Predator 25th Anniversary Video

Interesting to see the timeline. They started on carbon fiber around 1994. I think I saw a first generation shaft from then and it had a hard time spinning the ball.

Black-Balled said:

Doesn't that somewhat speak against the common opinion that shaft material does not influence amount of spin imparted?

Click to expand...

The problem with the shaft was not with moderate amounts of spin. For that, I think it played nearly like every other shaft. The problem came up for very off-center hits. There is a problem that Coriolis discussed almost 200 years ago of the tip dragging on the cue ball at the end of the shot for extreme spin shots. Whether it does that or not depends on a lot of material properties and I think the 1994 prototype had the wrong set of factors.

I think that a "dead" tip -- very lossy -- can also result in the dragging problem.

An additional issue with the testing I saw was that most of the shots were taken by an early version of "Iron Willie" (seen in the video) that had a grip that was very firm. That also accentuates the dragging problem because the cue stick doesn't slow down as much when it is effectively heavier.