How many millimeters can you turn .........
- Thread starter Dawgie
- Start date
I shot for many years with a shaft on an Helmstetter Balabuska that is under 9 mm and it still plays good and is still straight, I switched to a 13 mm three years ago because I had trouble making long straight in shots with the toothpick. I have never looked back and have adapted to a full shaft, just had to relearn cutting thin shots.--Leonard
Dawgie said:
Sure. Your limiting factor is the diameter of the ferrule tenon, the wooden stub that the ferrule sits on. It's normally .3125" in diameter. An 11.75mm shaft is .463" diameter. The difference is .150" divided in have leaves .075" wall thickness of the ferrule. The wall thickness of a ferrule on a typical 13mm shaft is approx. .100". In turning a shaft to 11.75mm you have reduced the ferrule wall thickness by 25%
You can certainly turn the shaft smaller than that if you reduce the tenon diameter to .250" (1/4").
Bare one thing in mind, you can take it off but you can't put it back on. Be careful of what you wish for.
There's another possibility.
Bob Jewett has been playing for years with a cue that has no ferrule, simply a pad underneath the tip.
Taking a clue from him, when one of my cues developed a cracked ferrule, I decided to cut the ferrule and tenon off and install a pad, in this instance one of those very tough carbon fiber pads used on OB-1 cues, that the OB-1 folks sell for $2, and a milk dud tip on top of the pad.
That shaft is an 11mm shaft, 15 inch pro taper, and it squirts the cue ball way less than you can imagine.
The feel when shooting with it is similar to "sticking" a ball, if you can imagine that. And yes, I do play 9 ball with it, along with the power force follows and power draws that 9 ball sometimes requires.
No problems so far.
Flex
Bob Jewett has been playing for years with a cue that has no ferrule, simply a pad underneath the tip.
Taking a clue from him, when one of my cues developed a cracked ferrule, I decided to cut the ferrule and tenon off and install a pad, in this instance one of those very tough carbon fiber pads used on OB-1 cues, that the OB-1 folks sell for $2, and a milk dud tip on top of the pad.
That shaft is an 11mm shaft, 15 inch pro taper, and it squirts the cue ball way less than you can imagine.
The feel when shooting with it is similar to "sticking" a ball, if you can imagine that. And yes, I do play 9 ball with it, along with the power force follows and power draws that 9 ball sometimes requires.
No problems so far.
Flex
I think while I was watching the streaming feed on TAR of the "Best of the West", Oscar Dominguez said that he uses a shaft somewhere in the 9mm range. I may not have heard correctly, but I think that is what he said.
Mike
Mike