1/2" Capped Ferrule. Thoughts?

cuetrip

cuetrip

Rob Hardman Cues
Silver Member
Had a friend bring me this the other day. 1/2" capped ferrule with a 5/16" tenon length.
If you look closely you can see an air gap. I'm pretty new at this but all the short ferrules I've seen have been uncapped with a full length tenon. This seems unacceptable to me.
Am I crazy?

Ferrule.jpg
 
If done right, this would not even be an issue. A lot depends on the ferrule material, but a screwed and glued ferrule with a solid cap...with a glue relief hole at the top ....In my opinion, gives a consistent hit, and no chance of a wood tenon either shrinking or expanding which almost always leads to a tip popping off.
In your picture, there is a gap, which is a no no, but what material is it? The air gap could be the issue that caused the failure... hard to tell just from pictures.
dave
 
You will have some gap with capped ferrule.
Unless you want the bottom to have a nice glue ring.
Looks like that tenon is ball nosed.
If they use a 5/16 4 flute end mill and flatten the bottom of the hole, then you can a really nice very tight clearance.
But 1/2" long and cap leaves very little gluing area.
Unthreaded ? It will eventually move.
 
cuetrip said:
No idea what glue was used. Is the tenon only being .3125 long a concern?
Click to expand...

Not if good epoxy is used. Everyone has thier own belief on what is good. I won't open that can of worms. I'm a West system guy, I've studied it to learn about it as much as I can.
 
cuetrip said:
Had a friend bring me this the other day. 1/2" capped ferrule with a 5/16" tenon length.
If you look closely you can see an air gap. I'm pretty new at this but all the short ferrules I've seen have been uncapped with a full length tenon. This seems unacceptable to me.
Am I crazy?

From my experience, any air pocket can make the hit sound bad, not solid. I’ve removed ferrules that were glued on after threading and found small air pockets. The most solid results I’ve had were when I cut the ferrule down to the top of the tenon; thus removing any small air pockets above the tenon. I do this after threading and gluing on the ferrule. Has worked great for me so far. JMHO.
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ferrule

The choice of epoxy and ferrule material can play a major role. :) specially when dealing with short ferrules.

Mario
 
I've made about .01% of the number of shafts any one of these guys have, but i have studied and thought hard about the issues of capped ferules for myself.

I don't think the thin air gap is a problem. (assuming this is not a jump/break) Or if that was the problem, i think the ferule would have failed differently with more failure at the threaded glue joint. & more of a cross-ways crack around that location (which is not apparent at all.) The joint does not seem degraded or loose in any way (from the pic) so there is/was a lot of integrity in the making of it. The cap is thick. Whatever caused it to fail must have taken a crescent moon bite out of the tip, as well.

Depending on the material, it is faintly possible it was too tight for the tenon, screwed onto a very dry shaft with a barrel wrench equivalent, and later the wood got humid and swelled. This is way out in la-la land, but might be what happened if there is no tattle-tale damage whatsoever to the leather tip itself.

As others have said, air gap may cause it to feel different, and certainly different than a through tenon. Just don't think it was the failure cause.

There are "air gaps" in most of my shafts because they are hollow. The wood goes right up to an internal collar, though. Then again, other than myself, only 4 other people use them, so my statistical base is not particularly robust.

smt
 
1/2" Capped Ferrule. Thoughts?

Anyone know what ferrule material that is?

Just an informed opinion,but a LBM ferrule made that way would not have failed like that.

Without having it in my hand to nitpick with a dental tool or something,that looks to be a pretty minimal gap there,and may have epoxy behind it :confused:.

That is a material issue,not workmanship or design. Tommy D.
 
I don't think the the picture looks all that bad. But since there are no signs of epoxy could the cuemaker have used CA? The material looks a little like Sabre-T to me.
 
One thing you learn when making billiard cues; choice of ferrule material is everything, almost always threaded, epoxied, capped, tenon size .250 ferrule .375 ...finish size .482

My opinion is that the above picture shows material failure more than anything.

Mario
 
don't cap it.... don't thread it............ just put it on and forget about it..............

Kim
 
whammo57 said:
don't cap it.... don't thread it............ just put it on and forget about it..............

Kim
Click to expand...

That is a highly subjective statement Kim..
And by implication your saying that anyone who threads their ferrules spends unnecessary time. I think the wording should be more like: "I dont cap or thread my ferrules and it works great for me" :)
 
Tommy-D said:
Anyone know what ferrule material that is?

Just an informed opinion,but a LBM ferrule made that way would not have failed like that.

Without having it in my hand to nitpick with a dental tool or something,that looks to be a pretty minimal gap there,and may have epoxy behind it :confused:.

That is a material issue,not workmanship or design. Tommy D.
Click to expand...

LBM is strip molded. An air pocket like that, if it's as bad as it looks, could cause even LBM to fail in my opinion. Besides, LBM isn't even made any more. Aegis 2 is the closest you will find. You are correct, it is hard to make an assessment without being able to pick at it up close and personal. I don't believe the problem to be the ferrule design either, but rather the apparent air pocket. The ferrule being longer won't help it with that going on.

Just my 2 cents and I'm not going to argue with anyone to back it.
 
I don't see any problem with the ferrule design. The air pocket is always bad though. I would bet that it failed with a worn down tip and a very hard miscue.

Alan

Phelps Custom Cues
 
Anybody think the ferrule might of had stress cracks from threading, and it failed at the bottom where it meets the shaft.
 
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