Buzz ring on cues

titlistsucker said:

In the Burton Spain Booklet, a small chapter was dedicated to the Buzz ring, which is a phenolic ring situated at the butt of the cue to reduce buzzing. Spain noticed that Bushka put them at the handle, hidden by the wood, and from his observations, he reckon that buzz rings are necessary unless the cue is full splice.

I seen Scruggs cues, and Searings with buzz rings and they normally put em at the base of points. Some cuemakers, however, NEVER believed in the ring.

What do u think? Is it necessary?

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I don't think they are needed with the modern epoxy glues and the internal fastners the cue makers are using. I don't see a common problem with modern cues developing a "buzz" in the handle area.

On the full splice, I think Joel Hercek has the right idea too. Cut a V splice into the handle and keep the solid wood sections short. Use the strongest epoxy you can. The glue joint on modern cues like this is stronger than the solid wood. The advantage of keeping the solid wood piece short is there is less chance of warpage over tiime (a lot less).

Look at the current full splice compared to the old Titlists. The glue was weak and as the handle expanded and contracted with weather changes, a lot of the prongs and veneers separated. i have seen a lot of Titlists with this problem but very few Adam or Spain cues. Even so, the epoxies today are much stronger than when Spain and Adam were making full splice.

This is the kind of thing the cue makers were fighting, weak glues and crummy finishes.

Of all things they were working with, there are three things that have been vastly improved:

1) Adhesives

2) Paint

3) Safety - (from fumes, poisons, dust, machine guards, safety switches)

The glues and finishes today are state of the art, stonger and more durable than wood. It's hard to imagine they will improve much from here.

Chris

titlistsucker said:

In the Burton Spain Booklet, a small chapter was dedicated to the Buzz ring, which is a phenolic ring situated at the butt of the cue to reduce buzzing. Spain noticed that Bushka put them at the handle, hidden by the wood, and from his observations, he reckon that buzz rings are necessary unless the cue is full splice.

I seen Scruggs cues, and Searings with buzz rings and they normally put em at the base of points. Some cuemakers, however, NEVER believed in the ring.

What do u think? Is it necessary?

Click to expand...

Necessary??? Maybe not, but it's cheap insurance. The purpose of the "buzz ring" is to prevent the adhesives from being soaked into the end grain and drawn away from the glue joint. Some call it a "wicking" action. It's a common woodworking practice to avoid gluing "end grain to end grain" for just this reason. The modern adhesives certainly help, but giving the end grain something solid like the phenolic "buzz ring" to adhere to assures you that the joint will hold!


just more hot air!


Sherm

titlistsucker said:

Spain noticed that Bushka put them at the handle, hidden by the wood, and from his observations, he reckon that buzz rings are necessary unless the cue is full splice.

Click to expand...

Hi Raist. Just a little clarification. The reason why the buzz ring was under the wrap was because Balabushka did not want to lessen the integrity of the full splice. So, he put the A-joint at almost the full length of the short blank. The cue in question was a short full-splice, blank, most likely ebony into maple.

I think you mean "that buzz rings are necessary unless the cue is a full length full-splice."

Fred

cuesmith said:

Necessary??? Maybe not, but it's cheap insurance. The purpose of the "buzz ring" is to prevent the adhesives from being soaked into the end grain and drawn away from the glue joint. Some call it a "wicking" action. It's a common woodworking practice to avoid gluing "end grain to end grain" for just this reason. The modern adhesives certainly help, but giving the end grain something solid like the phenolic "buzz ring" to adhere to assures you that the joint will hold!


just more hot air!


Sherm

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hi sherm, i'll be talking to ya soon
regarding buzz ring. what if ends of adjoining woods are sealed, with super glue or epoxy beforehand?

Bizzy buzz buzz

I think you all are refering to the roughly 5/8 inch wide phenolic that is between the forearm and handle of alot of older master cue makers cues. I never knew why they did it but have always been able to feel the differance in the hit. It almost acted like a shock absorber. And really gave the solid hit of a full spliced cue to the short splice construction. I know the epoxy's are better now but still think that type construction gave a better feel to your fingers on the butt end of the cue. The old Joss I got from you Raist had that phenolic ring. I wonder who still dose that now. Anybody in the modern cue world today?

> The Bill Webb I have has one on both ends of the wrap. It is partially turned down and not only used as the trim ring on both ends of the wrap but also serves as a shoulder for the wrap ends. The one at the A joint is about 1.250 long and the one at the bottom of the wrap is about .500. Tommy D.

Well maybe

The ring that Raist is refering to is under the wrap and not known to most players. It is like a dirty little secret. I think it is something alltogether different from what you see on your cue. After all you see it.

Could anyone please put pictures of these buzz rings? I've tried to picture it but it still doesn't make sense to me.

Thank's

the_saint_siwa said:

Could anyone please put pictures of these buzz rings? I've tried to picture it but it still doesn't make sense to me.

Thank's

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When the cue is together you can't see it. My understanding is that it is just a phenolic disk between the forearm and handle so that you're not gluing wood to wood but wood to phenolic on both sides.

well

Actaully there is a wood tendon involved in this old type construction and that pieces the parts together with the phenolic twinst preventing a vibration that might occure by the cue hitting the rock.

nick serdula said:

Actaully there is a wood tendon involved in this old type construction and that pieces the parts together with the phenolic twinst preventing a vibration that might occure by the cue hitting the rock.

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Yeah, I guess it was a bad choice of words. I suppose "phenolic washer" would be more accurate.