Cues for home guests - house cues or your own?

I have a rack of basic house cues, for guests. If they are serious players, they will bring their own cue. But I don't have any friends who are serious about pool, and the only cue they have ever used (even in a pool room), was off the rack. So they wouldn't know the difference, anyway.
 
Lesson learned the hard way: Don't lend what you can't afford to lose! That applies to the house cues you are letting people play with. If their expensive cue is at home you might loan them an equal cue. However, if they are used to playing with one piece house cues in bars they are going to use yours the same way.

Being nice cost me the shaft I gambled with six or seven nights a week. Tapped a ball with the tip. Not something to cause a problem about 999 times out of a thousand but this time the last two inches of the shaft snapped off!

Hu
 
Bob Jewett said:
If I were a guest, I'd be more comfortable with a nice one-piece than your Southwest. Nice: 11.8mm, pro taper and a short ferrule.
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I like this approach. Get a one-piece that generally feels like a quality cue, but don't risk something that could lead to heartbreak. A few times I've let friends try my cue (my JO player is 11.8 mm shaft w/pro taper), they're blown away. Simple cue, but world of difference from a 13+mm house cue.
 
Bob Jewett said:
How far away did the ball land? ;)
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The ball barely rolled down towards the foot end of the table. The lighter broken piece of shaft didn't go eighteen inches either. It was broken along the grain, some indication it was hit wrong. The break was clean with no sign of old damage. The stick hadn't been making a noise either.

One of those things hard to explain. My brother was fresh home from a four year hitch in Uncle Sugar's outfit. He didn't know that I had gotten very serious about pool. He didn't understand the big deal. I wasn't mad at my brother, he had just hit the ball like we have hit them with house cues more times than we can remember. A lot of people hit the balls like that with their hinged cues too. I had started to tell him don't do that when it was done and too late.

When he understood he offered to buy another shaft. It was an accident, not exactly his fault. I tried to explain to him that you can't replace two years of daily play with a shaft, it takes another two years if you find a shaft that suits.

Hu



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Bob Jewett said:
Thin is part of getting low deflection in a solid wood cue.
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I assumed wood CF hybrids would come along. I just heard about a cue that had 10" CF at the tip, another with 20". Interesting. If you could get the transition to work the CF section might be possible to make true zero taper. Then again, I can picture them becoming an abortionist's nightmare if it flexed back there at the transition with little or no flex closer to the tip.

CF is going to open doors, already is opening some. Being able to change the inside taper or wrap angle opens up a workd of possibilities without changing the outside taper. A shaft that played like a traditional shaft with a zero outside taper would be sweet!

Along the lines of new things, I also consider a CF shaft with very little rise all the way to the joint then a joint that isn't the same diameter on both sides. The CF opens a new world of experimentation. A few years back I would be trying to find or build a CF wrapping machine. I like the possibility of a tapered or even multi-tapered arbor to wrap the CF on so a lot of the way a shaft played would be because of the inside taper of the CF.

Hu
 
Pick One
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ShootingArts said:
Lesson learned the hard way: Don't lend what you can't afford to lose! That applies to the house cues you are letting people play with. If their expensive cue is at home you might loan them an equal cue. However, if they are used to playing with one piece house cues in bars they are going to use yours the same way.

Being nice cost me the shaft I gambled with six or seven nights a week. Tapped a ball with the tip. Not something to cause a problem about 999 times out of a thousand but this time the last two inches of the shaft snapped off!

Hu
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A Filipino rack boy did the same thing when he picked up my Richard Black cue in the Philippines.

He tapped a ball with the side of my ivory ferrule and broke it.

I had Richard Helmstetter put a new ivory ferrule on it when I visited the ADAM factory in Japan.
 
Logandgriff said:
My kids and their friends always groused about not getting to play with my good cues so I bought a few Players and Valhallas. They are thrilled and think they are playing with Balabuskas and Szambotis.
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I gave my son a new cue. He never really cared much for the looks nor what it is. I only gave him another one once he learned how to take care of his own starter cue which received a few abuses. Once he started getting the habit of taking better care of his old cue then I went and got him a better one. Once he tried the new one, he was hitting better and appreciate the new cue even more and handles it better. I got him a midrange players with an avid shaft. I'm also an evil dad.
 
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