand and eye, forming the initial octagonal cross-section of the bow. These initial lines will guide you throughout the slow graduation process. The beauty and flow of these lines as they develop will be reflected in beauty of the final bow... even though the facets are planed off of about 90% of finished bows, leaving a round cross-section. The curve and taper of a fine bow is so profoundly beautiful to an experienced expert that their eye will be instantly drawn to it upon entering into the workshop as it rests against a wall amid inferior bows.

All this time, you are constantly weighing the stick and balancing it on the fly. The finished bow must be as close to 60-62 grams as you can get it, or no player will buy it. There is about 37 grams of stick in a finished violin bow, give or take a gram or two. The rest is the adjusting frog, button, hair and grip. There are no "weight bolts" allowed in a bow, the stick must be carved in such a way that it arrives at artistic perfection at the same time it arrives at functional perfection.

As challenging and rewarding as bow making has been to me, it is ultimately kinda boring. They are supposed to be simple, unadorned tools, and no individual artistic freedom is accepted by the profession. Even the accepted models are rigidly defined, with only copies of the styles of masters long deceased being tolerated.

Imagine if every cue you made just had to look like a particular Rambow or no one would want it? And then there is the matter of there being only one hardwood in the world that is acceptable for a modern bow, and only a very tiny percentage of this wood being suitable for an artist grade bow... and all of this wood being both CITES protected and subject to the importation rules of the Lacey Act. There is no first quality pernambuco available for sale in this country that I know of, and I am all out of first quality wood.


Anyway, sorry for the very long, odd rant on a kiln-drying thread in a cue building forum, but Eric got me thinking, and this info seems relevant to cue building to me. There may be more than one way to skin a shaft, and this might be a great time for me to investigate this. I'm told that most of the great snooker cues are made by hand, and they seem to shoot pretty straight for guys like Ronnie O.

BTW Eric, I would definitely love to share some brews and conversation with you. I am saddened that you found it necessary to halt your cue building, but the river of life takes us along in its powerful currents like leaves on the surface. We are lucky enough if we can even influence our paths, but inexorably, we are all eventually washed to the sea.

Good luck in your future endeavors, Eric, and I sincerely hope that life will carry you back into cue building. If for no other reason, I would really like a Sugar Tree of my own some day.
 

Joe Barringer

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
This brings a tear to my eye!

Love, exciting and new
Come Aboard. We're expecting you.
Love, life's sweetest reward.
Let it flow, it floats back to you.
 

whammo57

Kim Walker
Silver Member
This brings a tear to my eye!

Love, exciting and new
Come Aboard. We're expecting you.
Love, life's sweetest reward.
Let it flow, it floats back to you.

Joe...........

Please refrain from posting until your meds kick in,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,


LOL


Kim
 
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