A return to tradition

The tips are, of course, a major factor in imparting spin.
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I don't think so. If two tips are equally well chalked and hit the same CB contact point I don't see any difference in the amount of spin - and I've done a lot of testing.

The only exception to this that I've noticed is that a harder tip might transmit a little extra power to the CB, but that's no different from hitting a little harder, and it doesn't increase the spin-to-speed ratio, which is the important thing for sidespin.

pj
chgo
 
This is the reason I love the Universal Smart Shaft. It feels a lot more like maple but delivers the characteristics of a low deflection shaft. No hollow feeling like a Predator or some of the others I have tried.
My other reason is that I prefer a heavy shaft, one that is over 4oz, and most, not all, of the others are in the mid 3oz range. Just way too light for me. My Universal is 4.55oz stock. The second one I purchased was 4.3oz so these are definitelty the shafts for me.
 
Just an opinion based on experience here but. I started with a maple shaft then went to a Predator 314 and couldn't pocket a ball. I then went to a Meucci black dot which I loved. Then bought a custom Phillipi and put a Zshaft on it because I didn't like the maple and found this to be a great choice. After a layoff of a year I went back to the Z and found I have accuracy issues and went to a 314 and even tried 2 more maples the 314 2 was the best choice. Recently I got the new Earl Strickland cue from MG and it has the OB-1 shaft. Say what you will about all of these but that OB-1 shaft is in my opinion by far the nicest I've used. It feels different than the Predators but once I got used to it I definitely love it compared to the Predators. I have not yet found a maple shaft that I feel comes close to the playability of the laminated shafts but that is partly(I'm sure) to the fact that I switched to laminated very early in my playing history and grew with it. I found that you had to give it more than just a try and had to get used to the difference with how it plays. Everyone who has tried my OB says it plays totally different than anything they've played with. But, some of them hated it. Good thing for us all is that there are some really good choices, and if you like the hard rock maple then that's great. If you like laminated it's great too...but certainly doesn't matter what you play with as long as you play. I've beaten the pants off guys with expensive sticks and gotten creamed by guys using house sticks.
 
Patrick Johnson said:
I don't think so. If two tips are equally well chalked and hit the same CB contact point I don't see any difference in the amount of spin - and I've done a lot of testing.

The only exception to this that I've noticed is that a harder tip might transmit a little extra power to the CB, but that's no different from hitting a little harder, and it doesn't increase the spin-to-speed ratio, which is the important thing for sidespin.

pj
chgo
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Hint.....shhhhhhhhhhhhh....don't tell ANYONE..............shape.
 
I had a shot in league last night that was about 1/2 table shot, and I knew the angle was close to what I wanted to get the leave on the next shot, which happened to the the eight ball, I knew if I hit high/center it would get me very close to the leave I was wanting, but I also knew that 1 tip of right english would be much more desirable, but I was afraid to try the right english and compensating on the shot thinking I might just barely miss the shot. Any way, I shot the shot with center/high, made it and ended up about 1/2 ball to a full ball width away from where I needed to be and had no shot on the eight. Had I been shooting with a lower deflection shaft at the time I probably would have thought nothing of adding the 1 tip of right english to my shot to make sure I got just below the eight ball instead of slightly kissing it like I ended up doing.

I experimented and played with a Predator Z 2nd generation shaft about a year ago and an original 314 shaft a few years ago and proved to myself w/o any doubt in my mind that there IS an advantage to using a shaft like that, especially in certain situations but I've sold the shafts when I needed a little extra $$$ during my lay-off time from where I work and I've regretted selling them. I knew I was going to uprade my cue this fall and get another Predator shaft, which I am doing right now (I'm having a custom made with 2 shafts, a lake salvage shaft, and a predator 314-2 shaft) and I will NOT ever be selling it off.

Anyway, here is my point. Even though I do agree with the "feel" of the hit being slightly different than what I am mostly used to when using regular maple shafts, I will trade that "feel" for "confidence" in certain situations like the one that occurred last night. The low-deflection shafts will never be a god-send to anyone's game, but the scientific facts and my own personal observation/experience proves to me that there is a REAL benefit to using one over conventional maple shafts in certain instances. Not everyone is going to agree with me, but I am giving my open and honest $.02 on the issue and hopefully demonstrated how/why I feel the way I do.

Let the debate continue.

Thanks.

Trevor
 
leehayes said:
Just an opinion based on experience here but. I started with a maple shaft then went to a Predator 314 and couldn't pocket a ball. I then went to a Meucci black dot which I loved. Then bought a custom Phillipi and put a Zshaft on it because I didn't like the maple and found this to be a great choice. After a layoff of a year I went back to the Z and found I have accuracy issues and went to a 314 and even tried 2 more maples the 314 2 was the best choice. Recently I got the new Earl Strickland cue from MG and it has the OB-1 shaft. Say what you will about all of these but that OB-1 shaft is in my opinion by far the nicest I've used. It feels different than the Predators but once I got used to it I definitely love it compared to the Predators. I have not yet found a maple shaft that I feel comes close to the playability of the laminated shafts but that is partly(I'm sure) to the fact that I switched to laminated very early in my playing history and grew with it. I found that you had to give it more than just a try and had to get used to the difference with how it plays. Everyone who has tried my OB says it plays totally different than anything they've played with. But, some of them hated it. Good thing for us all is that there are some really good choices, and if you like the hard rock maple then that's great. If you like laminated it's great too...but certainly doesn't matter what you play with as long as you play. I've beaten the pants off guys with expensive sticks and gotten creamed by guys using house sticks.
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You make some excellent and interesting points. As you point out cue/shaft choices are HIGHLY personal and require experimentation that gives each choice a "fair trial."

FEELS are clearly different but don't prove that one cue is better/worse than another. I have bought into the logic that low deflection cues automatically reduce that range of squirt error and that is enough of an advantage to cause me to accept the difference in feel that I was used to with maple shafts.

Now, after a few years of being a Predator user, I don't even think about "feel." Of course, I DO feel but I have just eliminated that as a factor that I pay any attention to because I don't think that one version of feel or the other is a FACTOR that will help or hurt the shots.

But I readily understand and accept that other players DO care about feel and it DOES affect their games.

But for me, and quite a number of touring pros, either the Pred feels good tho them or they have done what I have done and stop even processing feel on a conscious level.

Regards,
Jim
 
Patrick Johnson said:
. . . and I've done a lot of testing.



pj
chgo
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I've noticed in many , many of you posts you refer to vast amount of testing you've done on each subject.

Please share the methods , statistical data , figures and video (if any) with us.

That'd be very cool to see , Thanks.
 
RRfireblade said:
I've noticed in many , many of you posts you refer to vast amount of testing you've done on each subject.

Please share the methods , statistical data , figures and video (if any) with us.

That'd be very cool to see , Thanks.
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Don't hold your breath!!!

LOL
 
Slasher said:
Well after spending a year or so playing with various low deflection shafts, I decided that I have seen no real benefit to my game. I have never been able to experience that "feel" I used to get with a solid wood shaft.

You know, that feeling you get when you strike the cue ball and your grip hand knows exactly how you struck the ball and feeds it back to your brain. All the LD shafts seem to have that dead, rubbery feel and lack feedback.
So with new cue in hand I spent a couple of hours last night learning to play all over again lol. Immediately I got that feedback I have been missing, I don't have to wait to see what happens to know how I hit the shot.

This may take a little while to relearn but when it's back I am sure I will be much happier with my play.

Anyone else returned from the dark side?
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When they first came out, I played with 314s for about a year and a half. Had three of them. Then one day, for no good reason I went back to one of my old solid wood, ivory ferruled shafts and never went back -- better feedback and more solid feel.

Lou Figueroa
 
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Patrick Johnson said:
Sorry, but no, you can't. Spin is determined by where you hit the CB, not what you hit it with.

pj
chgo
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I've always believed that when I was playing with the 314 shafts I could get more spin on the CB.

Pat, did you see Doc Dave's'' column on squirt in BD this month?

At the end he says, "Another small benefit of using a low-squirt cue is the ability to get slightly more English than with a regular cue." He has a diagram accompanying the article to explain.

Lou Figueroa
knows PJ will believe Dr. Dave
 
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Me:
...If two tips are equally well chalked and hit the same CB contact point I don't see any difference in the amount of spin...

Jim:
Hint.....shhhhhhhhhhhhh....don't tell ANYONE..............shape.
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Did you miss this part, Jim?

"If two tips are equally well chalked and hit the same CB contact point..."

Do you think tip shape affects something other than where you hit the CB?

pj
chgo

(myths abound...)
 
I've always believed that when I was playing with the 314 shafts I could get more spin on the CB.

Pat, did you see Doc Dave's'' column on squirt in BD this month?

At the end he says, "Another small benefit of using a low-squirt cue is the ability to get slightly more English than with a regular cue." He has a diagram accompanying the article to explain.

Lou Figueroa
knows PJ will believe Dr. Dave
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I listen to him because he does more than "believe", and in fact we've discussed how this could be true on RSB. But the devil's in the details - how much is "small" and "slightly"? I'm guessing too little to notice (much as I respect your pool senses) or to matter.

pj
chgo
 
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I've noticed in many , many of you posts you refer to vast amount of testing you've done on each subject.

Please share the methods , statistical data , figures and video (if any) with us.

That'd be very cool to see , Thanks.
Click to expand...

Where do I use the word "vast" or say I've tested "each subject"?

I have described the way I test different cues for their ability to produce spin. I'm sure you can find it here if you look around.

pj
chgo
 
Chiming in

I can see with a less deflecting shaft being being and advantage on the very tight Diamond tables, where minute differences 'make' the difference. I have never used ANY of the new generation shafts, but have beat most all top pros in competition at one time with a maple shaft. It would be very interesting to see what Efren says since he uses Sooooooo much ingles'.
 
David Beck said:
I believe in taking as many variables out of the game as possible. In that sense, I like the idea of the LD shafts and their "radial consistency". The hit isn't exactly what I'm looking for, however I've only tried the OB-1 and 314-2. The 314-2 did feel a little better to me.
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Good for you, but they don't.
At most they rerduce the scale of the variable.

Radial consis is a marketing term, a recycling of Moooochie's
zero deflection.
How hard can it be to hold the cue the same way all the time?
Thereby ataining best-hit-consis...

Dale Pierce
 
bruce lee said use what works and take it anyplace you can get it. if you were a golfer would you go back to persimmon driver because of "tradition." plain and simple, all other things being equal, if there was an efren who grew up playing with a low deflection shaft, and an efren that grew up with a normal shaft, the low deflection efren would just be more accurate, there is no arguing it in my mind. now, since people like us didn't grow up using them, the point is at least arguable because your brain may divert at times to those old deflection patterns. over time one should adjust to the more accurate shaft however. anyway, whatever works for you, that's the key.
 
I find it kind of interesting all the talk about how great the Pred's and OB's etc. are from all the local league players that have been using them the last few years and none of their playing ability or ball pocketing have improved. Same players same results, their ratings and points attest to the fact.

It does not matter what kind of shaft you shoot with...if you do not practice for improvement...it is all in vane.
 
Patrick Johnson said:
Sorry, but no, you can't. Spin is determined by where you hit the CB, not what you hit it with.

pj
chgo
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if you hit the cueball with a tip of right english with a low deflection shaft, there is not as much weight in the shaft to produce the same amount of lateral force which would result in more squirt with a normal shaft. in other words, the lack of weight in a low deflection shaft makes it so there is less of a lateral force to the left (force pushing left in this case because it's right english). AS A RESULT, since there is less lateral force, and if the overall weight of the cues we are talking about weigh the same, THEN more forward force should be applied to the cueball. that would theoretically result in more right hand english. you can't just lose that lack of deflection force, it has to go somewhere. it would have to go to torque in the cueball, and perhaps to a slightly faster cueball speed. you see, this is the genius of the predator design, you don't lose force because the overall weight of the cue can be the same, BUT, they have taken the weight out of the shaft (at least as much as possible), which is what causes deflection. i realize people will argue this at this point in time, but over time LD shafts will be in the hands of all players. i even predict that cuemakers will be compelled to start making LD shafts in the not too distant future.

so, on paper, imo, shafts with low endmass (most LD shafts) should produce perhaps a tad more spin than a normal shaft in a cue that has an equal weight, at least theoretically. and i believe my reasoning here is why predator feels they can claim "more spin." not sure though, you'd have to ask them. it is sound reasoning though, at least physically.
 
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Patrick Johnson said:
I don't think so. If two tips are equally well chalked and hit the same CB contact point I don't see any difference in the amount of spin - and I've done a lot of testing.

The only exception to this that I've noticed is that a harder tip might transmit a little extra power to the CB, but that's no different from hitting a little harder, and it doesn't increase the spin-to-speed ratio, which is the important thing for sidespin.

pj
chgo
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ohhh, no no no no no! i know my old tips that are almost worn to the ferrule put a LOT more spin on the cueball relative to a new tip of the same brand. this i know for a fact in my mind, and it makes sense physically.

also, new tips deflect less and impart less spin
old tips deflect more and impart more spin
 
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