Old shaft wood vs. New shaft wood

Are you referencing softwood rules? Seems to be a mix of rules for various products?

Relating to cue wood, I think the main thing you noted that is true is

"Many end uses make their own grading system beyond this"

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As often seen on this site.:wink:

NHLA rules (hardwood grades) consider FAS (Firsts & Seconds) as the top grade, F1F (clear one face) second, SEL/ selects third down, then No1 Common, No2C, No3C. In sound cuttings with poor faces say for structural uses & palettes, the grades continue down 2B Common, No3BC & that's it except for oddball categories like "WHND" (wormholes no defect) etc

Firsts (not No1 C) means cut from virgin timber source, essentially. That almost does not exist in the US so it is lumped with "seconds" which are practically Firsts quality, but not cut in forests which have never been logged.

For exceptional timbers cut from random sources, there is FEQ = "Firsts equivalent" but it is rarely incited. These would be uniformly near clear high grade lumber of exceptional width & length for the current typical cuttings of a species; & probably include things like "tight grain" though that would have to be directly specified.

For hard maple specifically, Grades specified can include unselected, which will have a mix of boards with heart & sapwood, all to meet the stated grade, FAS down to #3B common. Or it can be specified "all sap HM" or "Sap one face" in grades from FAS down to 2Acommon.

It can also be specified in either #1 white, or #2 white, from FAS thru #2Acommon; but this would be pretty rare. #2white can still include almost 50% heartwood, but usually has less. #1 white is supposed to be all white sapwood.

If you are a regular lumber buyer, it is sometimes possible to get quotes for a given grain count in Quartersawn lumber, say "not to be less than 15 annual rings/inch width (or higher). Does not mean anyone will quote, but some might. I used to have to do that for QS white oak for replication of fancy floors in government offices that were originally installed shortly after the civil war. Presumably a shaft maker could if they were ordering enough. Might not want to based on cost, though.

Maple turning squares have rules for grain run-out and color somewhat as you have described. To long to quote here; some refers to dimension which cannont be either over or under by specified amounts, etc. The rules for a turning square would not guarantee it was adequate for a cue shaft, though. More geared for things like stair balusters.

Maple also has a clear spec for piano action wood (no, not high stakes gambling with piano duets ) But i doubt it is much available anymore unless ordered special by the trailerload.

Because cue & shaft parts are small, you can probably find cue wood even in #1C material. Just have to cut between the defects. The biggest problem with commercial hardwood lumber is that it has been kiln dried, which adds assymetircal stress to it. It can be balanced over time by strategic cutting. But it is a big factor. This is the reason for a lot of the almost supersticious practices which cue-makers bring to managing lumber - few know where it came from or how it was treated before it arrived in the shop, so all has to be managed based on expectations of worst case scenarios.

PS: I am definitely not saying maple should not be KD - Done properly after suitable correct AD it is the first defense about preventing stain and killing all the creepy crawlies. I started working wood in the early 1970's in MD. I would save out any BE or curly hard maple planks that came in a load of maple. In the "old days" it was pretty common to get pretty nice highly figured boards mixed right in. I accumulated it up on a rack in a small barn. (Dry, but no humidity control). When i moved shop to upstate NY in the early 90's, i went to move it, and it had all gone wormy. Just with that small MC differential in the mid-Atlantic states. If you have good maple, store it where the MC levels will always be way down.

smt

SpotOn said:

I would like to here what the cue makers think about using OLD house cues cutting them in half and just saving the front half assuming the shaft is dead straight. Would that make a good shaft if reworked compared to New hard rock maple OR is the old wood maybe not as good as new wood. I figure since the wood is so old and straight it is very stable thus now worries about it warping. Also how would you know a good prospect from a not so good prospect assuming any one piece cue has usable wood?

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Decades past I've this both ways and worked out just fine. Tho most of my work is of the reasonably new wood.
I'm a player and near 100% I care about how the cue performs. It could almost look like a RAT CUE, so what, it works.

NEW WOOD...
Most blanks I used were Dufferin's from discount stores since back then Duff's "were" reasonably cared about grain quality, unknown to me today.
Duff's in stores have sat a while(?) and any warp would have begun sitting in those horrendous racks.
As a player I'll test each one for "MY" type of hit, but shaft grain is always #1.
OLD WOOD...
I've only done a handful, but using common sense, I can tell if a shaft wants to be re-cut or not. It's ALL in the hit, performance.
ANYways, old shafts that are still straight I tend to leave well enough alone and just clean it up. No need to change it, besides being a bit dried out, in a way it's set in it's ways. The OEM mfg chose it specifically for 'X' type of cut and changing that you REALLY must know what you're doing.
Honor those old wood are survivors, they have character and patina. Leave them be, there are very few of them around.

No matter what, the shaft and butt work in harmony. You must adjust to it not vise-versa.
Any shaft on any butt you 'absolutely will not' get the whole cues original performance.
If it's for show, who cares. :shrug:

my $0.002
.

Well, I can say that the old wood shafts are likely to be darker than the new wood shafts, and that's about the only thing that can be reliably predicted (in aggregate).

I agree that sugar marks don't hurt playing characteristic of shaft. Like color, it's a matter of cosmetic preference, although I've heard arguments that the better playing characteristics tend to fall in line with darker wood with more deposits. I don't think I've got enough experience to form an independent opinion here.

Any time you cut into wood (or it expands or contracts through moisture content changes), internal stresses may be relieved causing movement. The fact that a house cue (or any other piece) has been dead straight for years does not mean it will not move when you cut into it.

If you can hand-pick em or can get a lot of them for free/cheap, there's no real problem with using them for shaft wood, but at the same time I don't see any particular reason they would be better than wood of similar quality (freshly cut or otherwise), and starting from oversized square or dowel does give you more flexibility to pick better centers (and which end for joint/tip) if you know how.

FWIW I have not seen any significant relationship between lumber grading and shaft grading. Totally different approaches & criteria. The closest lumber grade to what we prefer for shafts is veneer, and even then it is barely in the ballpark. Tangential grain is almost never considered in lumber nor veneer, but is arguably the most critical aspect of shaft wood. Regardless if the growth ring lines appear to run straight from end to end, if the tangential grain is offset even slightly then you'll never be able to keep that shaft straight. For me, creating a shaft that I have confidence will stay straight indefinitely is enormously more important than whether it has visible grain wiggle, run off, sugar lines, color, or wide grain lines. That pretty white shaft with it's tight, visibly straight grain is worthless if it's shaped like a boomerang.

qbilder said:

FWIW I have not seen any significant relationship between lumber grading and shaft grading. Totally different approaches & criteria. The closest lumber grade to what we prefer for shafts is veneer, and even then it is barely in the ballpark. Tangential grain is almost never considered in lumber nor veneer, but is arguably the most critical aspect of shaft wood. Regardless if the growth ring lines appear to run straight from end to end, if the tangential grain is offset even slightly then you'll never be able to keep that shaft straight. For me, creating a shaft that I have confidence will stay straight indefinitely is enormously more important than whether it has visible grain wiggle, run off, sugar lines, color, or wide grain lines. That pretty white shaft with it's tight, visibly straight grain is worthless if it's shaped like a boomerang.

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I do agree with you for the most part.

Lumber has already been graded long before we see it, it gets graded as it comes off the line. Further grading is up to the specific industry.

Shaft grading? Again, up to the individual cue maker.

The nicer the grade of shaft blank, the more money it is.

For those who care less about shaft grades, blanks are available for $6 each.

Get into some decent standards and you may pay around $10 each.

Graded shafts? Knowing good and well you will get nearly 100% usage from?

Top quality runs $26-$27 each and that is where my standards are.

What bothers me and it may bother you as well, people who spend thousands on a cue and it's obvious they got a cheap shaft.

what works

Get 8-10 quarter and resaw it

ThinSlice said:

Best shafts are not always clear.


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For me they are. Best for me also includes good to great tone. I have several hundred aged blanks or partials to choose from in my own stash.

JC said:

Maybe he means sugar? I've seen some awfully nice shafts with a sugar mark or two.

JC

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A sugar streak or two on the back half of the shaft is usually not a problem.

ThinSlice said:

‘‘Tis is what I was referring to. I don’t know what loggers call it.


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They call it "red line."

What grade does Kiln dried receive?

What grade does Kiln dried receive

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It's not a grade, but part of the spec to or quote from the lumber company.

There may be people who vacuum-dry wood for specific applications in radio frequency vacuum kilns. This is supposed to yield lumber with the least stress. It is often used for very dense exotics. I do not have any experience with it.

Conventional kiln drying can be done well & should include stress relief cycle(s). Some suppliers are more diligent about this than others. Some push their kilns to get product out. It saves costs due to less energy use and less time in the kiln at the cost of product with a lot of stress in it.

You might see a spec of "5/4 FAS sap hard maple, KD, Rgh, RWL. WHAD"*
This would be after a discussion with the guy at the yard to verify widths, lengths, and general quality that might interest you, say if it has mineral streaks or not ("sugar" on here).

As people have noted on here, this would not be the ideal way to buy cue material for someone who does not need it for lumber for other projects. If you buy regular lumber to cut up for cue blanks, best to go inspect it and perhaps buy at retail where it can be sorted board by board for grain density and run-out. You can talk a commodity/wholesale vendor into giving you most of what might be wanted for quality lumber except reliable grain run out & growth ring count. Which would be the most important factors for most cue-builders.

Dowels or cones cut for cue-making would be a better bet and you can ask if they are KD; or they might be advertised as such. You hope they are selected for grain density, straight grain, run-out, general straightness, & color. For hard maple you might even hope there is a semblance of selection for specific gravity. (that the vendor would not include lightweight/less dense wood). If it is KD, you hope they are using best practices to provide virtually stress free product.

My problem with "grades" in cue wood vendors is one guy apparently got up to AAA grade sometime in the distant past. So then the next guy decided "my wood is better" so he went up to AAAA. Someone else is thinking the same thing, so he goes to "AAAAA+++++Pure white OG insane growth ring count pure gold private reserve stock". I think i may have seen barbequed wood on here up to 6 or 7 AAAAAAAA's.

Is there an actual independent cue wood rating agency with rigid rules?

smt

*1-1/4" thick highest commercial lumber grade hard maple, predominently sapwood, Kiln Dried, in the rough/(not machined since being sawn into boards), random width and length, wormholes are defect.

CuesDirectly said:

I do agree with you for the most part.

Lumber has already been graded long before we see it, it gets graded as it comes off the line. Further grading is up to the specific industry.

Shaft grading? Again, up to the individual cue maker.

The nicer the grade of shaft blank, the more money it is.

For those who care less about shaft grades, blanks are available for $6 each.

Get into some decent standards and you may pay around $10 each.

Graded shafts? Knowing good and well you will get nearly 100% usage from?

Top quality runs $26-$27 each and that is where my standards are.

What bothers me and it may bother you as well, people who spend thousands on a cue and it's obvious they got a cheap shaft.

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It bothers me very little. What matters to me is what I put on my cues, not what you put on yours. If someone puts junk shafts on a cue & gets good money for it, then good luck to them for sustaining a reputation that allows them to continue getting good money for their cues. They'll pay the piper at some point. We all do. I find it best to pay my dues as I go & not worry much about what anybody else is doing.

Ssonerai said:

Dowels or cones cut for cue-making would be a better bet and you can ask if they are KD; or they might be advertised as such. You hope they are selected for grain density, straight grain, run-out, general straightness, & color.

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Therein lies the rub. Who's cutting specifically for cues? Who takes the time to mill the lumber parallel to bark in order to ensure the long grain fiber runs straight with no offset? Flat/plain sawing creates inherently offset grain fibers. Quarter sawing when the pith is centered will halve that offset but it's still not parallel. Only quarter sawing from the bottom up will produce bark parallel grain, but it requires extensive time and handling, which equals expense. Any of those milling procedures will produce shafts with growth ring lines that run straight from end to end, but only one where the grain fiber does as well. So who's milling specifically cues cues? I'd be amazed if anybody is doing it commercially.

To be clear, grain fiber and growth lines are not the same thing. A shaft can have 20 growth lines that run straight as an arrow from tip to joint but if the grain fiber has even a slight offset then the shaft will never stay straight. You'll be scratching your head wondering why such a perfect shaft is so unstable. Cut it over 100 years taking .005" cuts, sealing after every cut & keeping everything climate controlled, and you'll not keep that shaft straight. You'll pass it off as "internal stress". Conversely, take a 2gpi shaft where the growth lines snake this way & that until running completely off, and if the grain fiber runs parallel with center line then you can't make that shaft warp. Cut it fast, leave it in the trunk of your car, etc. It'll be fine. You'll be scratching your head again because what you're seeing with your own eyes doesn't jive with traditional cue making knowledge. Heaven forbid you use it in a cue.

That's why I don't put much stock in shaft grading. A beautiful shaft is useless if it won't stay straight. And frankly it's a real wasted expense for a maker to buy high grade shafts only to throw a percentage away for movement. A beautiful shaft that's warped or an ugly shaft that's forever straight, which is the higher grade?

Ssonerai said:

PS: I am definitely not saying maple should not be KD - Done properly after suitable correct AD it is the first defense about preventing stain and killing all the creepy crawlies. I started working wood in the early 1970's in MD. I would save out any BE or curly hard maple planks that came in a load of maple. In the "old days" it was pretty common to get pretty nice highly figured boards mixed right in. I accumulated it up on a rack in a small barn. (Dry, but no humidity control). When i moved shop to upstate NY in the early 90's, i went to move it, and it had all gone wormy. Just with that small MC differential in the mid-Atlantic states. If you have good maple, store it where the MC levels will always be way down.

smt

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More than a decade ago a friend of mine got a hold of a good number of air dried maple planks. These planks were in storage near the beach here for more than a decade . I got a hold of a lot of them after he passed away.
They looked nice. He cut them to around 1 1/16 square. I processed them.
Most did not stay straight . Needless to say, I won't touch air dried maple again.

My main source told me years ago he does conventional kiln only. Not vacuum kiln. He said vacuum kiln keeps the maple whiter but takes away from the "integrity" of the maple. Meaning they become softer .
He does conventional kiln only but he kilns his planks while they are 6/4.
After drying, he mills them down to around 1 1/16. Not going into detail why he does that but his explanation made a lot of sense.
So, anyone who kilns 4/4 boards and sells them as shaft boards will most likely have a lot of rejects.
I'm not going to hype the shaft stock that I have but I do know they are stiffer and have higher pitch than the vacuum kilned shafts that is probably used by most cue makers today. I know where to get them ( the white vacuum kilned ones ) and most makers who have been around know where to get them.
If you don't know where to get them now, a little finger work ( not even leg work ) will lead you to them.
I have sold some dowels and boards from my source ( which I kinda regret now, except the ones that went to a very good friend ), and the very few people that bought them wanted a LOT MORE OF IT. So, did some of their acquaintances. 2 of whom are huge names in this field.
At one show I went to, two people were selling bowling alley shafts while one of them practically begged me to sell him some dowels.
I've also bought shaft stock from a maker who swore he had some great shaft stock. Paid good price for them. They looked solid. ALMOST 100% of them went bananas. I couldn't even chop them for coring dowels . You can see they had nice straight grain, they were dense and a little dark. But the boogers were crooked no matter what you did . Chalk it up to experience.
Bought some from a supposedly great source in Upper Peninsula Michigan .
Got nothing but junk. I wish I could have meet him and beat him with his own maple. This UP Michigan fable died with him. I'm not even going to argue where the best maples come from. But, freaking UP Michigan does not have a monopoly of it. Some infamous reseller hyped his maple by claiming they were all from UP Michigan, Turns out they didn't even come from there. And it's NOT EVEN CLOSE TO MICHIGAN. Same infamous reseller claims his maple are "stress relieved". Pfft! Got a hold of a few dozen of them from a maker who was quitting. I turned them and a good percentage of them were moving right after a pass. They turned out to be much lighter and softer too.

I can go on but it's late.

Shaft wood

Unfortunately, when it comes to shaft wood we all have some horror stories. I bought 25 dowels from a new supplier, supposedly unpicked top notch, lol Well after processing over a period of about four years, 19 of those made the coring grade I didn't bother to complain.
This is just one of many encounters with those that don't know what their doing or know too well what they are doing.

You cannot correct lack of integrity or character flaws, too full of themselves, so best to let them think they got away with something. Every transaction no matter how small becomes a reflection of the individuals true character.

Mario

Mcues said:

Unfortunately, when it comes to shaft wood we all have some horror stories. I bought 25 dowels from a new supplier, supposedly unpicked top notch, lol Well after processing over a period of about four years, 19 of those made the coring grade I didn't bother to complain.
This is just one of many encounters with those that don't know what their doing or know too well what they are doing.

You cannot correct lack of integrity or character flaws, too full of themselves, so best to let them think they got away with something. Every transaction no matter how small becomes a reflection of the individuals true character.

Mario

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Maybe those 25 pieces were the unpicked.
Nobody wanted them.


Years ago a friend of mine split a pallet.
I put them on the overhead rack.
He came in and picked his pieces randomly.
I didn't even paint the ends .

You can flat saw and get some boards with radial grain. You can rift saw and have a lot which isn't near good enough. Trees don't grow cylindrical. That means you might not cut parallel to the grain and have useless boards for shafts which you can't fix well enough by picking centers. And even even you're along a radial plane, the grain might not run straight depending on how the tree grew.

Yeah you can mill logs differently to get higher yield for shafts, but I'm not sure anything keeps you from having to carefully sort through your stock.

thoffen said:

Yeah you can mill logs differently to get higher yield for shafts, but I'm not sure anything keeps you from having to carefully sort through your stock.

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That's 100% true. Regardless of how the log is milled, it'll still have the same growth ring run-off, mineral spots, sugar lines, and knots. The wood is static. What makes the difference is milling it for stability vs. milling it for speed efficiency. If every board is removed parallel to bark, then the grain is parallel with the growth rings. What that means in cue maker terms is that you won't end up with a bucket full of great looking shafts that you cannot keep straight. If the blank looks good enough to put on your lathe and turn, you can be confident it'll become a cue, barring a random mineral spot showing up after one of the cuts.

Furthermore, your turning schedule can be cranked up. No more of that making thin cuts, hanging, sealing, and hoping. A properly milled shaft doesn't benefit from being sealed, and you aren't going to cause it to warp by cutting it down faster. That mystical "internal stress" we always blame warped shafts on doesn't exist in properly milled & dried wood. It's really should be a non-issue. Humidity exchange would no longer be a thing to fear because the wood is already at its happy place regardless of moisture content. It's not going to move away from its own center. There's a whole lot of cue maker myth that would be totally busted if everybody had access to properly cut wood. But they don't. The only suppliers I know who milled that way retired. One may still be around but he's far too small shop to supply everybody.

I know one HOF maker who began building in the 60's. I was visiting his shop one day & noticed he had no wood. Seriously. He had no shelves or drawers or racks with wood. No exotics, no birdseye, no shaft wood, nothing. Being a wood river kind of guy myself I had to pry on him to explain why none was present. I was hoping to see brazilian from the 60's & 70's, stuff like that. Nope. He told me he buys the wood he needs for a cue as the cue is ordered, and cuts it from square to size immediately. There was a CNC machine lathe set up for shafts. He puts a square between centers and lets the lathe do its thing until the square becomes a 13mm pro-tapered shaft, two per cue. If you order a birdseye and cocobolo cue, he will buy one piece each of cocobolo and birdseye, and two shaft squares. He laughed at my shop full of wood, says it's an unneccesary waste of space that otherwise could have machines or working space. This was years ago. At the time he'd been making cues for around 50yrs. He's a revered maker, not particularly known for warped shafts or unstable cues. His explanation was pretty much the same as mine. If t was done right when you bought it, you can't screw it up. The trick is finding it.

Here's a video of Ernie showing how he stores his shafts. And some shaft talk. He said he likes ( for himself ) the darker with sugars kind.
https://youtu.be/zpl9ANYjjWE?t=1367

I once asked him if he had saw tapering machine.
He said no. He said he favors high speed Perske spindles.

qbilder said:

That's 100% true. Regardless of how the log is milled, it'll still have the same growth ring run-off, mineral spots, sugar lines, and knots. The wood is static. What makes the difference is milling it for stability vs. milling it for speed efficiency. If every board is removed parallel to bark, then the grain is parallel with the growth rings. What that means in cue maker terms is that you won't end up with a bucket full of great looking shafts that you cannot keep straight. If the blank looks good enough to put on your lathe and turn, you can be confident it'll become a cue, barring a random mineral spot showing up after one of the cuts.

Furthermore, your turning schedule can be cranked up. No more of that making thin cuts, hanging, sealing, and hoping. A properly milled shaft doesn't benefit from being sealed, and you aren't going to cause it to warp by cutting it down faster. That mystical "internal stress" we always blame warped shafts on doesn't exist in properly milled & dried wood. It's really should be a non-issue. Humidity exchange would no longer be a thing to fear because the wood is already at its happy place regardless of moisture content. It's not going to move away from its own center. There's a whole lot of cue maker myth that would be totally busted if everybody had access to properly cut wood. But they don't. The only suppliers I know who milled that way retired. One may still be around but he's far too small shop to supply everybody.

I know one HOF maker who began building in the 60's. I was visiting his shop one day & noticed he had no wood. Seriously. He had no shelves or drawers or racks with wood. No exotics, no birdseye, no shaft wood, nothing. Being a wood river kind of guy myself I had to pry on him to explain why none was present. I was hoping to see brazilian from the 60's & 70's, stuff like that. Nope. He told me he buys the wood he needs for a cue as the cue is ordered, and cuts it from square to size immediately. There was a CNC machine lathe set up for shafts. He puts a square between centers and lets the lathe do its thing until the square becomes a 13mm pro-tapered shaft, two per cue. If you order a birdseye and cocobolo cue, he will buy one piece each of cocobolo and birdseye, and two shaft squares. He laughed at my shop full of wood, says it's an unneccesary waste of space that otherwise could have machines or working space. This was years ago. At the time he'd been making cues for around 50yrs. He's a revered maker, not particularly known for warped shafts or unstable cues. His explanation was pretty much the same as mine. If t was done right when you bought it, you can't screw it up. The trick is finding it.

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Good stuff. I'll run some experiments myself but in the meantime whenever I can get a look at the end grain of any piece of wood for sale I'll pay a lot more attention.