Ferrule Hardness: The results are in! (and interesting!)

hdgis1

hdgis1

New member
The results are finally in! A big thanks to all of you who helped make this possible. Particularly to Olaf in Germany for doing the actual testing. He goes by Cuetips1000 on youtube and was kind enough to not only do the actual testing, but to also do a video. He did multiple tests on each material but informed me that he edited out the duplicates as the results were all consistent. Some very interesting results! Perhaps they jive with what you all have experienced...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-xvN6W6xhQ

Aegis II: 93
Black Canvas Phenolic: 92
Black Linen Phenolic: 93
Elforyn: 87
Fiber: 87
G10: 93
Grice: 91
Ivor-X: 96
Ivorine III: 93
Ivorine IV: 96
Ivorite-III: 93
Juma: 89
LBM: 95
Meucci Original: 85
Micarta (GE): 94
Micarta (Mason): 91
Micarta (Westinghouse): 84
MPI: 86
Porper: 87
PVC: 86
Rolled Brown Linen Phenolic: 89
Saber T: 94
Titan: 84
XTC: 83


Chris
 
Last edited:
Out of curiosity, where does Ivory fit in that range?

And (less important) what is the unit of measurement for hardness?

Thanks for the great list. Some of those 'legendary' materials now placed in perspective with their modern counterparts.

Hats off to you (and your German accomplice)!
 
No idea about the ivory. According to Olaf, "the walking bag of c***" who was going to get him some, didnt come through! All testing was done on a Sauer Shore D durometer.

Chris

PS - I am not the walking bag of crap!

Cue Guru said:
Out of curiosity, where does Ivory fit in that range?

And (less important) what is the unit of measurement for hardness?

Thanks for the great list. Some of those 'legendary' materials now placed in perspective with their modern counterparts.

Hats off to you (and your German accomplice)!
Click to expand...
 
Cue Guru I'd suspect a different device would be required for Ivory.

My question is how is this info useful? Normally the harder a material the more brittle. On the other hand we all know that the Meucci ferrule was susceptible to cracking. But that may be due to the thin wall he had or has.

Not a cue builder - Just curious.
 
3kushn said:
Cue Guru I'd suspect a different device would be required for Ivory.

My question is how is this info useful? Normally the harder a material the more brittle. On the other hand we all know that the Meucci ferrule was susceptible to cracking. But that may be due to the thin wall he had or has.

Not a cue builder - Just curious.
Click to expand...

My thinking is that it is useful in one key way. Given a controlled set of variables - tip, shaft taper, butt (in other words one cue from one maker) one can conceivably manipulate the feel of a cues hit by simply changing the ferrule. Sure experienced cuemakers suspect one material is harder or softer than another, but now we have some kind of empirical evidence to back it up.

Chris
 
hdgis1 said:
No idea about the ivory. According to Olaf, "the walking bag of c***" who was going to get him some, didnt come through! All testing was done on a Sauer Shore D durometer.

Chris

PS - I am not the walking bag of crap!
Click to expand...

OK Shore scale. I was wondering if it might be one of the Rockwell scales.

Even altering the material, the shape has an influence as well. Even sticking with Ivory (which varies like wood- its a natural material) a capped ferrule will feel different than a cored one. Then alter the bore of the cored one (and OD) to change the wall thickness...

The point is, the chart is relevant. However it must be kept in context. A 'softer' ferrule constructed a different way can feel 'harder' dependent on the other factors.

Still excellent work, and glad to have found it! I might be able to do some Ivory on the Shore D scale, but don't hold your breath. I don't have the access to the 'toys' I did earlier in the year.
 
I'd like to know HOW the test was done. Was the test done on the end grain or the outside of the diameter?. THANKS...JER
 
BLACKHEARTCUES said:
I'd like to know HOW the test was done. Was the test done on the end grain or the outside of the diameter?. THANKS...JER
Click to expand...

In the youtube clip it looks like end grain. The results were somewhat predictable. The phenolic materials are all similar. I don't really know what one would do with this information now that you have it. The construction of the ferrule is what determines how it will effect play, (long, short, capped, thru, tenon size, etc.) and is within the ability of the cue maker to alter and get a desired result regardless what material they choose.
 
The results are useful because it is also a factor in how it 'hits'. It's another tuning tool. Yes, we can make ferrules in different ways, but what it's made of is the first step.
 
BLACKHEARTCUES said:
I wondered because many of these materials get a hard skin on the outside as they age. I have a hard time seeing Titan as softer than Juma...JER
Click to expand...

According to the makers of Juma, it is 86 Shore D
There can be variances in the hardness of plastics. This is due to the moulding conditions and process control.It is also effected by the material content, virgin stock or containing a percentage of regrind and the source of the raw stock.
 
really cool data, thanks for sharing!

i would think that this would also be a rough guide to the density of the material which would affect deflection. typically harder materials are more dense than the soft ones. would be interesting to see the density calculated precisely though. perhaps a very accurate scale (like the ones for measuring gunpowder, etc.) and then a graduated cylinder for measuring volume?
 
McChen said:
really cool data, thanks for sharing!

i would think that this would also be a rough guide to the density of the material which would affect deflection. typically harder materials are more dense than the soft ones. would be interesting to see the density calculated precisely though. perhaps a very accurate scale (like the ones for measuring gunpowder, etc.) and then a graduated cylinder for measuring volume?
Click to expand...


Typically, but not necessarily. aluminum is much lighter than lead, while lead is much softer than aluminum.

There is a table of relative weights of ferrule materials on one of the cue maker's websites. Comparing the data on these two lists, I would conclude that "Mason's micarta" is in the middle of the hardness scale, but on the low end of the weight scale. So that sounds like a good ferrule for some people. Titan is both very light and very soft. MPI/PVC/Juma fairly light and fairly soft. And LBM pretty hard, but fairly light.

Sort of makes sense that these are some of the more popular ferrule materials, because hardness is a matter of preference, but even if you like a hard hit, you would still want as light of a material as possible according to the accepted "low deflection" theory.
 
Maple?

Any possibility of doing another round of testing? As well as ivory, I'd like to know about buck horn and especially maple (maybe do a few different samples of maple since the variance from sample to sample might be pretty high).
 
plastic durometer tests

hdgis1 said:
The results are finally in! A big thanks to all of you who helped make this possible. Particularly to Olaf in Germany for doing the actual testing. He goes by Cuetips1000 on youtube and was kind enough to not only do the actual testing, but to also do a video. He did multiple tests on each material but informed me that he edited out the duplicates as the results were all consistent. Some very interesting results! Perhaps they jive with what you all have experienced...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-xvN6W6xhQ

Aegis II: 93
Black Canvas Phenolic: 92
Black Linen Phenolic: 93
Elforyn: 87
Fiber: 87
G10: 93
Grice: 91
Ivor-X: 96
Ivorine III: 93
Ivorine IV: 96
Ivorite-III: 93
Juma: 89
LBM: 95
Meucci Original: 85
Micarta (GE): 94
Micarta (Mason): 91
Micarta (Westinghouse): 84
MPI: 86
Porper: 87
PVC: 86
Rolled Brown Linen Phenolic: 89
Saber T: 94
Titan: 84
XTC: 83


Chris
Click to expand...

FYI
I was plant superintendant for a factory that manufactures plastic resin which is sold/sent to extruder users/manufactureres I'm guessing some of which are for ferrules.
We did our own Q.C. on the milled plastic and the durometer was not always the same though the recipe for making it was. This would ad to an inconsistent output in your chart. I think you chart is a good idea, I'm not trying to sink your ship. Just think you should know of other variables beside accidental formula deviations, in addition sometimes the formulas are changed per customers request or I guess a cost justification. Anyhow, It can't hurt to know that the durometer would vary one or two points, sometimes three..
 
The results are shocking to me .
I don't have the inclination to dispute it .
Experienced repairpeeps and makers can tell how hard the materials are when machining them. Or by bouncing them.
Saber T being softer than Ivor-X shocks the hell out of me.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top