Those brass ferrules probably add a lot of squirt to the cues.
Those brass ferrules probably add a lot of squirt to the cues.
Snooker cues are normally REALLY LOW deflection...
Do they come out perfectly straight like a properly lathe turned pool cue, or are snooker players less obsessed with that degree of straightness?
Having said this, plenty of snooker players find other things to obsess about when selecting cues. One entirely spurious feature that seems to have appeared over the last few years is the delusion that the number or closeness of the 'arrows' in the grain of the ash somehow improves the quality of the hit. Complete nonsense of course.
I'd love to try an ash cue, but not with one of those 9.5mm snooker tips!
This is the first time I have heard that theory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCFUvQSPtMs
Can you provide a source?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCFUvQSPtMs
It is not a 'theory'. It's nonsense
What I am curious about is this:
Producing the cue by planing cuts the wood with the grain. Producing the cue by lathe cuts the wood essentially at 90 degrees to the grain, across it.
What effect, if any, does this have on the wood. Does it have anything to do with stability of the wood?
Or is it in fact incidental?
.
Those are very interesting questions. I hope you get some answers. I wonder what they would have to say about it in the cuemakers section.
Agreed. Even when taking into account the lighter balls, the thinness of the shaft compared with a standard pool cue more than compensates for the denser ferule material. So less squirt.
But having said, that I do think that brass is probably sub-optimal, and is one area where snooker cue tech could usefully evolve. After 30 years, I had Mike Wooldridge change the ferule of my John Paris cue to some synthetic compound that is lighter than brass, and am pleased with the result.
How come Predator, OB, Mezz, and other spliced shaft/cue products haven't taken over the snooker world?
How come Predator, OB, Mezz, and other spliced shaft/cue products haven't taken over the snooker world?
Because snooker players have squirt at manageable levels through the thinner shafts they have always used. So they don't need a 'high tech' solution.
But for a pool player who is used to playing with 12 or 13mm shaft, and who is not comfortable playing with something around 10 or 11mm, Predator etc may be worth looking at.
What I am curious about is this:
Producing the cue by planing cuts the wood with the grain. Producing the cue by lathe cuts the wood essentially at 90 degrees to the grain, across it.
What effect, if any, does this have on the wood. Does it have anything to do with stability of the wood?
Or is it in fact incidental?
.
I am not a cue maker but might be able to help a bit ...
Many use "live tooling" rather than single point cutters in their lathes. The live tooling cuts in the same direction that the plane cuts in the Parris Cues video, while the lathe turns the cue radially like they do by hand in the video.
I have no idea what affect this all might have on the wood stability. I do know that turning wood on a metal lathe with a single point tool will either show lots of tool marks with some tearing, or take a very long time due to a very low feed rate. :boring2:
Dave <--- has several lathes but no live tooling and rarely cuts wood
Snooker cues are normally REALLY LOW deflection...
Just curious, have you ever tried one on a pool cue ball? With the additional mass of a pool cue ball, I wonder if that would hold up in pool as well as it does in snooker.
I would like to try a snooker cue, a quality one like Parris, to play with. I was checking ebay for them and seems they are only really available in the UK.
By the way, this is one of the more interesting threads I've seen in a while. I guess that makes me a true cue nerd.
Just curious, have you ever tried one on a pool cue ball? With the additional mass of a pool cue ball, I wonder if that would hold up in pool as well as it does in snooker.