Fixing Loose Ferrule

Baxter

Baxter

Out To Win
Silver Member
The ferrule on my break cue has come loose a little bit. I'm pretty sure its threaded, I can twist the ferrule maybe a quarter inch, and twisting clockwise seems to tighten it. I've been playing with it like this for a couple months, and haven't had anything bad happen, but I'd still like to fix it.

I've done custom golf club fitting for years, fit and built my entire golf club set. When I am replacing a shaft in a golf club, I use a heat gun to heat up the epoxy enough to loosen the shaft for removal. After the shaft is removed, I use a wire brush to remove the remaining epoxy in preparation for the new shaft.

Is the process for repairing a loose ferrule on a cue shaft similar? I'm hoping I can heat up the ferrule on the lathe with some friction, (backside of sand paper or leather swatch), twist off the ferrule, clean it and the tenon, and reglue it back on.

Would this process work? I don't want to screw up the shaft, but it doesn't seem to me like the ferrule needs to be replaced either, there's nothing wrong with it other than it's come loose. Thank you in advance for your help.
 
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IMHO you have the technique described correctly. Obviously you can't use a torch of any kind to heat up the ferrule, so yes, a swatch of leather would be my choice - backside of sandpaper could still scratch the ferrule.
After you get the ferrule off and the threads, both inside and out, cleaned up, you have to be careful to get the ferrule lined up true when you put it back on.
Depending on what epoxy or glue you choose, you'll have at least a few minutes to spin the shaft slowly in the lathe and check that the ferrule is spinning true.
My 2 cents,
Gary
 
Take it to a cue maker or repairman. He will turn off the ferrule in the lathe and clean up the threads. Then he will make a new ferrule and epoxy it on.

Km
 
If it is unthreaded and loose it should pull off without any heat. Then mark where it lines up best and glue it back on.
If it came to me I would thread the tenon and put another one on. But it won't cost you anything to try and see if glue holds it.
 
Thanks for the advice guys. I would take it to the local cue repair guy, but he charges too much money IMO and I don't exactly trust his competence. I have access to a cue lathe, and I do all my own tips. With my background in golf club fitting, I didn't imagine the process I described would cause me too much trouble or difficulty. I just wanted to make sure there wasn't anything in particular I really needed to be careful with or pay extra close attention to, like making sure the ferrule went on true. I'm glad I asked. Thanks again.
 
It also depends on the material your ferrule is made of........heating it up with the backside of sandpaper or leather to temperatures hot enough to loosen epoxy might melt your ferrule first unless it is ivory or ivorine 4 I wouldn't recommend doing that.
 
Got it done today, took about 5 minutes. It was pretty much as simple as I was thinking it would be in my head, no problems encountered. Put the shaft on the cue lathe, and used a leather swatch to heat it up with friction. The epoxy came loose sufficiently, and it was easy for me to remove the old epoxy from the threads in the tenon. The ferrule ended up being capped, which made it a little bit trickier to remove the old epoxy than it would have been with an uncapped ferrule, but thanks to a tip by GBCues I had a 5/16x18 tap handy that did the job superbly. Thanks for that Gary.

This job was easy for me to do, but I also have quite a bit of experience with custom golf club fitting, building, and repair. If you have the option, I would recommend letting a qualified cue worker make this kind of repair for you if you don't have experience with this type of work.
 
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