joint collar and insert salvage?

snipershot

Go ahead.....run for it.
Silver Member
I heard a story the other day that had me scratching my head. A friend of mine broke his shaft and asked another cuemaker if he could make a new shaft. The guys said he could, and he said he would just use the black collar and 5/16 18 insert in the broken shaft on the new shaft. ????? Im not a pro, but ive made probably 25-30 shafts so far in my short cue making career, and ive bored and plugged maybe ten shafts with phenolic. Ive never taken out a brass insert, but it seems to me that it would be way more work than its worth to try and reuse the materials. Is it even possible to do that? More importantly, why would you wanna do it that way instead of just making a new joint collar and using a new insert? In the end, i made a new shaft for him and used new materials, but i was still baffled. Lol.

Joe
 
perfect fit

It's fairly common to cut an old no good shaft a couple inches back from the joint ring, turn down the stub shaft to make a tenon (.550 or so x 2") and insert the tenon in a hole bored in the joint end of a new shaft. You use the shaft stub, insert and ring as an assembly.
This way you have a perfect fit at the joint using the old ring and insert.
I use this technique when the joint ring is hard or impossible to match, or if the cue has a weird thread that I don't have a tap for, such as certain imported cues or, for example, a big pin Tad, which has an odd thread.

This is a perfectly good technique.

Why someone would use this method on a cue with a common thread size and a plain black joint ring, I can't tell you, but by using the old parts you get a perfect fit even if, for example, the joint screw is not perfectly centered. There are other ways, but this one works well.

Robin
 
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I heard a story the other day that had me scratching my head. A friend of mine broke his shaft and asked another cuemaker if he could make a new shaft. The guys said he could, and he said he would just use the black collar and 5/16 18 insert in the broken shaft on the new shaft. ????? Im not a pro, but ive made probably 25-30 shafts so far in my short cue making career, and ive bored and plugged maybe ten shafts with phenolic. Ive never taken out a brass insert, but it seems to me that it would be way more work than its worth to try and reuse the materials. Is it even possible to do that? More importantly, why would you wanna do it that way instead of just making a new joint collar and using a new insert? In the end, i made a new shaft for him and used new materials, but i was still baffled. Lol.

Joe

It has been described here before. I believe they don't take it out, they just machine the assembly down and put the new shaft on the old collar/insert assembly. Generally I thought this sort of thing was done to re-use old fancy rings, I don't see a reason to do it with a plain black collar....but maybe the cue makers can enlighten us more on this matter.


Anyway, I am curious to hear responses on this one. I love this stuff, very interesting.

Of course, I am a mere mortal, not a cue maker...so I may be missing the obvious.... :grin:


EDIT: I see somebody answered while I was typing......

.
 
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From what i was told, he said he was going to "cut out the insert, and cut off the joint collar." Maybe my friend misunderstood, but the way he described what he was gonna do, doesnt match the method you guys mentioned.

Joe
 
We're talking under $2 in mtrls here. You have every reason to be scratching your head.
It makes no sense.
The old 'stub' into the new shaft makes perfect sense and has merit.
But certainly not for a blk. collar and a $1.50 insert.
It's more bother than what it's worth.
I'd be interested in hearing CM#1's logic.

KJ
 
I have used the stub/tenon method several times and it works just fine. I chuck the butt in the lathe and screw on the stub then glue on the new shaft. Turn the new shaft before the glue sets for a perfect spin..........


If you do it right, no one can tell......

Kim
 
We're talking under $2 in mtrls here. You have every reason to be scratching your head.
It makes no sense.
The old 'stub' into the new shaft makes perfect sense and has merit.
But certainly not for a blk. collar and a $1.50 insert.
It's more bother than what it's worth.
I'd be interested in hearing CM#1's logic.

KJ

KJ is right. It makes no sence to reuse these parts. Who ever is doing this repair is a true beginner. For an experienced repairman this is a simple job. ...JER
 
joint replacement

KJ is right. It makes no sence to reuse these parts. Who ever is doing this repair is a true beginner. For an experienced repairman this is a simple job. ...JER

JER - please consider

I recently had a client bring me his 2 Huebler customs with warped shafts but fancy rings and the ever popular nylon insert which he wanted to keep original. Cut them at 4", , drilled and tenoned the parts, perfect fit, little fine sanding, resealed bottom 5 inches, and rolls bang on

Guess I'm too inexperienced having done this for 15 years now, not trying to be sarcastic, but there are situations that require this fix, especially as time moves on and older parts are harder to find


Walter
 
JER - please consider

I recently had a client bring me his 2 Huebler customs with warped shafts but fancy rings and the ever popular nylon insert which he wanted to keep original. Cut them at 4", , drilled and tenoned the parts, perfect fit, little fine sanding, resealed bottom 5 inches, and rolls bang on

Guess I'm too inexperienced having done this for 15 years now, not trying to be sarcastic, but there are situations that require this fix, especially as time moves on and older parts are harder to find


Walter

You had good reason to do that, to save the nylon inserts. If they were standard plain brass inserts and plain black collars, then it would be silly to do that. If there was something special about the joint collar or insert i would understand, but they were just standard parts, and ive got a drawer full of em. Lol.

Joe
 
JER - please consider

I recently had a client bring me his 2 Huebler customs with warped shafts but fancy rings and the ever popular nylon insert which he wanted to keep original. Cut them at 4", , drilled and tenoned the parts, perfect fit, little fine sanding, resealed bottom 5 inches, and rolls bang on

Guess I'm too inexperienced having done this for 15 years now, not trying to be sarcastic, but there are situations that require this fix, especially as time moves on and older parts are harder to find


Walter


I think he meant it was a standard black collar and insert, and that was the point...no rings to "save".




.
 
I use the tenon and bored shaft on most of the shafts that I make. I use the original 2" plus the length of the deco-ring at any time that I can. It's not to save money nor time as it takes much, much longer to build and you only save a couple of dollars but I have found that in doing it this way the shaft runs much more concentric with the center line of the butt. I feel the traditional way of using a insert or drilling and tapping is primitive and doesn't insure a good job.

It's seldom that an insert is truly concentric between the inside and outside threads and even if they are getting the hole bored perfectly straight and the threads cut perfectly straight is tedious at best.

Even on my new shafts on my cues I build the exact same way. I use a piece of Bocota about 2.5" long and put my deco-rings on, drill under size and bore to final size for threads, I either screw this onto the butt which has been trued up in the lathe and I turn the protruding 1.75 - 2.0" of tenon to .550. I already have a new shaft that has been bored to .550 and while the cue and new deco-ring/tenon is perfectly true I then slide the shaft onto this tenon and even without being glued yet the shaft will turn as true as any arrow on this earth.

In this way it is immaterial if the joint on the butt or the pin is out any as the deco-ring fits the joint and the tenon is true, even if the pin is not. I've been doing it this way for around 5 years now, about 700 or shafts or so, with no problems what's-so-ever.

Dick
 
I never do it that way. I have seen this type of build break out of the shaft with very little side pressure.

If someone is building a shaft for a Huebler and cannot make an insert out of a little nylon and a 7/16-20 die should not be working on a Huebler.

This is what frustrates me. If you cannot do the repair correctly, do not accept the work! It doesn't mean you are less of a man to turn down the work or defer it to someone else. I think it is responsible and ethical.

If I sent my cue to have "Repairman A" to get fixed and then I read on the forum a few days later he is trying to figure out how to do the repair, I'd be pretty upset.
 
Yer right as usual Ryan. I don't do it often but I have referred certain repairs over to the other repairman in town.

Usually snooker cue repairs as he has much more experience than I, and I would rather not do them. I know that when he retires, I will have to eventually learn but I also want the best job for who ever is needing it too. Sometimes it is because he has the correct taps for a
cue and I don't.

Certain jobs are not learning jobs for me. Its not that I am afraid to step into uncharted waters if needed but like I said, I want the best job for a customer. It doesn't mean that that customer won't come back to me for other jobs as well. It happens.
Nothing to be ashamed of, I just tell a customer that I am not familiar or comfortable with a certain job and he should take it to Vic.

Sometimes it is because I don't feel that I have the time to devote at the moment. Whats the point of taking on a job that I know won't get finished as soon as everyone would like.

Everyone understands 100% and I believe that they respect me more for it. And I doubt that I have lost any business for it in the long run.

I am working on 2 snooker cues at the moment making ash shafts and because of the nature of the job, these are a bit of a learning job for me.

Vic also knows that because of the nature of my equipment and my previous learning thru Chris's book and dvds and Joe's material, that he often compares notes with me to see how I tackle certain jobs, so it goes both ways. I hang around here and pick up tons of
knowledge and he knows that too.

Its not a competition between us and we both learn from each other.
 
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do the math KJ

We're talking under $2 in mtrls here. You have every reason to be scratching your head.
It makes no sense.
The old 'stub' into the new shaft makes perfect sense and has merit.
But certainly not for a blk. collar and a $1.50 insert.
It's more bother than what it's worth.
I'd be interested in hearing CM#1's logic.

KJ

If you save a buck fifty and do a million of them it comes out to real dough. Even Uncle Sam would want to talk to you. lol
 
I actually took step-by-step pics of how I made a nylon insert. If I can find where I saved them, I can post them in a new thread.
 
I actually took step-by-step pics of how I made a nylon insert. If I can find where I saved them, I can post them in a new thread.

Step by step guide to fab an insert ?

Plane nylon's too weak as an insert imo.
I've seen a few Huebler inserts get wasted.
 

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