Why [MAPLE wood] for LD shafts ?

Hustlin-Felice

Hustlin-Felice

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Hi everyone !

I'm busy wondering why big companies like Predator, OB, etc. keep using maple wood for their LD shafts?

This is simple question, but very important, cause I done some research to find the answer: what causing deflection and why LD shaft are helping so much?

The main reason is that LD shafts gets out of the way much quicker then any ordinary shaft.
Because shaft, mainly the end of it ligher.

That's why Predator, OB and sort of and sort of, making magic hollow space inside their shafts
(Predator)
predator314-inside.jpg

or instead wood they placing silicon rubber core (OB) .
broken-obshaft-1.jpg


So, the natural question comes o my mind: Why MAPLE wood *(quite heavy one) is used for LD shaft ?

Why they not using: Balsa wood, Aspen wood, Pine wood, etc? It is much lighter then Maple. and more elastic which would give some extra spin.

Does anyone can answer this question ?
 
The easy availability of maple is probeably the main reason.
Density, grain straightness also matters.
Sure there is lots of other types of wood that would lend itself to shaft making, but do you know of any peartree farms?
 
Maple plays the best. It's all been tried and maple plays the best for pool and ash for snooker. I bet Predator has found some flipped out old growth maple in the far east, somewhere, and should use it to make normal shafts. Plus, there's lots of cheap, young maple available for plywood shafts in forests in China.
 
Straightpool_99 said:
Maple is hard and smooth and stays straight over time. Many other woods can be used for shafts (hornbeam, pear tree, ash etc), but maple have very good overall qualities and is fairly cheap and easily available. I tried a pear tree shaft for snooker that was excellent (smooth, soft hitting), cant remember if it was heavy or light though. Balsa that you mentioned is very light weight, but sadly it is not solid enough (but can be used to core a hollow maple shaft). Pine will not stay straight in a pool cue thickness (maybe if you core it with carbon though?).

The future is carbon, I believe, but noone has been able to make a solid carbon compound shaft that hit acceptably. Also carbon is quite brittle and it does not slide easily through the fingers without some kind of lubrication. A carbon fishing rod for instance, will take a blow and appear to be fine, only to suddenly break at a later time. If you bond fibreglass and carbon you get a more solid product,but it will be heavier. I believe that someone will eventually come up with some kind of carbon compound that will be superior to wood in every way, but that may take a lot of time, and probably won't be cheap. In the mean time maybe someone can make a shaft made of lightweight wood cored with carbon?.

edit: I also have to add that the weight of the shaft tremendously impacts how it feels. I once bought some dirt cheap cues online (it was like 20 dollars for five of them, seriously!). The shaft wood I believe was maple (it was not ramin, of that I am sure) but very lightweight. Those shafts hit very, very weird, even after I put on a different ferrule and tip and used them on a different butt. I could do almost anything I could with a regular cue shaft, got good action on the ball, but it felt awful and not solid at all. I suspect that will be the result when using most lightweight woods. Obviously how the shaft feels is secondary to the performance, but not unimportant either.
Click to expand...


I agree, but what do you think about my idea of Low deflection shaft:
2vlme1d.jpg


where blue is a softer wood like Balsa, Pine, Aspen, etc.
and where brown is maple wood.

Plus of course technology similar like in Predator or OB, to make shaft lighter at the top.
 
Hustlin-Felice said:
I agree, but what do you think about my idea of Low deflection shaft:
2vlme1d.jpg


where blue is a softer wood like Balsa, Pine, Aspen, etc.
and where brown is maple wood.

Plus of course technology similar like in Predator or OB, to make shaft lighter at the top.
Click to expand...

Where do I start? Almost imposable to manufacture (each one of your cubes would probably be 3/4mm or less. You would probably end up with more glue than wood. In short not practical and probably not be any less deflecting than a standard shaft.

Nick B
 
Nick B said:
Where do I start? Almost imposable to manufacture (each one of your cubes would probably be 3/4mm or less. You would probably end up with more glue than wood. In short not practical and probably not be any less deflecting than a standard shaft.

Nick B
Click to expand...


Yep, but that was quick thought, and even more quicker made in paint ;)

The idea of it was to mix soft wood like Balsa/Pine with Maple.

Similar to OB, but they connecting (gluing) 6 maple shafts and then trimming to one.
But I was thinking of mixing maple with soft wood in squares, lets say 12. (Predator uses 10)
 
Hustlin-Felice said:
Yep, but that was quick thought, and even more quicker made in paint ;)

The idea of it was to mix soft wood like Balsa/Pine with Maple.

Similar to OB, but they connecting (gluing) 6 maple shafts and then trimming to one.
But I was thinking of mixing maple with soft wood in squares, lets say 12. (Predator uses 10)
Click to expand...

Super tough to manufacture then problematic from an expansion point of view with dissimilar materials.

Nick
 
Hustlin-Felice said:
I agree, but what do you think about my idea of Low deflection shaft:
2vlme1d.jpg


where blue is a softer wood like Balsa, Pine, Aspen, etc.
and where brown is maple wood.

Plus of course technology similar like in Predator or OB, to make shaft lighter at the top.
Click to expand...

About 15 times more complex than needed. Making a lighter shaft end mass is a much simpler thing by putting a hole in the end and/or using a light ferrule material. I can see strips of different woods used but not the way you picture it. Even then it would be almost impossible to keep it straight for more than a day.
 
Besides construction challenge (cost related..) I believe the softer parts of the shaft would bring an unstable result after use, not to mention the feeling that should be far from solid...
 
That would basically be like gluing a bunch of really long toothpicks together and waiting for something to snap...
 
A couple of points on this subject.

Maple
Maple is the material of choice for the pool cue shaft buyer. Many different materials have been attempted over the years, but nothing "plays" like maple, so that's what will sell. And, let's face it, it doesn't matter how good your product is if it doesn't sell.

Carbon Fiber
Paul Costain (predator) has several patents related to using carbon fiber in a pool cue shaft. He spent tons of money researching and developing cue shafts using this material, but yet we don't see him building them. Maybe it's not such a good idea after all.


All in all, wood is a very unique creation of nature. Some woods, especially Acer Saccharum or hard maple, have a unique balance of strength to bendability to weight to hardness, etc. I don't think that mankind has ever created a material with anywhere near the same characteristics as hard maple.

As for you design, all I can say is go for it! That's what Don Owen and myself did when we started. I should tell you that for every design or construction method that you see on the market today, there are many many more that didn't make it. It's quite possible that your idea has already been tried, but you won't know if you don't try. Just be prepared to spend a lot of money to find out. It's tough to make a living in the billiard industry. It's fun, but there are many industries in which it's much easier to make a profit.
 
RBC said:
A couple of points on this subject....Carbon Fiber
Paul Costain (predator) has several patents related to using carbon fiber in a pool cue shaft. He spent tons of money researching and developing cue shafts using this material, but yet we don't see him building them. Maybe it's not such a good idea after all.....
Click to expand...

Take is back, Royce! Carbon fiber is the future of everything...and it is awesome.
 
DoubleD said:
Maple isn't heavy.

For the woods with the properties necessary, maple is actually quite light.
Click to expand...

That's right. When talking about woods, we usually talk about "hard woods" (or hardwood) and "soft woods" (or softwood).

Maple is pretty much the "entry level" into the hardwoods. You want to use a hardwood when making cue shafts, because hardwoods are less likely to warp, crack, split, etc. as softwoods commonly do. Others in the family of commonly-available hardwoods that are harder/more-resilient include: birch, oak, purpleheart, hickory, etc. In North America, hickory is about the hardest of the commonly-available (read: non-exotic) hardwoods, and is a favorite of the flooring industry, because of its very high marks (1820) on the Janka hardness test. Drumsticks (for playing drums) are made from hickory because of this wood's incredible strength. ("Commonly-available" means that if you look out your back window, you're likely to see one of these growing somewhere. Other [harder] members of the hardwood family such as Ebony and Brazilian Olivewood are considered exotic, and not "common" -- you're not likely to have one of these growing in your backyard. ;) )

The idea of mixing hardwoods and softwoods into i.e. veneers has been done before, but not for the reasons that the OP wants/states. Whenever mixing woods of different species (and *especially* from different categories -- i.e. softwoods and hardwoods), you have to minimize the stresses that these woods will place upon each other. You can't simply glue sticks of different woods together and expect the composite result to stay straight. Reason: different woods "breathe" and react differently to environmental conditions. There really is a science to this.

Royce's answer above is excellent -- and I would agree that if the OP is inspired, to definitely try his idea and tinker with it. Some of the best inventions in the world came from dogged determination.

-Sean
 
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