Carbon Fiber shafts and feedback

Willowbrook Wolfy

Willowbrook Wolfy

Going pro
Now I have been wondering. Do you still get good feedback in your shooting hand when playing with a carbon fiber shaft?

Here is why I ask. When my custom was built I had it built with different woods chosen based on the wood I liked that fit within the hardness of each spot on the cue butt with the intention of a certain feedback I prefer in my shooting hand. That is based off the shaft being maple. I won’t go into the specifics of how I chose them or what hardness I wanted in the butt forearm and handle, but each choice was based off hardness for the specific feedback I prefer from a cue.

With Carbon fiber being a different material do you still get feedback to your shooting hand or does the carbon fiber nullify it? Do you typically receive more or less feedback with the carbon fiber is the real question. And how much different is the feedback using CF as your shaft material?
 
For any not understanding my question, take a piece of pine and a piece of oak. Send a vibration through each and each will transfer that vibration differently. So how does the carbon fiber transfer that vibration compared to wood when the tip hits the CB is what I’m asking
 
garczar said:
Good feedback. Different than wood but cf transmits vibes pretty well. just have to hit them.
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Cool hopefully more will chime in. The question is based off experience. Using Viking cues as an example. A Viking with a curly maple forearm has a different feel than one with a rosewood forearm. That is with the same shaft, joint, and handle.
 
Willowbrook Wolfy said:
Cool hopefully more will chime in. The question is based off experience. Using Viking cues as an example. A Viking with a curly maple forearm has a different feel than one with a rosewood forearm. That is with the same shaft, joint, and handle.
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i have never ever felt that, having switched my beloved pre-cat 314 to many, many cue variations. i seriously doubt it's much more than mental / placebo
 
Willowbrook Wolfy said:
Cool hopefully more will chime in. The question is based off experience. Using Viking cues as an example. A Viking with a curly maple forearm has a different feel than one with a rosewood forearm. That is with the same shaft, joint, and handle.
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its too subjective to mean anything. its like asking what beer or whisky someone likes. you have to hit a few of them and decide for yourself.
 
Definitely too personal of a question. They don’t lack feel. They just have a different feel. It might be what you like and it might not be. It’s a stiff feel. But a lot can also be said on whether it has a vault plate or ferrule. The Revo plays stiff. Cynergy is softer. Defy is very soft feeling. Even the hardness of your tip affects the feeling. No wrap, linen wrap or leather wrap affects the feeling. You can take your magical equation of different woods and let me shoot with your stick and I could fall in love with it or just shrug and say “It’s a stick”. It’s also personal whether someone gets super excited about feel.
 
MattPoland said:
Definitely too personal of a question. They don’t lack feel. They just have a different feel. It might be what you like and it might not be. It’s a stiff feel. But a lot can also be said on whether it has a vault plate or ferrule. The Revo plays stiff. Cynergy is softer. Defy is very soft feeling. Even the hardness of your tip affects the feeling. No wrap, linen wrap or leather wrap affects the feeling. You can take your magical equation of different woods and let me shoot with your stick and I could fall in love with it or just shrug and say “It’s a stick”. It’s also personal whether someone gets super excited about feel.
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Tips have a HUGE effect on cf's, even more than on wood. I went to a soft Wizard(great tip for 8bux) due the stiffness. Like it much better
 
MattPoland said:
They don’t lack feel. They just have a different feel. It’s a stiff feel. But a lot can also be said on whether it has a vault plate or ferrule. The Revo plays stiff. Cynergy is softer. Defy is very soft feeling. Even the hardness of your tip affects the feeling. No wrap, linen wrap or leather wrap affects the feeling. You can take your magical equation of different woods and let me shoot with your stick and I could fall in love with it or just shrug and say “It’s a stick”. It’s also personal whether someone gets super excited about feel.
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And yes feel is personal preference Matt. IMO the low deflection shaft I own feels like a whippy shaft when I hit with it but also feels like a softer hit than a standard shaft. That’s all based on feel. A stainless to stainless joint feels like a stiff hit compared to a plastic to plastic joint. Anybody hitting with the two sticks sitting side by side should be able to tell the difference in the hit of the two identical sticks with different joints.

Your input is great, and actually answered my question better than you think. Now I know that just like wood shafts carbon fibers can also have more than one type of feel to them. That’s great to know.
 
Willowbrook Wolfy said:
And yes feel is personal preference Matt. IMO the low deflection shaft I own feels like a whippy shaft when I hit with it but also feels like a softer hit than a standard shaft. That’s all based on feel. A stainless to stainless joint feels like a stiff hit compared to a plastic to plastic joint. Anybody hitting with the two sticks sitting side by side should be able to tell the difference in the hit of the two identical sticks with different joints.

Your input is great, and actually answered my question better than you think. Now I know that just like wood shafts carbon fibers can also have more than one type of feel to them. That’s great to know.
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Usually the stiffest hits come with the shafts that have apply the least deflection to the cueball. The CF shafts that start to soften up are still LD shafts but they tend to have slightly more deflection than their counterparts. But a lot of time that’s the vault plate vs. short ferrule difference.
 
MattPoland said:
Usually the stiffest hits come with the shafts that have apply the least deflection to the cueball. The CF shafts that start to soften up are still LD shafts but they tend to have slightly more deflection than their counterparts. But a lot of time that’s the vault plate vs. short ferrule difference.
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If you remember those graphite cues and if I recall correctly the shafts absorbed most of the vibration giving you very little feedback in your shooting hand. Didn’t know if CF was the same like that.

But now I’m editing because I can kind of recall the early cuetecs feeling the same way as I just described the graphite. With not much feedback. Weren’t those shafts fiberglass or something like that?
 
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Willowbrook Wolfy said:
Now I have been wondering. Do you still get good feedback in your shooting hand when playing with a carbon fiber shaft?

Here is why I ask. When my custom was built I had it built with different woods chosen based on the wood I liked that fit within the hardness of each spot on the cue butt with the intention of a certain feedback I prefer in my shooting hand. That is based off the shaft being maple. I won’t go into the specifics of how I chose them or what hardness I wanted in the butt forearm and handle, but each choice was based off hardness for the specific feedback I prefer from a cue.

With Carbon fiber being a different material do you still get feedback to your shooting hand or does the carbon fiber nullify it? Do you typically receive more or less feedback with the carbon fiber is the real question. And how much different is the feedback using CF as your shaft material?
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My rhino one has excellent feedback, especially since I paired it with a pooldawg8 milkdud. I absolutely love it. The stock tip was ok, but man did that dud bring it to life!
 
Willowbrook Wolfy said:
If you remember those graphite cues and if I recall correctly the shafts absorbed most of the vibration giving you very little feedback in your shooting hand. Didn’t know if CF was the same like that.

But now I’m editing because I can kind of recall the early cuetecs feeling the same way as I just described the graphite. With not much feedback. Weren’t those shafts fiberglass or something like that?
Click to expand...
I remember the graphite shafts, CF feels totally different to me. The graphite shafts felt like you were playing with a thick catfishing pole.
 
boogieman said:
My rhino one has excellent feedback, especially since I paired it with a pooldawg8 milkdud. I absolutely love it. The stock tip was ok, but man did that dud bring it to life!
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You going to.make.me change mine lol I don't have a problem with the tip that came on it but have been playing with pooldawgs milk duds for a couple of years and love them.
 
The speed of sound through a carbon shaft is faster than wood in general. Maple is about 4000 to 4400 m/second. Carbon fibre is between 10000m/sec to 20000m/sec. However there are special carbon composites that can have the wave slowed down to 16-18m/s . But these materials do not have high impact , on a repeated capability . Also some carbon composites can have a faster absorption and dissipation of returned energy than what happens with wood. So like wood mallet is a softer hit than the shock from a steel hammer, the carbon shaft gives the initial high energy impact, that dissipate and prevent the shock to the holder of the hammer.
In essence , the shock wave that goes from the cue tip and gets to the joint, some is transferred to the handle and then returns through the joint back to the tip, while passing through the return wave from the wave that returned at the joint to the tip. This happens in carbon cue shafts, and is why the handle can make such a big difference to the way the shaft plays.
I am sure that some of this happens in wooden shaft/handle cues as well.
On my cues, I had cork in the handle to absorb the shock wave through the handle to have the least return amplitude to the shaft.
 
Willowbrook Wolfy said:
If you remember those graphite cues and if I recall correctly the shafts absorbed most of the vibration giving you very little feedback in your shooting hand. Didn’t know if CF was the same like that.

But now I’m editing because I can kind of recall the early cuetecs feeling the same way as I just described the graphite. With not much feedback. Weren’t those shafts fiberglass or something like that?
Click to expand...
I never made it past the sticky glide of the graphite shafts. Feel never entered the equation because they so aggressively fought your stroke. If they had the smooth slide CF has, I might have been able to assess their feel.
 
conetip said:
The speed of sound through a carbon shaft is faster than wood in general. Maple is about 4000 to 4400 m/second. Carbon fibre is between 10000m/sec to 20000m/sec. However there are special carbon composites that can have the wave slowed down to 16-18m/s . But these materials do not have high impact , on a repeated capability . Also some carbon composites can have a faster absorption and dissipation of returned energy than what happens with wood. So like wood mallet is a softer hit than the shock from a steel hammer, the carbon shaft gives the initial high energy impact, that dissipate and prevent the shock to the holder of the hammer.
In essence , the shock wave that goes from the cue tip and gets to the joint, some is transferred to the handle and then returns through the joint back to the tip, while passing through the return wave from the wave that returned at the joint to the tip. This happens in carbon cue shafts, and is why the handle can make such a big difference to the way the shaft plays.
I am sure that some of this happens in wooden shaft/handle cues as well.
On my cues, I had cork in the handle to absorb the shock wave through the handle to have the least return amplitude to the shaft.
Click to expand...
Nice! Some of the technical data/math/science involved can be just as interesting as the game itself.
 
MattPoland said:
Usually the stiffest hits come with the shafts that have apply the least deflection to the cueball. The CF shafts that start to soften up are still LD shafts but they tend to have slightly more deflection than their counterparts. But a lot of time that’s the vault plate vs. short ferrule difference.
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its still the endmass that makes the biggest diff. in squirt. cf is unique in that you can make a shaft stiff with low end mass. really hard to do that with wood.
 
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