Grain runout in shaft wood

C

carguy

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I would like to add this amendment to this thread and bring readers' attention to my last two posts. There was a brain missfire on my part concerning the seller of some shaft wood I purchased which I do not like. The saga ensues:

At various times I have bought shaft wood (not just "wood", but "shaft wood") with very fancy price tags and exotic names..."120 years old", "salvaged from the Lusitania", "blessed by the guru", "the handle of George Washington's hatchet", ...on and on. Sometimes it even has straight grain. Some has grain like a road through the mountains. The ones with straight grain seem to stay straight when I make a shaft from them; the ones with crazy, crooked run-out grain, not so much. This all figures.
Why do people sell this nasty, run-out ridden wood and call it shaft wood?? Regardless of it's background. I mean, really, grain at a 45 degree angle to the center axis? Knots?? We're not talking curl or eyes. We're talking "grain goes out the side in 10 inches"
And why would anyone buy it? I bought it because the seller claimed it was great shaft wood.
Is there any attribute more important in shaft wood than absence of grain runout? Well, dryness, but beside that. Is there some quality wood can have that makes runout not matter?
Thanks, Robin
 
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I wish I had a dollar for every straight grained shaft that did not stay straight. Grain straightness may help, but is not a guarantee of a perpetually straight shaft. Aging and slowly relieving stress seem to be the most critical steps in the shaft making process. I might add that selecting straight grained wood before the shaft making process begins is the only way I would proceed.
 
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Again, my question is simple. Does anything trump straight grain?
I'm not addressing the shaft making process, just the importance of straight grain.
 
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I've bought shaft wood from multiple sources , all supposed to be top grade . One supplier's excuse was that his daughter picked the wood out . Other's were just as lame . Most cue makers won't sell you there good wood , would you ??? As far as grain run out , it does indicate that the shaft will probably warp that way . Some of the dipping solutions make it worse . You have to be careful buying shaft wood from people because they will dump their junk on you . Good luck ....:angry::eek:
 
hangemhigh said:
I wish I had a dollar for every straight grained shaft that did not stay straight. Grain straightness may help, but is not a guarantee of a perpetually straight shaft. Aging and slowly relieving stress seem to be the most critical steps in the shaft making process. I might add that selecting straight grained wood before the shaft making process begins is the only way I would proceed.
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tap....tap...tap....:thumbup:


Eric Wynne said:
I've bought shaft wood from multiple sources , all supposed to be top grade . One supplier's excuse was that his daughter picked the wood out . Other's were just as lame . Most cue makers won't sell you there good wood , would you ??? As far as grain run out , it does indicate that the shaft will probably warp that way . Some of the dipping solutions make it worse . You have to be careful buying shaft wood from people because they will dump their junk on you . Good luck ....:angry::eek:
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I'll have to agreed with you...:banghead::yikes:
 
I sold shaft wood one time and charged the money it would take for me to part with the best stuff. It wasn't cheap. But it was the best stuff. I had two unhappy buyers. One had a factory in Taiwan & tried cutting the shaft in a couple of days to finish size, then was upset that it didn't stay straight. Enough said. The other guy touted that the shafts were no good so I offered a full refund in exchange for the shafts, no question no hassle. He kept the shafts. Enough said there too.

What I learned was that everybody has a different perception of what is good and what isn't. There are some guys out there that don't know the difference. Then there are some guys out there who want something for nothing and will try to degrade a product or service in order to get a deal or some kind of freebie. The latter disgust me. It's a cheating, manipulating way of doing business and I want no part of it. But most folks know what they want & don't mind paying if they know they'll get exactly what they want.

The shafts I offered were straight grain, tight grain, and clean. I ran them through a round pole sander just so I could see if there were any hidden defects. And still yet, people complained. I decided then that cue builders aren't really any different than pool players with pettiness & complaining, and always wanting the nuts. I could have sold that quality of shaft for $5 each & somebody still would have found a reason to complain. Most likely, given the demographic, i'd have gotten more complaints. I set the price so high that most cuemakers wouldn't want to buy anyway. It worked. The majority who bought were square people, with the exception of 'maybe' one. It was a way to weed out the riff-raff and deal only with folks who knew exactly what they wanted & were ok spending the money associated with an actual cuemaker processing & grading shaft wood.

Point being, if you aren't happy with your shaft supplier, then don't accept the product & get a refund. Otherwise, you got no room to judge & complain. I'd say the supplier either doesn't know what you require & needs to learn via your feedback, or else he doesn't care & you should find another supplier. If you want the best then pay for it. Cuemakers would sell awesome wood if other cuemakers would pay the worthy price, but they won't. They'd rather buy bulk at cheap & complain about not getting anything good. I'm not ragging on you or bashing at you. Just stating my observations from my views on both sides of the fence.
 
Looking for good shafts is half the cuemaking.:grin:
I'm glad I don't have to look for them anymore.

People who sell twisted dowels ( as in TWISTED, not runout ) and claiming they're A grade are used-car salesmen.
 
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I'll have to agree with you...:banghead::yikes:
Sounds like you been duped too.
Remember maple does not grow in Florida. :grin-square::eek:


You drive, we go to Canada.
:grin:
 
If it isn't straight grain to start with Jerry Franklin woukd't touch it and that was his no 1 requirement,unless I misunderstood him
 
deanoc said:
If it isn't straight grain to start with Jerry Franklin woukd't touch it and that was his no 1 requirement,unless I misunderstood him
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Probably not, as I have never seen a SW shaft with a grain running out before it meets the bottom of the ferrule.
But, that requires knowledge in cutting too.
Almost all dowels have runout.
 
qbilder said:
I sold shaft wood one time and charged the money it would take for me to part with the best stuff. It wasn't cheap. But it was the best stuff. I had two unhappy buyers. One had a factory in Taiwan & tried cutting the shaft in a couple of days to finish size, then was upset that it didn't stay straight. Enough said. The other guy touted that the shafts were no good so I offered a full refund in exchange for the shafts, no question no hassle. He kept the shafts. Enough said there too.

What I learned was that everybody has a different perception of what is good and what isn't. There are some guys out there that don't know the difference. Then there are some guys out there who want something for nothing and will try to degrade a product or service in order to get a deal or some kind of freebie. The latter disgust me. It's a cheating, manipulating way of doing business and I want no part of it. But most folks know what they want & don't mind paying if they know they'll get exactly what they want.

The shafts I offered were straight grain, tight grain, and clean. I ran them through a round pole sander just so I could see if there were any hidden defects. And still yet, people complained. I decided then that cue builders aren't really any different than pool players with pettiness & complaining, and always wanting the nuts. I could have sold that quality of shaft for $5 each & somebody still would have found a reason to complain. Most likely, given the demographic, i'd have gotten more complaints. I set the price so high that most cuemakers wouldn't want to buy anyway. It worked. The majority who bought were square people, with the exception of 'maybe' one. It was a way to weed out the riff-raff and deal only with folks who knew exactly what they wanted & were ok spending the money associated with an actual cuemaker processing & grading shaft wood.

Point being, if you aren't happy with your shaft supplier, then don't accept the product & get a refund. Otherwise, you got no room to judge & complain. I'd say the supplier either doesn't know what you require & needs to learn via your feedback, or else he doesn't care & you should find another supplier. If you want the best then pay for it. Cuemakers would sell awesome wood if other cuemakers would pay the worthy price, but they won't. They'd rather buy bulk at cheap & complain about not getting anything good. I'm not ragging on you or bashing at you. Just stating my observations from my views on both sides of the fence.
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Boy, I wish I had known about your dowels.
For me, price was the last thing on my mind. I wanted great quality wood and was willing to pay for it. Particularly for something extra special.
I don't make a lot of cues so I want every one to be the best I can conjure up. So cross me off your list of those who will not pay for great stuff. I don't go for the whiners either.
What I also don't go for is paying top buck, without a word, let alone a whimper, and ending up with crap. Crap= absurd amounts of runout. Absurd= the grain does not stay on the wood to the other end and if it does it's like a maze on the way there. I think all sellers of shaft wood on AZ know this is not what we want. It's a lowball street hustle. "Well just send it back then." Right. It is my only option.
I guess my only points were 1) watch yer ass when you buy wood because 2) there are people selling wood that is touted as "special" in some way, but which does not conform to the most ordinary standards for runout, undisputed as the single most important characteristic that the wood could have for our use.
I certainly appreciate hearing, and highly value, the opinions I encounter in this forum. Thanks to all.
 
By the way, no one in the state of Florida ever did me any harm. Well, there was that sun burn that time...
 
Maple growing In Florida? where? LOL I wish there were some worth using. Plenty of good oak and pine, not My choice for shaft wood though.

One thing I can say is that if someone is building cues here It's a good idea to age Their maple very well, and take a lot of slow turns, I don't care how tight or how straight the grain. You can get away with a initial hard cut to cone, providing that it leaves room for plenty of slow cuts, and that tells a lot about the wood, but after that, better take it really slow. If you turn down too quickly You may get one out of ten shafts that will stay straight, before there is nothing left to cut, and more then likely that 1 shaft would stay straight if It survived that, but Your out the cost of 9 good shafts. Ironically that one shaft could be the lowest grade out of the batch, I haven't really seen where nature plays favorites when it comes to that, just luck of the draw. I do not waste time with turning any junk maple maple down, but just because a shaft is of a higher quality, does not mean It will not warp any different from one of a medium quality. Sometimes It's quite the opposite. I don't know It all, but this I know from My own experiences.

If You ever hear a cue maker say something like the wood talks to Him, There's a good chance one of the things he his referring to is what he is seeing between cuts. If You give plenty of rest in between, You will see that some shafts move more then others, If/when at some point a shaft stays dead straight with no movement after a long rest period, then there is a good chance that shaft is ready, although I prefer to leave a long rest period after that point just to be safe. Some shafts take more cuts, and longer rest periods before You can gain full confidence in them. If there is still any movement Left in a shaft, you give a last turn, and immediately match that shaft to the cue with no rest period to be sure of it, then someone is taking a serious risk of at least some movement to develop in a customers cue. You can take all the steps in the world to be sure though, and more then likely nothing will be 100%, but If you follow those standards for making sure a shaft is ready, in the long run the chances are greatly improved that the shaft will at least stay with in good playing specs, It will save you a lot of money in wasted shaft wood, not to mention bad rep.

I have a batch of some really good shaft wood that I lucked upon, It has been hanging for well over a year and 1/2 at least, It was dry when I got it, and I haven't even turned It to cone yet.I do plan on putting the first turn on them soon though. I'm not saying someone has to go to that extreme on the very first cut, providing the wood is dry and well acclimated, but as things would have It, It so happened due to a few circumstances that I was able to let them hang that long, and in My book that's all the better. I guess I'll see if that made any difference in this batch by what the maple tells Me in between cuts.

Sugar marks play no real part in how bad a shaft will play, actually sometimes they can play better, that's just more of a mental thing or distraction for some people, and so most people prefer good clear maple. Knots,ummmmm I don't know, because I don't mess with anything like that.

Good maple for cues is still somewhat of a mystery to me, I have seen for example 8-13GPI that was so so on straight grain (not the top grade By far, just a hair better then average), Play better then 18GPI or over with as dead straight grain as can be achieved. basically the same taper. Not what I would expect at all. It's not always the case, but occasionally there is a diamond where You might expect a turd. I guess a lot of that could be contributed to what people call tuning the shaft to the handle which can be done through weight, balance, and tone, but I have also occasionally seen the same shaft play that well on several different handles. If I could see these things coming I would probably charge more for the shafts that play the best, based on that fact alone, because after all, the end result is that is what We are after on a Cue that will be used to play. Sometimes nature throws us a curve, and there's no sure way of telling until the leather meets the cue ball. Due to these usual situations, I don't expect I will ever know It all when It comes to that, regardless of how many more shafts I turn over the years, but each batch is a new learning experience.
 
Straightness of grain has very little to do with playability, nor does tightness of grain. Those factors are simply basic guidelines for choosing wood that will stay straight & stay stable. Even then it's not a rule, just a basic guide. To the best of my knowledge, the only way to visually predict how a shaft will play is by color, sugar content, and mineral content. My experience has led me to believe that wood with these characteristics are the better playing shafts. Contrarily, this is the kind of stuff that builders shy away from. In fact, builders want exactly the opposite. May be a bad analogy but it's like asking for hottest, most beautiful hooker in town then only to want it cheap & expect her to actually be any fun. She's nice to look at but dead as a corpse & a waste of money.
 
carguy said:
Boy, I wish I had known about your dowels.
For me, price was the last thing on my mind. I wanted great quality wood and was willing to pay for it. Particularly for something extra special.
I don't make a lot of cues so I want every one to be the best I can conjure up. So cross me off your list of those who will not pay for great stuff.
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It'll be a while, if ever, before I offer shaft wood for sale again. I'm working on a steady flow of shaft wood for myself. I have chosen several trees & will begin cutting & milling the logs this fall. My goal is to take a year & produce several thousand shafts worth of lumber so that I never have to worry about shafts again. I might cut a few extra to sell in order to fund the project, but haven't decided yet.
 
I buy bulk boards of kiln dried stuff from up north....4/4 and 5/4.....saw them up myself and I have yet to get bad stuff.....10 to 20 % shrinkage tops so far.....it cost me about 2 dollars a shaft...lol
 
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