LD cues

Island Drive said:

Are there any stats on draw shot performance? It would be helpful/interesting to see how one brand performed comparatively to ALL the others making LD shafts.

To do this, have an Iron Willie swing speed the same for every mfg.

Post results on draw amount differences with a swing speed of 10 mph, 5 mph and 2 mph.

I would find these results Extremely informative, effective and helpful when making a purchase.

Anyone have stats like this?

Swing speed is a HUGE factor in pool. Being able to do more with less cue ball speed/ARM SPEED is one of the critical components to winning.

Click to expand...

Not scientific by any means but i can draw the ball just as easily with a stiff, ivory-ferrule steel-joint cue as with any of the LD's(OB,Pred., Danielson) that i've owned. I had a R. Black that i could draw the length of the table(old school cloth) with just a well struck hit. Sidespin is a different deal altogether but with draw i haven't noticed much,if any, difference.

Island Drive said:

Then why, are we seeing pros change shafts so Often in the past few years. What is it that makes them keep changing?

I know two things that are physically different, shaft diameter often is allot smaller and the use of the glove seems more common. Years ago a nickle rounder was enough, more crown needed nowadays, Especially with worn 80/20 Simonis that we have today for cloth. 80/20 sometimes shines like a cheap suit. I'm sure you can get more spin on whitey with a dime rounder than a nickle.

Click to expand...

According to Dr.Dave and B.Jewett a dime radius allows you to get further from center before miscuing. I think "tip offset" is the phrase.

Island Drive said:

Are there any stats on draw shot performance? It would be helpful/interesting to see how one brand performed comparatively to ALL the others making LD shafts.

To do this, have an Iron Willie swing speed the same for every mfg.

Post results on draw amount differences with a swing speed of 10 mph, 5 mph and 2 mph.

I would find these results Extremely informative, effective and helpful when making a purchase.

Anyone have stats like this?

Swing speed is a HUGE factor in pool. Being able to do more with less cue ball speed/ARM SPEED is one of the critical components to winning.

Click to expand...

I've used a Z2, Z3, 314-2, 314-3, Modified Vantage (11.5) for quite a while and believe the following factors in order of importance affect the draw performance - ball cleanliness, tip diameter, tip softness, chalk Nb. assuming tip curvature is the same for all and the stroke is consistent

Out of my shafts, the vantage with it's 11.5mm diameter + soft tip can draw well over 15 ft and possibly up to 20ft but I've never tried to measure the max. My 314's on the other hand can easily draw 10ft with a new tip and a decent stroke but I noticed last weekend that I fell short on many long draws perhaps because my tip is way past it and the cloth was old. Not sure.

Using a club snooker cue ( 8.5mm/9mm tip ), I can get insane amount of spin on a pool cue ball. Those cues are solid ash - not LD. The cue ball slides forward then spins back at a crazy rate - something I cannot reproduce using any of my pool shafts hence I think tip diameter is the key factor as you can hit the CB lower.

Using a club snooker cue ( 8.5mm/9mm tip ), I can get insane amount of spin on a pool cue ball. Those cues are solid ash - not LD. The cue ball slides forward then spins back at a crazy rate - something I cannot reproduce using any of my pool shafts hence I think tip diameter is the key factor as you can hit the CB lower.

Click to expand...

30 years ago, i could draw the ball anywhere on the table, and at least back & forth once, with a selected house stick. Since getting back into pool a few years ago, I can barely draw a couple feet, and am prone to miscue. So take the following with a grain of salt.

I agree with your tip diameter assessment, but it might not quite be all down to diameter and tip offset. I started making shafts before i quit pool back then, and noticed many of the older, higher skilled guys used thin, whippy shafts and small tips. 11mm range, though i doubt many were actually measuring. I noticed, because i didn't like them. When i got back into pool, i started making shafts for myself, and of course read on the internet including the Argonne labs paper, and everything was LD.

What i suspect is, those old guys were getting LD by reducing shaft diameter (which reduces mass) and the whippy shaft deflected more, reducing CB deflection. They didn't know it, but they were using LD shafts.

Now days we drill the shafts and some use short ferules of low density materials to take the mass off the inside, and give a bit more control over the flex characteristics. Removing material from the neutral axis (center of shaft) does not change stiffness much. Removing if from the OD, does. (Tailor shaft stiffness by OD to suit desired characteristics of given player, then reduce mass internally)

smt