Balance point and deflection

CeaseLess

CeaseLess

Active member
Been playing around with weight and balance point on my player and wondering if anyone is aware of studies, discussions or anecdotal experience with if balance point and weight affect the amount of deflection using the same butt and shaft? I remember seeing a clip a while back with earl trying to explain to another pro that he realized that either the extreme weight of his cue or the extreme length of his cue was how he kept his deflection down. Interesting topic of conversation. What do you think?
 
Deflection is a result of how much mass is at the tip end of the cue, basically the last 8" or so. That's it. Overall weight/length has basically nada to do with deflection. This is what Predator discovered many moons ago and what they learned then is still valid now.
 
Earl can play with a LOG for a shaft and handle the deflection.

I know.

Mike Gulyassy made me and Earl identical shafts at the same time a year or so back.

14mm with black phenolic ferrules.

IMG_2130.jpeg
 
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The only thing that I can think of is that by changing weight and balance point, you might be changing the pivot distance of the bridge hand that will affect deflection
 
garczar said:
Deflection is a result of how much mass is at the tip end of the cue, basically the last 8" or so. That's it. Overall weight/length has basically nada to do with deflection. This is what Predator discovered many moons ago and what they learned then is still valid now.
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It might be shorter than 8 inches
Regarding how close to the tip
But definitely the butt weight length of cue etc plays no role at all
 
Dr dave did some experiments with pivot point. Where to bridge on the shaft to maximize spin with less deflection
 
kaznj said:
Dr dave did some experiments with pivot point. Where to bridge on the shaft to maximize spin with less deflection
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Pivot point is a totally different thing from balance point. the op is asking about BP in regards to deflection. BP has no effect on how much squirt a shaft has.
 
with earl trying to explain to another pro that he realized that either the extreme weight of his cue or the extreme length of his cue was how he kept his deflection down.
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o_O
 
It doesn’t matter.

You can test it yourself easily. Get some thin lead weights and tape them to the wrap area. Take some shots. Then move them to the joint. Repeat. Then to the butt cap. Repeat.

Report back your findings.
 
CeaseLess said:
Been playing around with weight and balance point on my player and wondering if anyone is aware of studies, discussions or anecdotal experience with if balance point and weight affect the amount of deflection using the same butt and shaft?
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Additional weight in about the first 6-8 inches or so of the shaft will increase the amount of cue ball squirt, and less weight in that first 6-8 inches of shaft will decrease the cue ball squirt. The closer the weight is to the tip (within that 6-8 inches), the more it will affect things. Beyond that 6-8 inches or so, the effects of weight are inconsequential.

Changing the balance point shouldn't directly affect things unless it was at least partially accomplished by a change in the weight of the first 6-8 inches of shaft, and that is very rarely the case.

Changing your cue weight or balance point could indirectly lead to a differing amount of cue ball squirt deviation from the intended shot line though. If you were say a backhand english user, and the new cue weight or balance point caused you to now use a different bridge length as a result, this new bridge length would affect how much squirt compensation was occurring.
 
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skor said:
The only thing that I can think of is that by changing weight and balance point, you might be changing the pivot distance of the bridge hand that will affect deflection
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Poolplaya9 said:
Changing your cue weight or balance point could indirectly lead to a differing amount of squirt though. If you were say a backhand english user, and the new cue weight or balance point caused you to now use a different bridge length as a result, this new bridge length would in turn change the amount of cue ball squirt you would be getting.
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Actually, that affects the amount of compensation, not the amount of deflection itself.

Hate to see a nit go unpicked…

pj
chgo
 
Predator put a lot of time/energy/money/sweat in developing the technology/implementation of the lo-defl shaft. If anyone wants to say that weight and or BP changes alters deflection then PROVE IT. Until that time i'm not going for it. Go get a well respected lo-d shaft and then make weight/BP changes to the cue and check what, if any, deflection changes occur. Until then this is nothing but guessing.
 
Changing weight in the butt of your cue is not going to magically change how the shaft was built.

The only thing that might change is how the individual delivers the cue which could lead to change in deflection.
 
Patrick Johnson said:
Actually, that affects the amount of compensation, not the amount of deflection itself.

Hate to see a nit go unpicked…

pj
chgo
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I think the "this new bridge length would in turn change the amount of cue ball squirt you would be getting" wording is technically correct because "getting" is an "on net" thing. I just didn't specify what the on net factors were since I thought it was obvious. Had I said "would in turn change the amount of cue ball squirt that occurs" it would have then been technically incorrect.

That said, while I didn't catch it at the time, my wording was clearly less than ideal and way more open to interpretation and confusion than it needed to be. Thanks for the input and I updated my post to make it less ambiguous.
 
garczar said:
Predator put a lot of time/energy/money/sweat in developing the technology/implementation of the lo-defl shaft. If anyone wants to say that weight and or BP changes alters deflection then PROVE IT. Until that time i'm not going for it. Go get a well respected lo-d shaft and then make weight/BP changes to the cue and check what, if any, deflection changes occur. Until then this is nothing but guessing.
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Predator used to have a robot to test deflection but the position of grabbing points stay the same so weight and balance point won't affect deflection, but in real life, the point that a player holds the butt and bridge length changes from player to player, they even change for the same player for different cues with different weight and BP and this will affect the deflection (less where you grip the butt, more where you bridge)
 
skor said:
If you need to change the compensation then the amount of deflection changed
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Correct, if the compensation changes (which I thought everyone knows happens when a backhand english user changes bridge length) then the amount of squirt you end up getting changes as well, and that was the way I intended it to be read, but in hindsight I can see how others could read it differently and the need for better wording.
 
skor said:
Predator used to have a robot to test deflection but the position of grabbing points stay the same so weight and balance point won't affect deflection, but in real life, the point that a player holds the butt and bridge length changes from player to player, they even change for the same player for different cues with different weight and BP and this will affect the deflection (less where you grip the butt, more where you bridge)
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i agree but op was asking about ONLY how weight/BP affect squirt. changing your pivot point/bridge length can compensate for squirt but weight/BP have no effect. squirt reduction is accomplished by mass reduction at the tip-end of the shaft. changing the pivot point is a compensation deal, you're not changing/reducing the squirt of the shaft itself.
 
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