If you purchased the cue used or you clean it with sand paper in your hand, not a lathe, what you are seeing is that it was sanded with no concentricity ( in someones's hand) it is egg shaped
Last edited:
"Best" way to check for taper roll?
- Thread starter tg_vegas
- Start date
If i can play well with a crooked bar cue, i have evidently learned to adapt to the equipment, I believe a taper roll is just another excuse for a t shirt
A pro taper is different where it makes the ramp and is the same diameter throughout until the tip Yuo will seedaylight it won't roll flat , because it is tapered until it is cut straight. I myself don't do pro tapers, too much whip in the shaft a conical taper is your best shot for an ld shaft imo
dendweller
Well-known member
I'd agree, if you have to look that hard for a roll, you'd of been better off not looking in the first place.
Hey my friend, take the cue back and go with your heart, sell it to someone more deserving, don't make a cue or sell anything to this gentleman, so as we have misnamed him. You put your heart and sole into this cue, if he doesn't want it, send him elsewhere he will never be happy, until he learns to shoot pool.
tomatoshooter
Well-known member
Either the cue is straight enough or it isn't. Everything has a tolerance, and I don't care if the pin is off center, or it warped, or anything else.
dendweller
Well-known member
I have a break cue that when I rack and lay it on the table with the butt on the rail it's finds it's bottom by rocking back and forth. I still use it, that's tollerance.
Last edited:
If you break with it, it is probably warped or crooked so to say
This is ironic the controversy if shooting hard or breaking affect anything.
No lie you are shooting into a rack of bals is refelcting that impact on you r tip otr shaft
If it's a break shaft, it's understandable because all shots are with a break shaft are hard and pounding.
However, food for thought, how many shots do you shoot that way and remember , oh no, i fuckedu p my tip or shaft. Our brains aren't wired to think that way, so we base our beliefs on what people talked .
Go back to a wood get a shaft built by a confident cuemaker
DeeDeeCues
Well-known member
I have a cue with a 12.2mm shaft that I break with. It is still straight.
If a cue were to permanently deflect due to breaking, it wouldn't be long after that the shaft snapped. You would be well into the catastrophic failure and limited cycle fatigue zones. Just doesn't happen often enough to register a blip on the radar.
DeeDeeCues
Well-known member
Nah, some of us get educated and start listening to people of science and leave the hillbillies behind.
Some of us even use the metric system as default.
dendweller
Well-known member
I'm pretty sure my break cue would look the same if I'd hung it in a closet for 20 years.
snookered_again
Well-known member
wood always moves, as your cue goes itno different environments it is always either taking in or giving off moisture. no coating will ever prevent that but the coating and case help reduce sudden changes. most roll cues on a pool table because that's what they have but the cloth isn't helping, easier to see with a strong light behind it and on a hard flat surface. Straight is an infinite measurement. Its limited by your ability to measure in an accurate way. Its possible to mount a cue between centers and turn it and check the runout. Thats a way of quantifying it.
an easy way is to stick a thcknes of paper under the gap whule it lays ona hard flat surface. If you cant' find a place where you can stick a rolling paper under it and pull it out without the cue bearing down on it you are very close. You can see what's the thickest paper that slips through the gap without resistance, That's a way to quantify it without a lathe but with access to a true surface.
I'm a self taught machinist so of course I am familiar with runout, but I dont understand the meaning of the term "taper roll"
there is another factor here, the wood is never the same weight everywhere.. You can also be concerned with balance if you want to go that far,, Like is often done with high speed machine parts it can be balanced,, It's possible to check the balance but I don't think it proves much other than a comparison. if the balance of some were more consistent it probably relates to future warpage even if it is straight now.
you might have dense wood on one side and less dense wood on the other side and that would also be an inconsistency, and it's different from runout.
you can also look at balance end to end. If it's two pieces you can also spin them separately and examine the balance of either or as a unit, as they will both have different heavy sides.. a comparison is a cars driveshaft, its balanced to a tolerance in factory and if you were into racing you may choose to take and balance it to a higher threshold.. of course the function of a cue is not to spin but that sort of balance is a way to check or define consistency.
I think if youwere to take any cue and start crushing it by putting pressure between the tip and butt. before it broke, you'd see it start to bend. If you were to mark that spot and then try it again and again you'd find the cue bent the same way each time.. when you take a shot there is some degree of whip or deformation. one could do a study of several cues and find how much pressure it took to get , lets say 1 mm of deflection under compression. the more consistent cues, take a higher amount of pressure to deflect that cue 1 mm as compared to others.. a cue with more bend will display a lower amount of end to end compression the deflect it 1 mm than a straighter cue.
personally Im not at a level of play where I;d even consider these things but if one were shopping for high end cues , there are ways to quantify all these things that can be measured.
I sometimes work in an engineering lab where they have machinery that can crush and break things and they map put a graph showing pressure over time and the failure in terms of deflection to the breaking point. they can deflect huge beams, break fasteners and measure the fail point, this sort of testing is how we go about establishing things like bolt standards and stress formulas, how much weight a structural component such a a beam can take before failure. That equipment could be used for such measurements.
since wood is inconsitent it stands to reaso that if you ahve more dense wood on one side and les dense on the other, sure you can take that stick and turn it "perfectly" true, now wait 20 years, store it perfectly ,, Next the cue is bent because of the wood aging and it's internal shrink rates are different from one side to the other...
I think thi shappens to all wood cues. turning them straight is the easy part, Making them remain straight is yet another thing.
an easy way is to stick a thcknes of paper under the gap whule it lays ona hard flat surface. If you cant' find a place where you can stick a rolling paper under it and pull it out without the cue bearing down on it you are very close. You can see what's the thickest paper that slips through the gap without resistance, That's a way to quantify it without a lathe but with access to a true surface.
I'm a self taught machinist so of course I am familiar with runout, but I dont understand the meaning of the term "taper roll"
there is another factor here, the wood is never the same weight everywhere.. You can also be concerned with balance if you want to go that far,, Like is often done with high speed machine parts it can be balanced,, It's possible to check the balance but I don't think it proves much other than a comparison. if the balance of some were more consistent it probably relates to future warpage even if it is straight now.
you might have dense wood on one side and less dense wood on the other side and that would also be an inconsistency, and it's different from runout.
you can also look at balance end to end. If it's two pieces you can also spin them separately and examine the balance of either or as a unit, as they will both have different heavy sides.. a comparison is a cars driveshaft, its balanced to a tolerance in factory and if you were into racing you may choose to take and balance it to a higher threshold.. of course the function of a cue is not to spin but that sort of balance is a way to check or define consistency.
I think if youwere to take any cue and start crushing it by putting pressure between the tip and butt. before it broke, you'd see it start to bend. If you were to mark that spot and then try it again and again you'd find the cue bent the same way each time.. when you take a shot there is some degree of whip or deformation. one could do a study of several cues and find how much pressure it took to get , lets say 1 mm of deflection under compression. the more consistent cues, take a higher amount of pressure to deflect that cue 1 mm as compared to others.. a cue with more bend will display a lower amount of end to end compression the deflect it 1 mm than a straighter cue.
personally Im not at a level of play where I;d even consider these things but if one were shopping for high end cues , there are ways to quantify all these things that can be measured.
I sometimes work in an engineering lab where they have machinery that can crush and break things and they map put a graph showing pressure over time and the failure in terms of deflection to the breaking point. they can deflect huge beams, break fasteners and measure the fail point, this sort of testing is how we go about establishing things like bolt standards and stress formulas, how much weight a structural component such a a beam can take before failure. That equipment could be used for such measurements.
since wood is inconsitent it stands to reaso that if you ahve more dense wood on one side and les dense on the other, sure you can take that stick and turn it "perfectly" true, now wait 20 years, store it perfectly ,, Next the cue is bent because of the wood aging and it's internal shrink rates are different from one side to the other...
I think thi shappens to all wood cues. turning them straight is the easy part, Making them remain straight is yet another thing.
Last edited:
I think if it wobbles when I roll it on a table it's crooked. Crooked over a certain amount matters to me.
I must've gotten lucky w every cue I've bought. They roll straight on the table together or apart.
If I see daylight, it goes back in the case at the sellers.
snookered_again
Well-known member
ok so I found this subject interesting, if a reader thinks it is too long then please just dont read it. In order to get a point across I'm admittedly quite verbose.. but sometimes I feel it is necessary to use a lot of words to communicate clearly.
Something that was pointed out to me by a professional woodworker as I was making stairs. he said put them "bark side down" I scratched my head and said why does this matter?
He explained :
When a plank is milled from a tree and you look at the endgrain, you can see the arc of the grain, this shows where in the tree it came from, if you were to slice the trunk like a pie, then you'd have more consistent and higher end lumber. It would be called " edge grain" lumber - not flat sawn.
If you were to take the trunk and slice it, then you'd have a higher yield, but the boards would be flat sawn lumber. they would warp more.
Most lumber is flat sawn due to the cost of wood. quarter sawn is yet another variation..
Oak is often quarter sawn because cutting it in this way produces beautiful grain patterns which are desirable to furniture makers.
If you take that flat sawn board, study it's endgrain , note the shape of the arc , then you could determine without question, which side was the bark side.
we know that as the lumber ages, the rings tend to "straighten out" this isnt; exactly true, the rings of course arent' the cause of the difference of wood movement , but it is predicatble which way they will cup. when laying stair treads, we want that cup down, the reason is that if they are placed the other way, then the planks will rock, the cup will hold water, the nails will pull due to the rocking action, and we dont want that..
what I do personally is envision the rings straightening out over time. this is merely a way to remeber which way it will move as the lumber ages and dries.. of course no one wants to work with green lumber but I think this change may take many years before it actually stops in a state of equillibrim and stops it's movement.
I beleieve that for this reason if you are able to find an older cue that is straight, this is a good cuebecause if it is still straight and it has stopped moving then it will remain straight..if you go buy a brand new cue you can;t tell how long that lumber aged for.
I also know that even if I age my lumber and dry it very well, when I go ripping it into pieces those pieces will bend imediately. this is beacuse I have removed some internal stresses by ripping it down and after being set free it assumes its own shape..
If I immediately joint and plane that lumber to dimension, and leave it sitting , Ill still see it moving , twisting, finding its own shape. sometimes I will let it sit a week then finish planing and jointing to restore straightness.
the reason the board tends to bend that way is because of the internal structure of the wood, it is different towards the center of the tree as compared to the bark side. the difference causes differences in shrinkage resulting in warpage..
now a pool cue, if you look carefully at it also has these features, you can think if it as a long narrow plank. if you turn it around you will see two sides which have a pattern to the grain that is different from the two sides that will be edge grain.
I've noticed in the cues that I examined that there seems to be a trend to put the flat side of the end of the cue in such a way that the flat and the flatgrain are on the same side.
Not all cues have a flat side at the grip, some do , some don't it may be more often a higher quality snooker cue has a flat side. One would have a hard time seeing the end to determine which of those flat grain sides is the inner section of the tree and which was the bark side because it's not easy to view a finished cue's endgrain.
I cant' say for certain if having the bark side up or down is better and the only reference we normally have is the flat side of the butt or maybe the maker's stamp.
. maybe some make a mark to index their cue with thought put into all this.
If it has bend maybe its best that the bend be up and down as opposed to side to side.
an educated cue maker may be able to keep track of this orientation, and it might make a difference to how the cue bends. I would assume that if the cue deflects either upwards or downwards, that maybe preferable to it deflecting from side to side. less likely to change the direction fo the ball that way.
I would assume that a production maker of cues might be quite aware of all this and put the name stamp accordingly. I could also see smaller cue makers not knowing or really tracking the direction as it's not immediately obvious.
Maybe on some cues one could expose the endgrain and see the curvature of the rings and make a deterination that way , which of those sides is the bark side and which is the inner side. no cue is made from the center of the tree. That core is usually pretty unpredictable and often contains pitch , pitch can form in cracks of a tree and this is undersirable, its a weak spot basically.
how much all this matters is a different subject, but there is definitely a difference between the bark side and the inside.
wood usually has the outer portion of the tree thats where it is live and growing, this is the sapwood. often there is a darker section within and this is the heartwood. Some species like fir show a defined color difference. a cue maker may want either depending upon his preference. he won't want fir, and Im not familiar enough with every spieces to reallyknwo what the heartwood nd sapwood look like for each species. maple and ash are common of course.
There may have been times in history where the heartwood was preferable, perhaps harder or more dimensionally stable, when trees were not scarce lumber mills would sometimes separate out the heartwood and a quality load may be selected as only heartwood or only sapwood to remove these color variations. I sometimes hear people refer to wood floors as "heartwood floors" maybe pine or fir or oak. maybe it's harder.
I think that having discovered and considered all this , when I am playing I can perhaps pay more attention to the flat side of my grip, it might make some difference as to consistency. up until recently Ill admit I hadnt; given the matter a lot of thought.. of course my cue bends when I take a shot, but this is not really perceptable. I can't take a shot and say which side it bent toward as it happens so fast, but we do know it is deflecting somewhat.
I've seen players that were forced to use a bent cue actually take the chalk and mark the cue, trying to index it and decrease the problems associated.
I wonder if one were to actually make a point of noting which side is the bark side and then check the bend and find the high point if there would be consistency to the way it bends with respect to which side is the bark side.
I think if that relationship were studied there maybe some consistency and predictability to which way it is likely to deform in time. This is similar to being able to determine which way my staircase treads are going to bend.
Something that was pointed out to me by a professional woodworker as I was making stairs. he said put them "bark side down" I scratched my head and said why does this matter?
He explained :
When a plank is milled from a tree and you look at the endgrain, you can see the arc of the grain, this shows where in the tree it came from, if you were to slice the trunk like a pie, then you'd have more consistent and higher end lumber. It would be called " edge grain" lumber - not flat sawn.
If you were to take the trunk and slice it, then you'd have a higher yield, but the boards would be flat sawn lumber. they would warp more.
Most lumber is flat sawn due to the cost of wood. quarter sawn is yet another variation..
Oak is often quarter sawn because cutting it in this way produces beautiful grain patterns which are desirable to furniture makers.
If you take that flat sawn board, study it's endgrain , note the shape of the arc , then you could determine without question, which side was the bark side.
we know that as the lumber ages, the rings tend to "straighten out" this isnt; exactly true, the rings of course arent' the cause of the difference of wood movement , but it is predicatble which way they will cup. when laying stair treads, we want that cup down, the reason is that if they are placed the other way, then the planks will rock, the cup will hold water, the nails will pull due to the rocking action, and we dont want that..
what I do personally is envision the rings straightening out over time. this is merely a way to remeber which way it will move as the lumber ages and dries.. of course no one wants to work with green lumber but I think this change may take many years before it actually stops in a state of equillibrim and stops it's movement.
I beleieve that for this reason if you are able to find an older cue that is straight, this is a good cuebecause if it is still straight and it has stopped moving then it will remain straight..if you go buy a brand new cue you can;t tell how long that lumber aged for.
I also know that even if I age my lumber and dry it very well, when I go ripping it into pieces those pieces will bend imediately. this is beacuse I have removed some internal stresses by ripping it down and after being set free it assumes its own shape..
If I immediately joint and plane that lumber to dimension, and leave it sitting , Ill still see it moving , twisting, finding its own shape. sometimes I will let it sit a week then finish planing and jointing to restore straightness.
the reason the board tends to bend that way is because of the internal structure of the wood, it is different towards the center of the tree as compared to the bark side. the difference causes differences in shrinkage resulting in warpage..
now a pool cue, if you look carefully at it also has these features, you can think if it as a long narrow plank. if you turn it around you will see two sides which have a pattern to the grain that is different from the two sides that will be edge grain.
I've noticed in the cues that I examined that there seems to be a trend to put the flat side of the end of the cue in such a way that the flat and the flatgrain are on the same side.
Not all cues have a flat side at the grip, some do , some don't it may be more often a higher quality snooker cue has a flat side. One would have a hard time seeing the end to determine which of those flat grain sides is the inner section of the tree and which was the bark side because it's not easy to view a finished cue's endgrain.
I cant' say for certain if having the bark side up or down is better and the only reference we normally have is the flat side of the butt or maybe the maker's stamp.
. maybe some make a mark to index their cue with thought put into all this.
If it has bend maybe its best that the bend be up and down as opposed to side to side.
an educated cue maker may be able to keep track of this orientation, and it might make a difference to how the cue bends. I would assume that if the cue deflects either upwards or downwards, that maybe preferable to it deflecting from side to side. less likely to change the direction fo the ball that way.
I would assume that a production maker of cues might be quite aware of all this and put the name stamp accordingly. I could also see smaller cue makers not knowing or really tracking the direction as it's not immediately obvious.
Maybe on some cues one could expose the endgrain and see the curvature of the rings and make a deterination that way , which of those sides is the bark side and which is the inner side. no cue is made from the center of the tree. That core is usually pretty unpredictable and often contains pitch , pitch can form in cracks of a tree and this is undersirable, its a weak spot basically.
how much all this matters is a different subject, but there is definitely a difference between the bark side and the inside.
wood usually has the outer portion of the tree thats where it is live and growing, this is the sapwood. often there is a darker section within and this is the heartwood. Some species like fir show a defined color difference. a cue maker may want either depending upon his preference. he won't want fir, and Im not familiar enough with every spieces to reallyknwo what the heartwood nd sapwood look like for each species. maple and ash are common of course.
There may have been times in history where the heartwood was preferable, perhaps harder or more dimensionally stable, when trees were not scarce lumber mills would sometimes separate out the heartwood and a quality load may be selected as only heartwood or only sapwood to remove these color variations. I sometimes hear people refer to wood floors as "heartwood floors" maybe pine or fir or oak. maybe it's harder.
I think that having discovered and considered all this , when I am playing I can perhaps pay more attention to the flat side of my grip, it might make some difference as to consistency. up until recently Ill admit I hadnt; given the matter a lot of thought.. of course my cue bends when I take a shot, but this is not really perceptable. I can't take a shot and say which side it bent toward as it happens so fast, but we do know it is deflecting somewhat.
I've seen players that were forced to use a bent cue actually take the chalk and mark the cue, trying to index it and decrease the problems associated.
I wonder if one were to actually make a point of noting which side is the bark side and then check the bend and find the high point if there would be consistency to the way it bends with respect to which side is the bark side.
I think if that relationship were studied there maybe some consistency and predictability to which way it is likely to deform in time. This is similar to being able to determine which way my staircase treads are going to bend.
Last edited:
snookered_again
Well-known member
when they test steel or other items, lets say testing steel beams for their weight bearing characeristics.. there is a term called its elastic limit. this is the point at which you can bend ( or put weight upon) something and no longer returns to its natural state.
With wood, I dont know I think usually either it breaks or fractures, or it does not, with a piece of steel it acts a bit differently. Wood is complicated!
There maybe some similarities. I think I tend to agree with the post above ..
Lot of info in that post. Whew.
When I'm buying a shaft or complete cue, I always start w shaft first, checking the table roll to see if it's straight, then I'll go on to counting the grains and checking to see if they run straight all the way down the shaft. All shafts that I've seen that warped over time, the grains take a dive or turn away from being straight somewhere along the shaft. Imo, the best shafts have tight, straight grain lines that run the entire length of the shaft. From joint to ferrule. Any curves or turns in those grains I've found can lead to probs down the road.
snookered_again
Well-known member
I checked mine last night and the shaft is a little off. also checked the girlfriend's cue. I know it was straight when she bought it about 6 months back, but not now, and she's been storing it right.
mine is a little off from about 4" from the tip to about a foot from the tip I'd say about .020, but the tip section is relatively straight to the rest of the cue. Hers wanders off about the same amount but the tip is off the axis of the cue by about .020 or so. I didn't measure it.. I thought hers was worse. How much this affects our game? difficult to tell.
I keep thinking of taking a straight 3" tube and cutting away about an inch along the length so it has an opening , then threading various holes so I can tighten up plastic screws against the shaft in strategic locations and leave them sit with a bit of pressure to help correcting things. I imagine they can be pushed back to closer to straight but if they can stay like that, not sure. I don't know if we both need new shafts or cues, they both have nice precision couplings but they are different from one another.
mine is a little off from about 4" from the tip to about a foot from the tip I'd say about .020, but the tip section is relatively straight to the rest of the cue. Hers wanders off about the same amount but the tip is off the axis of the cue by about .020 or so. I didn't measure it.. I thought hers was worse. How much this affects our game? difficult to tell.
I keep thinking of taking a straight 3" tube and cutting away about an inch along the length so it has an opening , then threading various holes so I can tighten up plastic screws against the shaft in strategic locations and leave them sit with a bit of pressure to help correcting things. I imagine they can be pushed back to closer to straight but if they can stay like that, not sure. I don't know if we both need new shafts or cues, they both have nice precision couplings but they are different from one another.