How Will It Hit?

HawaiianEye

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I'm contemplating having a simple cue made and am wondering how it may "hit". Will it hit a "ton" or just a couple pounds?

Specs are as follows:

Full-spliced. Purpleheart butt with four points into Gaboon ebony forearm

3/8-10 stainless steel pin wood-to-wood

Black Phonetic collars on joint and shaft

Maple shaft 13.25mm 10-12" Pro taper with 1/2" XTC ferrule and Soft Ultra Skin tip

Solid Black Irish Linen wrap

Black Phonetic butt cap

Rubber bumper

19 ounce

19" balance point

I'm not sure if it will require a weight bolt or not.

I'm wondering how the ebony will play in the forearm. All my cues have maple forearms. Will the ebony have a "denser" hit"? I think maple may play a bit more "lively".

Anybody got any suggestions on anything I may need to change or adjust? I'm not spending a fortune on it, so it may be just my little "experiment".

I'm having it made to be a "playing" cue, not a "looker". Therefore, It will have no rings, no inlays, and even no logo. It will be my banger cue.
 
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cueman

AzB Gold Member
Gold Member
Silver Member
Since you will be coring the cue to reach anywhere close to your desired weight and you are using a soft ferrule I would say it will have a medium to softer hit.
Different ferrule and no coring and the feel/hit will be hard.
 

qbilder

slower than snails
Silver Member
The butt of the cue will be quite stiff, and front heavy. The XTC with soft tip will be in stark contrast to the rigid butt. That's the equivalent of building a sound system using only sub-woofers & tweeters. Your maker has his work cut out for him. I'm not sure what you are expecting, and I am unaware whether you have the skill level to know the difference. You may love the cue because you designed it & are biased. Or you may hate it. It's a challenging cue to build in specification terms. It's extremely challenging to make it a great player.

IMO, cue harmonics is way too often & grossly underestimated or appreciated. The harmonics are exactly indicative of how a cue vibrates, essentially how it responds to impacting the cue ball. What happens in the cue is mirrored in the cue ball. Ever notice how some cues move the ball very well & feel like they are part of you, as if the ball is reading your mind? And other cues make the game feel unnatural & awkward? Something to consider.
 

Kim Bye

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
It`s still a very thick shaft and even with a long taper it will be on the stiff side.
Short XTC ferrule will give a fairly low end mass.
The cue will be quite forward weighted. Might be an idea to change the SS pin to a G10?
 

Mcues

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Outside of the xtc ferrule those dimensions and wood/ combo are pretty close to what I use for break cues. : ) works great. I have put a regular shaft and played with it just to see. Not the liveliest hit, not a lot of feedback but solid. I suggest you taper the shaft to 13mm and add a lighter pin. Keep the joint at .840

Mario
 

HawaiianEye

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
The butt of the cue will be quite stiff, and front heavy. The XTC with soft tip will be in stark contrast to the rigid butt. That's the equivalent of building a sound system using only sub-woofers & tweeters. Your maker has his work cut out for him. I'm not sure what you are expecting, and I am unaware whether you have the skill level to know the difference. You may love the cue because you designed it & are biased. Or you may hate it. It's a challenging cue to build in specification terms. It's extremely challenging to make it a great player.

IMO, cue harmonics is way too often & grossly underestimated or appreciated. The harmonics are exactly indicative of how a cue vibrates, essentially how it responds to impacting the cue ball. What happens in the cue is mirrored in the cue ball. Ever notice how some cues move the ball very well & feel like they are part of you, as if the ball is reading your mind? And other cues make the game feel unnatural & awkward? Something to consider.

Thanks for the info. Appreciate your input.

I have played pool for many years and know how I like them to hit, but I have never attempted to make one. I've always relied on the makers to do that for me.

I based the wood selection on what I've read from various cue makers over the years on various sites. I have heard several of them say that they like ebony for the forearm and purpleheart in the handle wood, or as a coring wood. I have had, and have, ebony cues, but they are all ebony butts coupled with maple forearms. I have never played with cues with solid ebony as the forearm.

I came across this full-splce blank by accident and figured it may be worth a shot at trying out something new. It may or may not. I haven't decided yet on buying it. I wasn't looking for it when I found it. I am still open to getting something different.

The rest of the specs (shaft size, etc.) are things that I've tried and played with before. I like my shafts on the thicker side and used 14mm shafts for years and had Richard Black make me two custom cues with those sizes (back in 1978 and 81). I've had several other custom cues made with that size. The shaft I use now is 13.2mm. If I buy at 13.25mm and I don't like the size or taper, I can bring it down and back a bit by hand. I have done that many, many times over the years. I did that many years ago when I replaced ferrules and tips in a pool hall where I worked as a kid.

I know I like soft tips. I have G2 Soft tips on three shafts and they all play very well. A Predator FAT shaft and two custom-made solid maple shafts.

The old Westinghouse Micarta ferrules used to play well and lots of people still look for them. According to some ferrule durometer tests I've seen online, those ferrules were about 83 on the scale and XTC is about the same scale. I have cues with harder ferrules and tips, but I prefer a more muted hit.

As far as the rest of the cue, I'm not into looks...I like simple. I chose the black wrap, collars and butt cap just to make it match the ebony.

I chose the 3/8-10 pin because I have a Meucci Pro with that pin that I can use if the shaft/butt combo plays a bit too stiff.

As far as weight goes, I'm still hoping to keep as close to 19 oz as possible. I have 21 oz cues, so going up a bit isn't a real problem.

If I get the joint diameter size down to fit the Meucci Pro it will be slimmer than most of my other cues. The Meucci Pro diameter is less than some of my other cues with that same pin. The butt and handle on my custom cue that I use now is a lot slimmer than most cues. That cue is a full-splced bloodwood Titlist conversion. With all that in mind, if I get everything whittled down on the butt, it may bring the weight down as much as possible.

Balance, I'm not sure about. I know the ebony and pin size will bring the weight to the front. I'm sure a weight bolt won't be needed for overall weight, but I don't know if a small one may be needed to balance it out some if the weight is too far forward.

Like I said, this isn't costing me a fortune and it isn't a done deal. I'm going to talk to the maker this week and see if what I want can be done, before I ever decide to do it. The preliminary answer I got was that it can be done.

Thanks again for your expertise and appreciate all the comments from the rest of the people who provided them also.

Any other comments from anybody are welcomed. You don't have to be a cue maker to chime in. I'm interested in hearing from anyone who may have some input or who may have a cue made of the same wood combination.

Aloha.
 
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qbilder

slower than snails
Silver Member
The specs aren't a problem, really. An aluminum or titanium pin coupled with a lighter weight shaft would do the trick. You may actually need a weight bolt. Actually nothing about the cue is anything that would be all that difficult. My post wasn't intended to deter you from having the cue made. In fact it actually would be an interesting project & would fill your curiosity a lot more than any post on the forum could do. Would be even better if you posted a review of your thoughts after playing with it for a while.
 

Chopdoc

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Fascinating project.

When I first read it I figured it for a baseball bat. LOL!

But I am sure a good cuemaker can do what you want and get the results you want.

It is very cool to see a cue go from fantasy to reality. You have provided a lot of insight into your thought process. Thank you.

I would love to see where this ends and hope that if you pull the trigger you post the results and come back here to compare and contrast with your original thought process. :)




.
 

billiardthought

Anti-intellectualism
Silver Member
That is my main concern...the weight and balance.

I don't mind if the weight goes up a little bit, as long as the balance "neutralizes" it.

Here is a link to a Pat Diveney wrapless cue that is made of ebony and purpleheart and it is 19 oz. Does he core his cues?

http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=416572

Pat Diveney sometimes (maybe more?) gets his blanks from Andrew Rounceville who in my one particular case, did core the blank (cocobolo and curly maple forearm). Just thought I would throw that out there to anyone who could find that info useful.
 

HawaiianEye

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Pat Diveney sometimes (maybe more?) gets his blanks from Andrew Rounceville who in my one particular case, did core the blank (cocobolo and curly maple forearm). Just thought I would throw that out there to anyone who could find that info useful.

Pat Diveney is not the maker I'm contemplating. I only used the link to his cue as an example of a cue with a purpleheart butt with ebony forearm. The blank I'm looking at is full-spliced and not cored.
 

CuesRus1973

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
It`s still a very thick shaft and even with a long taper it will be on the stiff side.
Short XTC ferrule will give a fairly low end mass.
The cue will be quite forward weighted. Might be an idea to change the SS pin to a G10?

This.

Also, metal pins deaden vibration reducing "feel".

The Radial thread, unless using live tooling, is more "tap" friendly to cut full thread depth. That would be my recommended thread. If not that, then the "modified" or flat-bottomed 3/8-10 would be my second choice.
 

JoeyInCali

Maker of Joey Bautista Cues
Silver Member
Pat Diveney is not the maker I'm contemplating. I only used the link to his cue as an example of a cue with a purpleheart butt with ebony forearm. The blank I'm looking at is full-spliced and not cored.

At 19 oz, it will need coring unless you like 1.200" bottom.
 

HawaiianEye

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Fascinating project.

When I first read it I figured it for a baseball bat. LOL!

But I am sure a good cuemaker can do what you want and get the results you want.

It is very cool to see a cue go from fantasy to reality. You have provided a lot of insight into your thought process. Thank you.

I would love to see where this ends and hope that if you pull the trigger you post the results and come back here to compare and contrast with your original thought process. :)

.

LOL!

It may turn out to be a baseball bat...or a garden stake. If I'm lucky, it may even turn out to be a pool cue. :)

I talked to the maker and he seems to think the weight can be handled (no pun intended).

I'm going to buy some calipers this weekend and measure my Pancerny Titlist to get the handle and butt diameters. This cue is slimmer than my other cues and I have gotten used to the feel of it. I am also going to measure the joint diameter of my Meucci Pro shaft. (FWIW, I had some calipers in my bag I drag around to the pool hall until a couple months ago when some SOB stole my bag right off the stand next to the table I was playing on).

By next week, I'll decide if I will pull the trigger, or not, on this particular project. I had a completely different cue in mind when I stumbled across this blank.

Does anybody know the exact dimensions of a RS-11 McDermott 3/8-10 pin? The Meucci Pro shaft fits it, but the McDermott cue was made in 1996 and I think they may have changed up their pin a bit since then.

If I can find a G-10 pin or a Titanium pin that is the same type as the RS-11 pin, I will buy it and ship it to the maker (if he doesn't have one). I don't want to get something that doesn't work with the Meucci Pro shaft and I don't want to have to do something to the shaft in order to make it accommodate the cue.

If I get it made and don't like it, I'll tell everybody it HITS and TON and sell it for three times what I paid for it on here, like everybody else does. :) :) :) Just kidding folks. We know nobody does that.
 
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HawaiianEye

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
We are off to the races.

Should receive this cue in about a month or so.

Final dimensions will be determined shortly.

Going with black G-10 pin.

Will be sending a Meucci Pro shaft I have so that the butt joint can be made to match its diameter.

Will make the butt diameter as close as possible to my Pancerny Titlist, which is on the slimmer side.
 

HawaiianEye

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
The beginning.

I'm hoping this cue comes out really dark.

May have to name it the "Dark Knight" or the "Midnight Rider".
 

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HawaiianEye

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Just measured the diameter of the joint on my Meucci Pro shaft and it is a smidgen over .82 inches. Since I intend to use it with this new cue, I will have them turn the joint down on the cue to match it.

I want the butt of the cue to match the diameter of my Pancerny Titlist. The diameter of the joint on that cue is .835. It is 1.03 at the top of the wrap, 1.19 at the bottom of the wrap, and 1.23 at the end of the butt cap.

This cue may turn out to be a science project before I get done with it.

It will either hit a ton or be the best garden stake on the planet.
 
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