Can you tell is a pool cue is fairly straight just be sighting down it with one eye?
- Thread starter justinb386
- Start date
If you look down the cue and it looks straight, that is all you need.
Cues that roll perfectly straight are made for selling and collecting. They aren't made for shooting with.
If you can't see a "roll" in your cue, you aren't going to feel it and it isn't going to affect your play. If it does, you are too sensitive and maybe need to give up pool and go into archery, javelin throwing, or something of the sort.
Cues that roll perfectly straight are made for selling and collecting. They aren't made for shooting with.
If you can't see a "roll" in your cue, you aren't going to feel it and it isn't going to affect your play. If it does, you are too sensitive and maybe need to give up pool and go into archery, javelin throwing, or something of the sort.
If you look down the cue and it looks straight, that is all you need.
Cues that roll perfectly straight are made for selling and collecting. They aren't made for shooting with.
If you can't see a "roll" in your cue, you aren't going to feel it and it isn't going to affect your play. If it does, you are too sensitive and maybe need to give up pool and go into archery, javelin throwing, or something of the sort.
Every time somebody tells me their cue is perfectly straight I am thinking: LINK
.
justinb386
Banned
Yeah, I just can't help myself. I seen a long table that looked like it might be level, so I decided to roll the cue on it. The cue wobbled really bad on it, so hopefully the table was far from level. I edited that part out of my post, but I guess you must have seen it before I removed that fast food table part. Thanks for the nice and funny reply.
It depends on the eye!
^^^^ What he said ^^^^
If that is all that rolling one of your cues tells a person, they'd be smarter to use it to roll dough than to play pool.
It's pretty simple geometry: If a cue is round and straight, rolling it on a flat surface will show wobbles. If there is differences in the amount of light under a shaft, it is not straight. Period.
How about cues with a wrap?
Not all cues have straight angles. Some have curves .
Cues like SW that have relatively thin joint collar diameter ( .830 or so ) and really fat bottom of the forearm ( around 1.060 ) and have a curved taper will show wobble at the joint with a slight imperfection on the finish or wrap.
Some cues with a straight taper will appear to roll straight b/c they hug the felt even if they have some warp.
Lathe?
I would think a quality lathe would be the most accurate way to determine if a cue is straight.
I just eye ball the cue and check the joint fit. I eye ball picture frames and other things, the human eye is very accurate.
I have played lots of pool with a less then perfectly straight cue, it was not the cues fault when I missed!
I would think a quality lathe would be the most accurate way to determine if a cue is straight.
I just eye ball the cue and check the joint fit. I eye ball picture frames and other things, the human eye is very accurate.
I have played lots of pool with a less then perfectly straight cue, it was not the cues fault when I missed!
The wobble, by definition, cannot be more than how much out of round the cue is. If I see 25 thousandths wobble, I'm not concerned at all. If I know that the wrap material and install technique gives 25 thousandths variance, I'll start thinking it was low quality material/poor workmanship. If I know that there are variances of 25thousandths in the thickness of the clear coat, I'm sending the cue back.
As for 'hugging' the cloth, the cue can't bend from being placed on a flat surface any more than it will bend when held in your hand, so that is bunk, also.
Yeah, most accurate, but what is accurate enough?
I played a lot of pool with a cue that had 1/4" of curve in the shaft and never had a problem. Ever.
A very respected cue maker showed me the easiest and quickest way to check for wobble, warpage, joint facing errors or bent pins. He places the butt plate on a long rail and the tip on the other side and gives it a roll or two. Everything and anything bad shows up immediately...and it doesn't get dirty. Mitch
Nothing can be perfect...You need a benchmark. Look at a few cues that you think are within your standards. Eye sight the shaft , then the butt, and then both together. You will then have a benchmark which is acceptable to you.
Now when you inspect the new cue, you will have a point of reference.
Now when you inspect the new cue, you will have a point of reference.
The bad news is this gives the same results as rolling it on the bed of the table.
Since many of you don't want to believe Joey - here is a more common example.
Do a search on "ring pop" sometime when you have a few days to read old threads.
Well guess what, - metal rings don't pop. But the best made cue in history
will have the wood "move" over time due to changes in temp, humidity, etc.
There is no problem holding a 0.001 precision in concentricity, even for a piece of wood.
Problem is, that piece of wood will eventually become oblong enough that
fools may think it is not straight.
Dale
JC
Coos Cues
JC
Coos Cues
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The worst ring pop I have seen on a non-abused cue is maybe 8-10thousandths. That isn't enough to cause enough wobble that anyone would consider a cue warped, unless he was warped.
The worst thing is that everybody sells the myth that a cue has to be extremely straight in order for it to be usable. That is far from the case.