Solid Maple Shafts and Grain

MmmSharp

Nudge is as good as a wink to a blind bat.
Silver Member
Good day folks,

I play with solid maple shafts, across different cues. I was wondering about the wood grains. Some shafts I see have very fine grains and the whole shaft looks clean and white.

Other shafts have visible darker ring patterns throughout the shaft. this seems to be more common on older shafts, at least in the cues I have at home. (by no means a definitive conclusion, just my observation)

While every shaft is unique and will play somewhat differently, do you cue makers have a preference on grain patterns when choosing shaft wood ? How do you determine what is good and what is not ?

I noticed the other day, that the shafts I prefer to play with are the ones with very visible rings/grain. It got me thinking there was a valid difference in my shafts, or just coincidence.

Cheers,
Sharp.
 

whammo57

Kim Walker
Silver Member
Don't be so concerned with ring count.... just look at grain .... there should not be very much run out and it should be straight............... shoot pool and don't think so much

Kim
 

JoeyInCali

Maker of Joey Bautista Cues
Silver Member
I pick the stiff, dense and straight kind.
White color not a necessity.

Maple does turn darker as it ages.
 
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cueman

AzB Gold Member
Gold Member
Silver Member
I have seen it all. Tight grain that was heavy and dense. Tight grain that was light weight. Loose grain that was heavy. Loose grain that was light. But even though there are what I call rule breakers, the general rule is nice tight grain wood plays the best. It does not matter much on color although as a rule darker tends to be a little harder because of the way it was dried.
 

MmmSharp

Nudge is as good as a wink to a blind bat.
Silver Member
Thanks for the answers.

I will never be a pro player, but I enjoy learning about equipment and what is out there. Always something else to learn.
 

EddieBme

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Do you mind posting some pics of a tight, well made, straight grain shaft vs a "cheap wood shaft"?
Thanks
 

Althair

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Not sure if this photo will do but left is a vintage Players shaft, center is new custom cue from a novice maker that has very few grains per inch, top is a generic shaft I purchased from a Schon collector who has gone to carbon fiber shafts. He claimed that this shaft was the cream de la creme of his collection for tight straight grain. Don't know if that was true but hope so because he had genuine Schon shafts he said were not as good. So was I hustled or done right by.
00d0c96ee2185e749c24866012cac887.jpg


Sent from my SM-A600U using Tapatalk
 

CuesDirectly

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Not sure if this photo will do but left is a vintage Players shaft, center is new custom cue from a novice maker that has very few grains per inch, top is a generic shaft I purchased from a Schon collector who has gone to carbon fiber shafts. He claimed that this shaft was the cream de la creme of his collection for tight straight grain. Don't know if that was true but hope so because he had genuine Schon shafts he said were not as good. So was I hustled or done right by.
00d0c96ee2185e749c24866012cac887.jpg


Sent from my SM-A600U using Tapatalk

Wish I had time to elaborate but in a nutsack, the top two should never have been used on a Cue.

The bottom one looks good but I can't be sure without a better pic, it looks distorted but may be very straight.
 

thoffen

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Wish I had time to elaborate but in a nutsack, the top two should never have been used on a Cue.

Zero runout perfectly straight grain shaft dowels A++++ $8/ea :)

Ironically the bottom one is the Players cue? Proves even a blind squirrel can find a nut.

Something I'm curious about and maybe one day will be able to test is the evenness of grain. I once read an article which argued that Stradivarius violins and all the famous makers from that era were so successful because of the wood. Not because they were amazing at selecting wood per se but that because they lived in a time on the back of a significantly stable climate, trees grew very consistently during their growth seasons. Thus, each layer of hardwood between the rings was very similar in density, etc. I could imagine that, across 12 or so years of growing reflected in a shaft's wood, you could find pieces which were fairly consistent. Perhaps width of layers between growth rings isn't the best measure.
 

Ssonerai

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Ideally, the grain line spacing would be perfectly uniform through a cue cross section, or anything else that was long, skinny, and expected to stay straight. As you noted, that is not too difficult to attain in something only as thick as a cue shaft. But it is also easy to see bad examples. Moderately, it's not as bad as curved grain, or run-out. Or more insidiously (can't be seen) poor kiln drying.

smt
 
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