Cue butt runout
- Thread starter Mike81
- Start date
That is a pretty cue.
I've got to admit that with bocote i've used a few attractive pieces i should not have. but trusted that over time i could get them to a decent equilibrium. Which is what this conversation is really about.
What JC is referring to is the curved grain, which suggests 2 things.
1.) it has compression wood on one side, which the tree builds to support the weight of a leaning tree, or even more so, a horizontal branch. With "exotics" they have become so valuable and sometimes difficult to source, a lot of branches get used. Especially for wood that will go into "turning blanks" since it is too small for anything else. For instance, i have a cocobola plank across the center of a tree that was 15". A 2" thick x 6" wide solid ebony board that is actually dry. I'm not going to turn that stuff into cues. At least not with other options. But compression wood has a ton of stress in it. Cut a little and it curves the other direction. Cut some off that side, often just a small amount, and it moves back. etc, etc.
2.)wood is hygroscopic - it loves to soak in water from the atmosphere up to about 18% if possible. In the US, usually in the range 12 - 15% at worst time of year. But what is bad is that unequal grain distribution, and compression, reaction, and for lack of a better term "average" wood all accept and reject moisture at a different rate. Meaning the wood will swell more on one side than the other.
A really bad piece of branch wood will never settle down to where it is stable everywhere. But with sequential cutting over a long time, and good humidity control in the shop, it can be made to attain an equilibrium in "similar" humidity and temp regime.
I understand what Dave is saying, and partially agree that wood is best stabilized by exposure over several years to fairly wide MC (Moisture content) ranges. That definitely helps. I agree with the wood storage from that perspective. Once you begin machining a cue, though, i think the shop should be humidity controlled. Else you don't know whether the wood is moving from released stress, or from an overnight swing in MC. Also, if you don't meter the wood, and end up gluing (splicing) pieces together with even as little as 1% difference in MC it automatically sets up a stress situation in the part.
Which bring up another unmentioned potential problem in cue wood. If it has been kiln dried, it has probably been forced, to get product through and out the door. So the original drying & kilning put loads of stress in the wood it might not have had, before you get it. Put it in an environment like Dave describes, and maybe 7 years later it will stabilize at least from the kilning effects (anecdotal approximate personal experience from resawing lumber over the past 40+ years)
I'd prefer to use non-KD wood as the least induced stress, so long as it is around 7 - 8% mc when machined and further processed, with no 2 pieces being more than 1% difference between them.
Most hobby cue makers (including me sometimes
)can't afford to wait that long between acquiring a few expensive sticks, and then processing them when the mood strikes 
. Pro cue makers start out that way, but gradually build a backlog of inventory in the full range of
process & machining steps.
smt
I've got to admit that with bocote i've used a few attractive pieces i should not have. but trusted that over time i could get them to a decent equilibrium. Which is what this conversation is really about.
What JC is referring to is the curved grain, which suggests 2 things.
1.) it has compression wood on one side, which the tree builds to support the weight of a leaning tree, or even more so, a horizontal branch. With "exotics" they have become so valuable and sometimes difficult to source, a lot of branches get used. Especially for wood that will go into "turning blanks" since it is too small for anything else. For instance, i have a cocobola plank across the center of a tree that was 15". A 2" thick x 6" wide solid ebony board that is actually dry. I'm not going to turn that stuff into cues. At least not with other options. But compression wood has a ton of stress in it. Cut a little and it curves the other direction. Cut some off that side, often just a small amount, and it moves back. etc, etc.
2.)wood is hygroscopic - it loves to soak in water from the atmosphere up to about 18% if possible. In the US, usually in the range 12 - 15% at worst time of year. But what is bad is that unequal grain distribution, and compression, reaction, and for lack of a better term "average" wood all accept and reject moisture at a different rate. Meaning the wood will swell more on one side than the other.
A really bad piece of branch wood will never settle down to where it is stable everywhere. But with sequential cutting over a long time, and good humidity control in the shop, it can be made to attain an equilibrium in "similar" humidity and temp regime.
I understand what Dave is saying, and partially agree that wood is best stabilized by exposure over several years to fairly wide MC (Moisture content) ranges. That definitely helps. I agree with the wood storage from that perspective. Once you begin machining a cue, though, i think the shop should be humidity controlled. Else you don't know whether the wood is moving from released stress, or from an overnight swing in MC. Also, if you don't meter the wood, and end up gluing (splicing) pieces together with even as little as 1% difference in MC it automatically sets up a stress situation in the part.
Which bring up another unmentioned potential problem in cue wood. If it has been kiln dried, it has probably been forced, to get product through and out the door. So the original drying & kilning put loads of stress in the wood it might not have had, before you get it. Put it in an environment like Dave describes, and maybe 7 years later it will stabilize at least from the kilning effects (anecdotal approximate personal experience from resawing lumber over the past 40+ years)
I'd prefer to use non-KD wood as the least induced stress, so long as it is around 7 - 8% mc when machined and further processed, with no 2 pieces being more than 1% difference between them.
Most hobby cue makers (including me sometimes
)can't afford to wait that long between acquiring a few expensive sticks, and then processing them when the mood strikes . Pro cue makers start out that way, but gradually build a backlog of inventory in the full range ofprocess & machining steps.
smt
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Ssonerai,
Very informative read. Thanks. Another eye opening post, most of which I did not consider to be potential problems. I suppose if I want to make a couple cues I’d better buy some wood and let it relax in my house for a few years! I can only hope at this point I have a little luck and this will stay relatively straight, it really is a pretty piece of wood. If not I still accomplished a couple goals thus far. Thanks to everyone for their experience and knowledge that you were willing to share
Very informative read. Thanks. Another eye opening post, most of which I did not consider to be potential problems. I suppose if I want to make a couple cues I’d better buy some wood and let it relax in my house for a few years! I can only hope at this point I have a little luck and this will stay relatively straight, it really is a pretty piece of wood. If not I still accomplished a couple goals thus far. Thanks to everyone for their experience and knowledge that you were willing to share
Wood story
About 7 or 8 years ago I came across a really nice birdseye shaft, lots of eyes and evenly distributed. I hung it and decided to use it on a special cue.
When I found the right butt, I got my shaft but it had moved, it was so nice I decided to keep is for inlays or points, and hung it back up.
Next time I took it down, i spun it to find the straightest part, and to my surprise it was dead straight.
Over the years it has gone from crooked to straight more than once.
About 7 or 8 years ago I came across a really nice birdseye shaft, lots of eyes and evenly distributed. I hung it and decided to use it on a special cue.
When I found the right butt, I got my shaft but it had moved, it was so nice I decided to keep is for inlays or points, and hung it back up.
Next time I took it down, i spun it to find the straightest part, and to my surprise it was dead straight.
Over the years it has gone from crooked to straight more than once.
Not to be totally negative, i'd just like to convey that in any somewhat complex endeavor, knowlege is about the most important component. Next is luck :grin:
Seriously, cues (or other complex woodwork) can be built faster, but you have to have a sense, or accurately know the provenance of the wood & understand the technology. If a person could acquire old growth, long stored lumber taken from large straight logs airdried to a uniform 8% or so, a build could begin tomorrow. And probably proceed pretty rapidly if the local humidity is controlled, spaced with "reasonably" longish rests between cuts. or glue-ups.
The only way to find out what "reasonable longish" is, is to specify a number, then everyone will pile on with some saying that's too short "you're an idiot", maybe one person agreeing if you are lucky, and the rest saying "nah, you just don't know how to work wood, i can do it faster. Then the bystander gets to read the opinions and decide who sounds more reasonable. :smile:
If your humidity control is constant and the wood is not taking on or losing MC, a "couple weeks" after each operation should be good with materials that would be inherently stable as described.
Ideally cues would be made of what would generally be pretty bland straight grain lumber sawn from huge old straight growing logs. Customer preference and cuebuilder preference for art style cues as well as the diminishing supply of "exotic" wood with those attributes mitigates against that, so cue-build technology has evolved to a highly built up process with multiple layers of both materials (coring, e.g.) & of aging.
If you can't say accurately what the MC was of all the parts when you started the build, and what it is likely to be now at your current shop relative humidity/temperature level, that could have been your only significant problem. Or there could be others as described in the long preceding posts. "Inherently stable" woods will move, they just move a whole lot less with changes in MC. Point being, if your stick was a more "inherently stable" piece of wood when you started, but it was at 12% MC; it would not have bowed as much, but machining at 12% MC would have still been a problem here in most of the US. If you acquire and age some wood, it is still relevant to know what the MC is at arrival. When it is below maybe 10 % mc (people will have different opinions as to how far below) you actually should begin rough machining it to get the benefits of stress relief. I would not do any close machining nor any glue-ups until the parts were uniformly 7-9% range. 7% is probably too low in some areas of the country, and 9% is too high for a cue that will spend most of the time in a forced air heated space. As i think Dave said, don't do any close machining until the blank is done taking on or giving off moisture. Factors are all related, there's a process of pick & choose. My scientist dad used to say that if you can't describe it with numbers, you don't really have the knowlege. I believe that is short sighted and incomplete. Artists and high level craftspeople know more about working with their materials, products, and processes than most analysts at first or even10th glance realize; often with minimal math. But it is very difficult to transfer that knowlege to anyone else until they make all the mistakes. So numbers are not necessarily the key to high level performance, but they narrow the parameters between which to experiment for students, and can help shorten the learning process. Really good talent bends all the parameters (cheats the pocket) on every shot to get the most out of individual materials at hand. They might or might not be able to describe how they do it, and sometimes the factors they think are key, are not what is making what they do happen. You have to cut wood, throw some away or use it for tomato stakes, and find out yourself.
smt
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I’m going to invest in a scale, and some tools to measure the m c. Going to take more of a scientific approach now and do some research on the process. This is great information by the way thanks. I did not know the mc of the wood before I started, just figured get some wood and make a cue. Knowing now what I need to do to get it right is a positive for me!
You made me think of a great point to make.....
We all have seen the furniture from the craft booms of the 70's and 80s that are currently falling apart at their glue ups......chair legs coming out etc.....guys try and reglue with wood glue and it just doesn't work (wood glue doesn't stick to wood glue...nothing does be ca and only half assed) . The reason for that? Big box stores becoming a part of the mix supplying wood that wasn't properly seasoned, which in turn wasn't left to acclimate in the craftsmans shop. So you end up with shrinkage out the yang eventually making the pieces pull apart......you bore a hole in wet wood its gonna get bigger as it dries.....smaller on the OD, bigger on the ID.
Ill try and put up a good post on what the big deal on reaction wood till then heres a little wiki that speaks on it some.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_wood
lignin is basically a woods "glue" when steam benders heat the wood its the effected lignin that lets it bend as it does....then sets once dried....they also bend with ammonia gas but i'm not sure how that all works to bring about the extreme pliability that occurs with its use.
They have also develooped methods for stress relief using cryogenic freezing and thawing techniques and have thus far employed it for some baseball bats as far as i know.....that has interesting implications for future wood work.