I'm not sure if this qualifies.
I have a friend who plays pool professionally.
Now, his custom cue maker sponsor brings him like 12-14 shafts to try out.
For like 2 hours, the pro tries out the different shafts on the pool table.
He used only one butt for the entire shaft testing.
With each shaft, he tries various types of shots.
And repeats the same type of shots for each and every shaft.
This went on like forever.
After shooting, I noticed that he separated 4 shafts from the set
and put it on another table. He then shot with these again,
repeating the process - shooting different types of shots on each and every shot.
From the four, he narrowed it to two (2) shafts.
He then approached his custom cue maker sponsor and tells him
that he likes these two (2) shafts, including the reasons why.
The custom cue maker asks him more questions about his selection.
And I learned from the custom cue maker, (which he also told the player)
that these two (2) shafts belong to the same wood, which came
from this specific place. Only these 2 shafts came from that batch!
Imagine that! The pro could actually tell the difference in feel -
and narrowed the 12 dozen or so shafts to two (2), which actually belonged
to the same wood from the same place! Now, that is something! And I kid you not!
And the custom cue maker surely knows his woods! WOW!
AK
We used to see pretty often someone selling a cue and it "hits a ton". While I havent seen that phrase lately it does always make me smile.
My question is have you ever bought a cue that played great, and then got another one from the same maker and it played......well....not so great?
I will share this experience. I bought a plain jane Tad years and years ago and it was a playing son of a gun. In fact, it was my playing cue for a couple years (and for cue flipper like me that is a LONG time). I liked it so much I bought another one, and it played like a log. While it was fancier, and was great to look at, it played terrible.
I am not a cuemaker, but I would expect that this would be the exception, but I have seen it with some other cuemakers.
Anyone else have this experience?
Ken