"But It Wont Affect Playability" Help, Dr. Dave/Bob Jewett...

336Robin said:
BHQ,
Its been a long time since I was a kid learning to play but your post took me back to the very first money games I ever played on barboxes as kids. I would stand around looking dumb which came natural and someone would eventually ask me to play for a dollar which back then would buy 3 packs of cigarettes "today around $5 a piece" and I would say sure. I would then go to the rack and already have a laid out the warpest stick in the rack that no one would use.

When I went to jam the quarter in the machine I would have the cue on the table and as I did so would roll the cue with my left hand and its obvious warp would flop,flop,flop across the felt. My challenger would almost be giddy at the prospects of my money and I shot terrible the first few racks but luckily won each time. Later as it became apparent that the mouse had caught the cat and things got a bit more serious I would just turn the warp so it was straight up and down and wear em out.

On a few occasions it got real nasty and I would go to the rack and get something straight, on a few of those occasions I would just go to the restroom and never come back!!!!

Thats my physics lesson for the day!!

336Robin :thumbup:

aimisthegameinpool@yahoo.com
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your post took me back to my took me back to my younger days too. one time i was sitting at the bar in my favorite hangout and a guy asked to shoot some. i went to the rack and grabbed a couple sticks and started rolling them across the table. an old man sitting at a table by himself said to me you wasting your time looking for a straight one son there aint no such animal in a bar. i said i know im just looking for the straighest one. he said the tip is what matters,that is what you hit the ball with.
he said the straighest sticks always going to have the hardest and flattest tip due to being played all the time and will cause you to miscue. i took his advice, got a warped stick with a nice round tip and played better than i usually due. after winning most of the night and nobody wanted to play me, i noticed the old man still sitting there. i went up and thanked him for the advice. he said i had a good eye for the game and that if i learned english that i would be a hell of a player. i told him that i just picked up things by watching other players and trying things out on my own. being a small town we didnt have a pool hall and nobody in a bar was going to teach you anything so you can come back and beat them later.
he told me to get the balls out and just scatter them around the table. he would make a shot explaining where he was hitting cue ball and why,then he would have me make the same shot. after all the balls were off the table he said to rack them and lets play for 5.00 a game. the 1st game he made 8 on the break. i didnt say nothing,just reracked. 2nd game he made 8 on break again. 3rd game the same thing.while reracking the 4th time im thinking aint nobody that lucky and he makes the 8 again. im down 20.00 dollars now and havent made a shot yet, so i say to i quit. he said rack 1 more time and he will show me how to make the 8 on the break. after making it he took my 25.00 and said he just taught me more that night than i learned on my own in the last year and walked out since it was closing time. being a small town and that i was always in the bars and i or anybody else that i knew didnt know who he was he must have a road player passing thru. moved to west palm beach later and using what he taught me i got chased outa quite a few bars while being called a hustler and other things i dont dare type lol .
 
Nice story lorider

lorider said:
your post took me back to my took me back to my younger days too. one time i was sitting at the bar in my favorite hangout and a guy asked to shoot some. i went to the rack and grabbed a couple sticks and started rolling them across the table. an old man sitting at a table by himself said to me you wasting your time looking for a straight one son there aint no such animal in a bar. i said i know im just looking for the straighest one. he said the tip is what matters,that is what you hit the ball with.
he said the straighest sticks always going to have the hardest and flattest tip due to being played all the time and will cause you to miscue. i took his advice, got a warped stick with a nice round tip and played better than i usually due. after winning most of the night and nobody wanted to play me, i noticed the old man still sitting there. i went up and thanked him for the advice. he said i had a good eye for the game and that if i learned english that i would be a hell of a player. i told him that i just picked up things by watching other players and trying things out on my own. being a small town we didnt have a pool hall and nobody in a bar was going to teach you anything so you can come back and beat them later.
he told me to get the balls out and just scatter them around the table. he would make a shot explaining where he was hitting cue ball and why,then he would have me make the same shot. after all the balls were off the table he said to rack them and lets play for 5.00 a game. the 1st game he made 8 on the break. i didnt say nothing,just reracked. 2nd game he made 8 on break again. 3rd game the same thing.while reracking the 4th time im thinking aint nobody that lucky and he makes the 8 again. im down 20.00 dollars now and havent made a shot yet, so i say to i quit. he said rack 1 more time and he will show me how to make the 8 on the break. after making it he took my 25.00 and said he just taught me more that night than i learned on my own in the last year and walked out since it was closing time. being a small town and that i was always in the bars and i or anybody else that i knew didnt know who he was he must have a road player passing thru. moved to west palm beach later and using what he taught me i got chased outa quite a few bars while being called a hustler and other things i dont dare type lol .
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Nice story lowrider,

Sounds like you have some good pool stories. If I head to memphis I' ll give you a holler. I love some good stories, thats about as good as it gets.

336robin :thumbup: http://274928807619529663.weebly.com/

aimisthegameinpool@yahoo.com
 
Let's see now, we take a piece of wood that has grown wild in the forest exposed to all kinds of conditions and turn it down thin with a parabolic taper and proceed to beat hell out of it against pool ballsand yet it should be perfectly straight for its playable life. Hmmm, I don't think so. I don't bother looking at my cues for straightness or roll. If I can't see some weird curve in them or something I don't care. Besides, the bottom the cues are straighter than the strokes of 99.9 per cent of the players out there.
 
BHQ said:
it only effects you if you let it
mental thing

i play with a warped predator
i shoot just as bad with it as i did back when it was straight :thumbup:
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Brent: I could not agree with you more. A slight taper wobble does not affect playability of a cue whatsoever.
 
Kickin' Chicken said:
When I read that a shaft has a wobble but "it won't affect play", it causes me to wonder, is that really true? I mean, doesn't having a shaft with a bend, even a minor one, cause a difference of some kind when striking a cue ball?

Maybe it's just that it's so small of a difference that us average guys would never pick up on it. But there is a difference, right?

I would really like to know once and for all, definitively, does a shaft that is not straight affect playability?

What do you guys think?
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I don't think a slight warp could affect "playability" unless you think it could. The mind is a powerful thing.

"Playability" is a very subjective thing. For more info, see:

I would certainly expect no detectable change in CB deflection (squirt) with a warp, regardless of cue orientation.

One potential problem is tip-contact-point accuracy if a person tends to twist their cue during the stroke, as demonstrated (and mocked) here:

Regards,
Dave
 
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If you're looking for a perfectly straight cue, get one made of graphite or steel. Wood is an imperfect material.

A warp shouldn't affect play if you're careful to hold the cue on the same orientation for each shot.
 
336Robin said:
Nice story lowrider,

Sounds like you have some good pool stories. If I head to memphis I' ll give you a holler. I love some good stories, thats about as good as it gets.

336robin :thumbup: http://274928807619529663.weebly.com/

aimisthegameinpool@yahoo.com
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thanks for the compliment. actually thats probably my best story. i never was on the road so i have nowhere the stories or experiences that bobby cotton or jay hefert and othert people i have heard about on here. i got just a few arguments, a few fights and a few run for my life stories . lol
 
Bottom line: If a buyer was allowed to "hand pick" each shaft and/or cue they bought, all these other shafts/butts with any kind of warp or taper roll would be in the garden holding up tomatoes. Make up all the excuses you want; if you were able to roll fifty butts and shafts, together and apart, before buying a cue, you're odds of getting a straighter cue are greatly increased. People that order cues sight unseen (even from the best cuemakers) are always taking a chance.

I realize you can adapt to anything; however, why bother if you could eliminate this variable by buying a cue that you were able to test for straightness before purchasing?

TSW said:
If you're looking for a perfectly straight cue, get one made of graphite or steel. Wood is an imperfect material.

A warp shouldn't affect play if you're careful to hold the cue on the same orientation for each shot.
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Hmmmm

Kickin' Chicken said:
I've been spending a fair amount of time lately over on the Wanted/For Sale forum and I see a few frequently recurring catch phrases that strike me funny.

Examples include the much overused "hits a ton" and "monster cue", plus responses along the lines of 'If I didn't have to pay child support, alimony, and fix the danged transmission that just went on my truck, I'd be all over that cue like stink on a monkey'... :grin-square:

With this next one, I am seeking the opinions of those who know physics, or even a little basic math, better than I do.

When I read that a shaft has a wobble but "it won't affect play", it causes me to wonder, is that really true? I mean, doesn't having a shaft with a bend, even a minor one, cause a difference of some kind when striking a cue ball?

Maybe it's just that it's so small of a difference that us average guys would never pick up on it. But there is a difference, right?

I would really like to know once and for all, definitively, does a shaft that is not straight affect playability?

What do you guys think?

And maybe those who possess higher knowledge of how such things work can chime in on this with their opinions. :thumbup:

Best,
Brian kc
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My personal favorites are the ones listed as MINT, but then describe various defects, dents, scratches, rolls, etc. !! Really, MINT ??

Or the over priced cues, and there are a lot of cues way over priced on AZB as some folks still cannot accept the fact the market is down. And then several guys come on and hype the cue and price with such verbage as "stealing" and "bargain of the year" and "can't find a better price", etc. But the guys doing the talking are NOT jumping on the cue to purchase it??
 
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straight

I played with a predator LE VIII that had a significant warp about 10 inches from the butt of the cue. I never knew it until I had the linen rewrapped and the cue maker showed me. The butt end lifted probably 1/8 of an inch over the last 10 inches of cue. It just never bothered me.

I think shaft warpage is more significant because it can affect tip plqacement. If the portion of shaft in from of the bridge hand warps off an 1/8 of an inch it affects tip placement depending on where the warp is heading.

Any warpage between the player's hands doesn't affect placement, but does it affect performance. We need Dr. Dave to tell us if a straight stick and a mildly warped stick perform differently from a physics standpoint. The shaft curve must affect deflection depending on the orientation of the warpage.

I have sucessfully straightened a few shafts. Including one 2 days ago by hitting it with steam and slowily working out the curve. It does raise the grain a bit, which can be resolved with light sanding and burnishing.

As a kid I played hockey and we curved wooden sticks enough to slide a dime vertically undeneath the blade by using steam. Beyond that was illegal, but easy to do with steam.
 
I have seen this subject so much..and i have been playing this game
for 50 years..never has a warped..rollout..bent..or otherwise cue
ever effected my game..if you are a player you should always line up
at the same point of the cue ball..you expereince of hitting the cue
ball where you want is developed over time..its the movement of
the side stroke..i line up center ball for top english and center low for
low english..doesnt matter if the tip when rolled came off the table a
half inch!!..you will strike the ball where you want regardless..i dont
own a perfect straight cue..never have..and i have owned many..SA
 
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