Carbon fibre blanks - what vault plate material to use ?

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barryr

Registered
G'day all , I recently purchased a 12mm carbon fibre blank. I put 4" to 5" flat laminated rock maple dowel in the joiner end coupled to a uni-loc insert.
At the business end I made an insert from lbm that goes in approx 3/4", maybe a touch less. Drilled to 5/16" for the inner 1/2" then solid at the end and leaves a cap of roughly 1/8" exposed. On top of that I made a thick pad of old traditional style red/brown fibre or bakelite material as it used to be called that has a 5/16" solid carbon fibre core. Finally I fitted a Victory soft tip removed from a friends Revo shaft.
Anyway , it's a lovely solid hitting shaft but throws considerably once you play more that half a tip off centre.

The question here is , what are others using at the business end of their carbon fibre blanks to finish them off ?

8BkbqD3.jpg
 
Last edited:
Newsheriffintwn

Newsheriffintwn

Newsheriff Custom Cues
Gold Member
Silver Member
barryr said:
G'day all , I recently purchased a 12mm carbon fibre blank. I put 4" to 5" flat laminated rock maple dowel in the joiner end coupled to a uni-loc insert.
At the business end I made an insert from lbm that goes in approx 3/4", maybe a touch less. Drilled to 5/16" for the inner 1/2" then solid at the end and leaves a cap of roughly 1/8" exposed. On top of that I made a thick pad of old traditional style red/brown fibre or bakelite material as it used to be called that has a 5/16" solid carbon fibre core. Finally I fitted a Victory soft tip removed from a friends Revo shaft.
Anyway , it's a lovely solid hitting shaft but throws considerably once you play more that half a tip off centre.

The question here is , what are others using at the business end of their carbon fibre blanks to finish them off ?

8BkbqD3.jpg
Click to expand...


There's a lot of variables that make a carbon shaft play good or deflect the way you want it to.

1. How thick are the side walls of the tube you are using.

2. What are the orientation of the fibers, how were they laid up when constructed. ( unidirectional, etc..)

3. What did you fill the tube with or did you fill it with anything.

4. The material used to plug each end (joint and tip) will make a big difference on how it plays as well.

Just some things that come to mind. I built about 20 carbon shafts so far, you will need to do trial and error to find out whats right for you and the play-ability you want out of yours. You found one way that doesn't deliver what you're looking for, keep at it.

I fill my blanks with 2 things and use juma for the ferrule end as well as the joint.

Hope that help you out!
 
conetip

conetip

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
One aspect that greatly effects the shaft is the modulus of the shaft. ie the flex of the shaft. So with an amount of weight, pivoting from an aprox pivot point, how much does that shaft bend. You can compare that with a shaft that has the deflection you like. Match the two and they will be similar.
The modulus of the shaft will be a combination of the wall section, but more importantly the fibre orientation and the modulus of the fibre used. There is a lot more to composite engineering than just a guess. Now days there are simulation software that takes a lot of the trial and error guess work out of designing a layup schedule to suite the needs of the intended design.
 
T

Terry Aeschliman

Terry Aeschliman
Gold Member
Silver Member
cf tubes

When I build my tubes up, I try to keep the end mass as low as possible. Backdrilling the ferrule (vault plate) helps. When filling, I leave the tip end empty for 2-4 inches. I would not use the pad you've shown, rather glue the tip directly to the ferrule. I have sold hundreds of the CF tubes to various cuemaker/repairmen and everyone seems to
have their own methods. Good luck
 
Canadian cue

Canadian cue

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
conetip said:
One aspect that greatly effects the shaft is the modulus of the shaft. ie the flex of the shaft. So with an amount of weight, pivoting from an aprox pivot point, how much does that shaft bend. You can compare that with a shaft that has the deflection you like. Match the two and they will be similar.
The modulus of the shaft will be a combination of the wall section, but more importantly the fibre orientation and the modulus of the fibre used. There is a lot more to composite engineering than just a guess. Now days there are simulation software that takes a lot of the trial and error guess work out of designing a layup schedule to suite the needs of the intended design.
Click to expand...

This is a great point and the inherent problem with the shaft blanks available. People assume that as long as it looks like carbon fiber and has a half decent profile that it is the same as a the expensive big name shafts. What they fail to realize is that those big names have invested a lot in the engineering of the shafts so that they play the way they want. So IMHO your post can not be overemphasized.
 
Sheldon

Sheldon

dontneednostinkintitle
Silver Member
I have been using Phenolic. About 1/2" long and bored out at the back for minimal weight.
 
conetip

conetip

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
On the cue shafts , I made a 2024 threaded thin wall insert. The tip holder goes onto this. The rest of the tube is hollow. Yes it adds 1.2 grams to the tip end of the cue, but the ability to then find the tip that plays best for you, is of more benefit than the assembly being 1.2grams lighter and chopping off a tip each time you want to try another one. I have pictures of my various tip systems in my albums. Just make sure that the release agent is all removed before gluing in the insert. Tip holders can be made of juma or tomahawk ferrule material or lithium magnesium alloys.
 
B

barryr

Registered
Thanks for all the replies. To add a little more info the finished shaft is 3.5oz and I filled it with an R2 builders foam. Next plan is to remove the oversized red pad and try a thin acrylic pad before attempting any changes to the lbm vault, just so I can see the effects of individual changes.

To add a little perspective 99% of my cue making experience is with snooker or 2 shot 8ball cues which are much thinner (7.5mm to 10mm) and have very different size and playing characteristics overall than USA style cues. Previously I've owned Predator 314 and Z1 shafts and enjoyed both but most of the time I play on Australian style 7' tables that use 2" object ball and 1 7/8" cue ball.

I'm nearly finished making a new butt so just deciding whether to get another predator shaft or use one of my flat laminated blanks to construct a new playing shaft while I continue tinkering with my carbon blank. I might also add theres very little flex in the carbon shaft considering the long pro taper and the fact it's a 12mm which in fact turned out to be about 11.85mm to 11.9 mm.
 
B

barryr

Registered
Ok thankyou very much for that advice, I was thinking that pad may be a big part of the problem. The white lbm part is back drilled as you put it
 
B

barryr

Registered
On a side note what glue do you use for fitting tips or fiber pads to the Juma and is Tomahawk basically the same as Juma ?
 
B

barryr

Registered
I was considering phenolic but only had 9.6mm phenolic rod on hand. I'll be having to order some more materials from the US shortly but I usually get screwed over on shipping costs considering I only usually make small , light weight orders.
 
B

barryr

Registered
Really epoxy is good for Juma ? Sweet , I assumed superglue is ok as I've done ok with it on the limited experience I've had with Juma but hadn't tried expoy. Thankyou again.
 
B

barryr

Registered
So after removing the thick red pad and putting a clear kamui pad and then replacing the same victory tip on the shaft plays much better with a largely reduced amount of throw when playing heavy side. Maybe not as good as a revo yet but good playability now.
 
F

felipe00pl

New member
Newsheriffintwn said:
There's a lot of variables that make a carbon shaft play good or deflect the way you want it to.

1. How thick are the side walls of the tube you are using.

2. What are the orientation of the fibers, how were they laid up when constructed. ( unidirectional, etc..)

3. What did you fill the tube with or did you fill it with anything.

4. The material used to plug each end (joint and tip) will make a big difference on how it plays as well.

Just some things that come to mind. I built about 20 carbon shafts so far, you will need to do trial and error to find out whats right for you and the play-ability you want out of yours. You found one way that doesn't deliver what you're looking for, keep at it.

I fill my blanks with 2 things and use juma for the ferrule end as well as the joint.

Hope that help you out!
Click to expand...
Sorry for digging up old thread but I have some questions, Hope you will share some knowledge ;)

I am building carbon shafts using tubes with 0,9-0,95 thick walls, what do you think about that? Shafts builded previously based on 1,3mm wall thickness was too stiff, poor feedback, hihh deflection

This 1,30mm tubes was finally used for building 3,25oz jump carbon shafts ;)

I know perfectly which high density 2-pcs PUR foam I should use to fill the tube and reach 4,0oz weight of finał product. Also no problems to reach the desired balance point ;)

but i am wondering if there is some good low density filament for first 8" of the shaft, now I left first 8" hollow to provide LD

Light-weight of the shaft front covers also ferrules from Tomahawk materiał and polycarbonate clear thick vault plate.



Wysłane z mojego Redmi Note 8 Pro przy użyciu Tapatalka
 
P

PracticeChampion

Well-known member
felipe00pl said:
Sorry for digging up old thread but I have some questions, Hope you will share some knowledge ;)

I am building carbon shafts using tubes with 0,9-0,95 thick walls, what do you think about that? Shafts builded previously based on 1,3mm wall thickness was too stiff, poor feedback, hihh deflection

This 1,30mm tubes was finally used for building 3,25oz jump carbon shafts ;)

I know perfectly which high density 2-pcs PUR foam I should use to fill the tube and reach 4,0oz weight of finał product. Also no problems to reach the desired balance point ;)

but i am wondering if there is some good low density filament for first 8" of the shaft, now I left first 8" hollow to provide LD

Light-weight of the shaft front covers also ferrules from Tomahawk materiał and polycarbonate clear thick vault plate.



Wysłane z mojego Redmi Note 8 Pro przy użyciu Tapatalka
Click to expand...
I just use a lite weight foam that I ordered off Amazon for the final inches and only because I don't like any hollow space for the risk of a piece of glue or whatever coming loose and rattling around.
 
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