carom cue vs pocket cues

[justnum]

Is there a technical advantage in having a tapered shaft for pocket billiards versus the non-tapered shaft like in carom billiards?

I did some searches but the info came up lacking?

Most of it just says the taper is for pockets and non-taper for caroms.

What can be done with a tapered shaft that can't be done with a non-taper?

 

[Black-Balled]

Is there a technical advantage in having a tapered shaft for pocket billiards versus the non-tapered shaft like in carom billiards?

I did some searches but the info came up lacking?

Most of it just says the taper is for pockets and non-taper for caroms.

What can be done with a tapered shaft that can't be done with a non-taper?

Send it through a long closed bridge comfortably?

But a question that borders on interesting, really...!

 

[alstl]

I'm terrible at carom but I believe since the balls are larger the constant taper shaft is designed to move the balls around more easily.

Having said that I knew a guy named Bill Hendricks who was a great 14.1 player. In his 80's he played mostly 3 cushion and he used a Burton Spain which he was the original owner of and it had very thin shafts.

 

[qbilder]

Carom cues have what we call a conical taper or straight taper. It gets big fast. The reason is rigidity. Carom balls are larger & heavier than pool balls, and it's common to send the ball many cushions. Pool cues with long pro-tapers are much less rigid because of flex. Due to human hand size dictating that a comfortable tip size is usually somewhere between 12mm-13mm, that means the only way to strengthen the cue up is to beef up the taper.

Considering that carom existed before pocket, I'd guess that modern taper shapes began as a means of increasing accuracy & finesse as the cue is stroked. The straight taper of a carom cue makes it tough to judge where you contact the cue ball. You think you're hitting bottom for a draw shot, but by the time the tip contacts the ball, the taper has brought the tip up, creating less draw than you thought you were going to get. A pro-taper allows the tip to travel parallel with the table surface through the stroke. A carom taper doesn't.

That's probably more answer than you were looking for, but this subject hits home with me

This exact difference was partially the reason I make cues. I was in Korea for a year & played a lot while there. I'd play carom games at the pool rooms & pool at the bars. Considering that carom was the popular game, bars had carom cues as house cues even though they were being used for pool. At the time I had a Meucci. One day I decided to try my Meucci while gambling on a carom game. It was nearly impossible to control the larger ball as it felt like a bowling ball, and the ferrule soon failed. Being a machinist, I found some white plastic & repaired the cue. It changed everything. It was like a totally different cue. Still no good for carom, it hit & felt totally different when playing pool. The fascination of "why" is the seed that grew into me being a cue maker. Much of my philosophy in cue making is based on the notion of marrying the no surprise point & shoot accuracy of a carom cue with the fine control of a pool cue. I probably wouldn't be making cues today if not for spending that year in Korea. And if not for learning the difference between a carom cue & pool cue, the cues I make today certainly wouldn't be what what they are.

 

[greyghost]

Carom cues have what we call a conical taper or straight taper. It gets big fast. The reason is rigidity. Carom balls are larger & heavier than pool balls, and it's common to send the ball many cushions. Pool cues with long pro-tapers are much less rigid because of flex. Due to human hand size dictating that a comfortable tip size is usually somewhere between 12mm-13mm, that means the only way to strengthen the cue up is to beef up the taper.



Considering that carom existed before pocket, I'd guess that modern taper shapes began as a means of increasing accuracy & finesse as the cue is stroked. The straight taper of a carom cue makes it tough to judge where you contact the cue ball. You think you're hitting bottom for a draw shot, but by the time the tip contacts the ball, the taper has brought the tip up, creating less draw than you thought you were going to get. A pro-taper allows the tip to travel parallel with the table surface through the stroke. A carom taper doesn't.



That's probably more answer than you were looking for, but this subject hits home with me



This exact difference was partially the reason I make cues. I was in Korea for a year & played a lot while there. I'd play carom games at the pool rooms & pool at the bars. Considering that carom was the popular game, bars had carom cues as house cues even though they were being used for pool. At the time I had a Meucci. One day I decided to try my Meucci while gambling on a carom game. It was nearly impossible to control the larger ball as it felt like a bowling ball, and the ferrule soon failed. Being a machinist, I found some white plastic & repaired the cue. It changed everything. It was like a totally different cue. Still no good for carom, it hit & felt totally different when playing pool. The fascination of "why" is the seed that grew into me being a cue maker. Much of my philosophy in cue making is based on the notion of marrying the no surprise point & shoot accuracy of a carom cue with the fine control of a pool cue. I probably wouldn't be making cues today if not for spending that year in Korea. And if not for learning the difference between a carom cue & pool cue, the cues I make today certainly wouldn't be what what they are.

I have to disagree on some of this.

The shaft doesn’t guide the tip to where you want it to hit on any cue. Your hand does that. If I put my tip to the ball when my hand/forearm is at 90 deg....and I use a pro taper it goes exactly where it was when my tip was originally set at on the ball.

When I use a conical taper and I set my tip at the specific spot I want to hit on the cueball and close my eyes, pullback and complete the stroke.....it hits exactly where I decided to once again.

Imop the protaper shafts came about as to move the cb around better on much slower cloth that was around years ago.

Look at say a meucci, if you gear up any at all your going to be shooting what appears to be an extra thick hit, because that taper induced hinge is moved back on the shaft making the shaft dodgy and cut induced spin on the cb becomes greater because of that crossing over the true shot line.

It throws more so it creates a perceptual yet false sense of “extra spin”. When it’s more sloppy control than extra spin.

Both billiard and snooker play on pretty quick cloth and power and accuracy is much more important than trying to swing the cb all over kingdom come to get to ducked off balls.....

In regards to traveling parallel with the pro tapers.....why would that even matter? Only the instant of impact matters. The pendulum never traveles parallel with bed and the piston doesn’t either at least not until after the balls been hit and gone.






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[garczar]

I asked a well-known maker this once and his response was basically in carom the balls are heavy and you're trying to drive them forward. In pool the balls are much lighter and you're often trying to stop/kill the cue-ball. Trial-n-error pretty much decided which taper gave the results needed. My break cue has a 3c-style taper and it works great, for breaking/jumping. Not so good for the other shots.

 

[pdcue]

The Pro Taper - which should be called the 'no taper' was in fact developed for Balkline
which requires the most precise cueing of any game. Most of the shots are very 'soft' and
super close to the CB

Dale

 

[qbilder]

I have to disagree on some of this.

The shaft doesn’t guide the tip to where you want it to hit on any cue. Your hand does that. If I put my tip to the ball when my hand/forearm is at 90 deg....and I use a pro taper it goes exactly where it was when my tip was originally set at on the ball.

When I use a conical taper and I set my tip at the specific spot I want to hit on the cueball and close my eyes, pullback and complete the stroke.....it hits exactly where I decided to once again.

Imop the protaper shafts came about as to move the cb around better on much slower cloth that was around years ago.

Look at say a meucci, if you gear up any at all your going to be shooting what appears to be an extra thick hit, because that taper induced hinge is moved back on the shaft making the shaft dodgy and cut induced spin on the cb becomes greater because of that crossing over the true shot line.

It throws more so it creates a perceptual yet false sense of “extra spin”. When it’s more sloppy control than extra spin.

Both billiard and snooker play on pretty quick cloth and power and accuracy is much more important than trying to swing the cb all over kingdom come to get to ducked off balls.....

In regards to traveling parallel with the pro tapers.....why would that even matter? Only the instant of impact matters. The pendulum never traveles parallel with bed and the piston doesn’t either at least not until after the balls been hit and gone.






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So you're saying a pool player with a closed bridge will not have to adjust stroke and bridge to accommodate a carom cue?

I never mentioned throw or spin, nor did I compare the two shafts in that way. I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with on that front. I mentioned control, not spin. IMO, control encompasses all that plus a lot more, specifically cue ball speed. Again, give a carom cue to a pool player & observe their reaction to shots that require finesse.

I made my post based on the experience I had, and I stand by it 100%. I'm not arguing in the weeds on technicalities, but stating the perceptions of reality. There's a stark difference between the two cues because there's a stark difference between the two games. A pool cue is too weak & flimsy to play carom, and a carom cue is too bulky & rigid to play pool. Can you force it? Of course you can. But why? You're arguing that anything a pool cue can do, so can a carom cue. In that technicality you are correct. In the real world with closed bridge pool players, it doesn't work so well. That's the point I was attempting to make.

 

[Patrick Johnson]

My pool cue has a conical taper like a carom cue (to keep it stiff with a snooker-sized tip). I also use an open bridge for 99% of shots, so the taper doesn’t feel funny to me. I agree with Keeb that it doesn’t change the accuracy of where I hit the CB - of course carom players are even more focused on hitting their CB accurately than pool players.

pj
chgo

 

[greyghost]

So you're saying a pool player with a closed bridge will not have to adjust stroke and bridge to accommodate a carom cue?



I never mentioned throw or spin, nor did I compare the two shafts in that way. I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with on that front. I mentioned control, not spin. IMO, control encompasses all that plus a lot more, specifically cue ball speed. Again, give a carom cue to a pool player & observe their reaction to shots that require finesse.



I made my post based on the experience I had, and I stand by it 100%. I'm not arguing in the weeds on technicalities, but stating the perceptions of reality. There's a stark difference between the two cues because there's a stark difference between the two games. A pool cue is too weak & flimsy to play carom, and a carom cue is too bulky & rigid to play pool. Can you force it? Of course you can. But why? You're arguing that anything a pool cue can do, so can a carom cue. In that technicality you are correct. In the real world with closed bridge pool players, it doesn't work so well. That's the point I was attempting to make.

Sure if shot with a closed bridge the enclosure made by the fingers would need be larger than for a protaper.....that’s all.

But as far as one making the tip/shaft center go anywhere but center of the bridge for reasons of taper.....especially since the topic was focused on a closed bridge.....

If you have a ring and directly center of its center is a dot on a wall. If you pass a cone through the ring no matter if it grabs it fully at the tip then growing or just catches towards the base of the cone....the center of the cone will hit the dot.

If you do the same thing with a rod and a ring......guess what magically happens again?

Now if we were talking an open bridge the idea will still only apply in the scenario where the player just drops down with the stick and the tips not at that “set” position where they want it to hit and the arms at 90......

Because if you do the proper setup with or without a closed bridge.....You can use a crooked shaft, a different tapered shaft even something wack like a “Dooley” taper on a shaft and the tip will go right back to the desired position you originally placed it in.

I totally get the idea of pacifying players comforts in regards to their little girl hands and winey tendencies....the pro taper and it’s supposed ability to move the ball around is wholly contrived and created by c.i.s......they don’t shoot straight with applied English not even close, they shoot the ball like EEPHUS, Ed.

If the other way around is true then ld would probably create more spin too and we know that’s a crock of you know what.





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[deanoc]

I love the croom or straight taper or canonical taper

My Deano cues were designed to be like this,58 inches,wood pin,no pro taper at all

yesterday I was speaking with Billy Stroud and asked him this question

he likes the taper for people who use an open bridge

simply because of the size when playing with a closed bridge

Billy made no comments concerning the other things

Other than how on the old equipment you had to really stroke the cue to get the ball around the table
and the closed bridge enabled him to control it better

Todays tables enable anyone to move the cue ball around so easily that the
problem is getting too much on the ball

Today it is even possible that it might be a good idea to calm down the action


Many of you remember billy for making Joss cues and the many contributions
he made to pool cue making

It might come as a surprise to you to discover that Billy was a really
great pool player and still plays very well for a man his age
(or any age for that matter)

 

[greyghost]

I love the croom or straight taper or canonical taper

My Deano cues were designed to be like this,58 inches,wood pin,no pro taper at all

yesterday I was speaking with Billy Stroud and asked him this question

he likes the taper for people who use an open bridge

simply because of the size when playing with a closed bridge

Billy made no comments concerning the other things

Other than how on the old equipment you had to really stroke the cue to get the ball around the table
and the closed bridge enabled him to control it better

Todays tables enable anyone to move the cue ball around so easily that the
problem is getting too much on the ball

Today it is even possible that it might be a good idea to calm down the action


Many of you remember billy for making Joss cues and the many contributions
he made to pool cue making

It might come as a surprise to you to discover that Billy was a really
great pool player and still plays very well for a man his age
(or any age for that matter)

They do play well I enjoyed taking your ebony version of your cue for a few weeks some years back!

Regards,
-keeb


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