How important are the use of joint protectors?

Well, I would think the answer would be fairly obvious. For one: if they were left in plain sight someone might see them and rip you off. And two: if they weren't hidden in an empty cigarette pack, say, the cops might not spot...what? He was talking about protecting the joints of a pool cue? Not doobies?
My bad. Carry on. :smile:
 
Island Drive said:
I'd much rather spend the dollars on a High Quality Case, like the Whitten I have.
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Pretty big price difference between a Whitten case and a pair of joint protectors.

To the OP, I - personally - am not worried about joint protectors.
I have several expensive ques and never use protectors - so far not using them has not cost me anything.

I think you'd have to hit the butt pretty hard in order to ruin the joint and probably from a much greater height than you would ordinarily hold it.

Keep your cue in its case and if it's not in the case you're playing with it.

So.............joint should be fine.

After all you can just as easily drop your cue after you take the joint protectors off as you can with them on.
 
I think a good set of joint protectors complete the look of a nice cue. Do you need them? No, It is just extra protection for the joint areas of the butt and shafts. If you ever forget to secure the top of your case and turn it up side down, you will wish you had them when you hear the joints of the cue smack the ground.

Another advantage of a joint protector is cheap insurance when you ship your cue. The weakest part of the shaft is the hole that the pin threads into. The walls of the wood are thin here and prone to breakage if enough pressure is applied. The joint protectors fill this void and the wood is less likely to split here. Just a few thoughts.....
 
I use joint protectors only for butt, they are 8 cm length and that helps me to easy extract butt from case.
 
flyvirginiaguy said:
Well they were around. Bushka made em, Ernie made them etc...

I especially use one on the joint pin, just to keep it safe.
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I think you should use a joint protector on the joint pin. Accidents happen even if it isn't your fault and if the butt of your cue should fall and land on the joint pin.....well you know the story.

James
 
One joint protector tip. If you are playing on a bar box, try to not take them off and put them back on after close to a pocket.

Me knows this.
 
9Ballr said:
Pretty big price difference between a Whitten case and a pair of joint protectors.

To the OP, I - personally - am not worried about joint protectors.
I have several expensive ques and never use protectors - so far not using them has not cost me anything.

I think you'd have to hit the butt pretty hard in order to ruin the joint and probably from a much greater height than you would ordinarily hold it.

Keep your cue in its case and if it's not in the case you're playing with it.

So.............joint should be fine.

After all you can just as easily drop your cue after you take the joint protectors off as you can with them on.
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Your right about the price difference, but those indian head nickel ones (in this thread) and some of the fancy ones I've seen, can't be cheap. I played for at least 40 hrs a week for thirty years, and NEVER once dropped the butt on the floor while taking it apart, why, I do at the table, it ain't goin' no where. If ya drink/play allot, another story, and the nice ones cost allot when they go missing or people will want to steal em. If I chose to use one, it'd be plasitic and simple, my cue will do all the fancy talking for me. To me it's no different than spinner rims on blinged out cars.
 
Protectors

Getting it out of your case easily, is a very functional reason, but the Whitten you can adjust the heights of butt or shafts to you liking (the OP had a concern about moisture is why I mentioned Whitten). But Even more important than ANY joint protector is to keep your cue from moving/bouncing around against the inside walls of the case when traveling in the car. Traveling on the interstate one time to an event in KS....when I got there and took my cue out, the wrap had a cut in it, created from the cue movement inside the case, poor quality materials, and especially the seam of the feltish material. (the case at the time was a Fellini). Driving on concrete slab interstate highways creates allot of bouncing in the rear tires at high speeds, bad for cues that are loose fitting inside your case. I Jam small individual squares of foam into the top of each shaft/butt and there is NO side to side movement at all, at least do this on a long trip to avoid what could happen or dulling the finish.
 
i use joint protectors on my cues. I have a JB case and the cues fit down snugly and they help to get the cues out. As far as dropping the cues putting them on or off, with the JB interior the cues can be brought up part way and they stay there until I take them all the way out. This way the cues will not be dropped when using the protectors. :wink:
 
I've never worried about stuff getting down in the threads on the female end. Like someone else said, you're using these in a fairly clean environment then putting them in a sealed case.
I worry more about banging the pin around and loosening it up.

Not such an issue with my current case, but when I used to have a cheap tube case you could hear the 2 pieces slide up and hit the top if you turned it over. I didn't use joint protectors back then, I would just shove my pool glove into the top of the case and it stopped them from sliding around

It definitely makes them easier to identify and to pull out in my current 2x3 Instroke case though. My shooting stick has plain maple set and my break cue has a cheap black plastic set. My spare shaft has none. So I always know what's what without having to pull everything out
 
I never had a problem without joint protectors. My cue is over 20 years old, but over half of it was just sitting around in a case. It is a 3/8-10, however.
 
they do protect from nicks and dings.........if you have a wood to wood.
 
JPs

I just recently started using joint protectors. With them, I don't feel my butt and shaft are more secure in any particular way, maybe unless I drop my butt and it lands pin first on the ground, but they're so popular and relatively inexpensive, I thought, "what the heck". So there's my answer...."what the heck, might as well."
 
Island Drive said:
Your right about the price difference, but those indian head nickel ones (in this thread) and some of the fancy ones I've seen, can't be cheap. I played for at least 40 hrs a week for thirty years, and NEVER once dropped the butt on the floor while taking it apart, why, I do at the table, it ain't goin' no where. If ya drink/play allot, another story, and the nice ones cost allot when they go missing or people will want to steal em. If I chose to use one, it'd be plasitic and simple, my cue will do all the fancy talking for me. To me it's no different than spinner rims on blinged out cars.
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Actually the indian head pennies were given to me by a friend with a coin shop. He said they were too worn to be of any real collector value. Jim Baxter charges what I consider to be a very reasonable price to make a set of JP's that match well with your cue.
 
I use them, someone on page one said that moisture can get into the cue thru the joint pin I never new this but I'm glad I now know. Then someone else said your just as likely to drop you cue or shaft while taking off or putting them another good point. I store my cues tip down and joint down and I keep a cube of chalk as well for ease of access. Sometimes I forget to turn the knob to lock my cues in and when they fall out of the case then hit joint cap first.


Reading my posts means you consent to my incorrect spelling and poor typing skills.
 
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