How straight are you cues (shafts and butt)?

My cues are in Cat2-3

However, one of the guys at the local bar plays with the house shortie cue (24" long with a terrible tip) and beats most bar players with it most of the time.
 
My Spain is prob at Cat 3 level after 33 years of play. Does not affect playability, but yes, it should affect "value"....

Kinda like buying a car that was in an accident (repaired) and one that was NOT. Well, I better get some discount from the car that was in an accident.

Same with buying cues, I'll like to buy at CAT 1, possiblity CAT 2, but anything after that I better see some significant dollar savings on the cue or I would have absolutely no interest in the cue.

Yeah, it sux that a cue "turns" your years after you buy it, but it sux when stocks go down after I buy them too :(
 
Hello

i guess almost everyone is particular with the straightness of the shaft, i sell some cues overseas and if i just base the rolling of the shafts and butts on the table, well i must say Tony Bautista cues can always pass this at Cat 2, i have been rolling cue shafts and butts at different table, some will give different rolls, that is why at time i don't trust table slates with cloth, it sometimes eliminates the true form of the cue shafts and butts.
what i do is to roll it on the glass table with at least 3/4" thickness and lay it flat on the table then do the rolling from their. honestly it is very hard to look at this condition due to reflection of the glass but there's a proper way of doing it
even imported cues we have here will only pass cat 3 the highest and some of the butts at cat 4 or 5
so what do you think of some butts even at brand-new will have roll? due to taper of the forearm, to handle? i have seen 2 new sw and even gina when rolled on glass top will give you not evenly roll, what do you do about it,
well i think this would be a debatable thing about shafts and butt rolls but at least it is informative
 
ctyhntr said:
I think Duc was trying to come up with a universal grading scale,
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Yes, I see that. But then it must be quantitative.

I have a cue right here that had what most people would call a "taper roll". It was hitting close to 3mm But not quite) variation at the center of the shaft. I spend a little time this evening bending it back, literally, and now it is straight. Amazing, isn't it.

Now, it's a "cheap" cue, and not one that I will try to sell, it's just something to play around with. But you can actually do this with a lot of cues, I have done it before.

I have one that is "S" shaped...that I'm not sure about..... :confused: Without that, anything other than straight is just bent.

I really am not so picky about it, but some are. It's the main thing that makes my hesitate at all about selling here. I have one for sale here now that is straight. I mean it's straight. But the way some people are I feel like I have to get up at 3AM to check it just to make sure it has not changed. I was so paranoid about such things I made what might be the longest for sale post for a single cue in history. I talked about everything and measured everything.


Anyway, IMHO any valid method would require measurement.

In my signature it says "Bury me with my JOSS". Should it say "Bury me with my bent JOSS" just in case somebody calls me on it? Both shafts have been exactly the same for over 25 years, bent, and I ain't worried about it. If I ever decided to sell it, which I won't, I would expect the appropriate money for such a cue. Meaning it is simply among the best playing cues ever made, bar none. My gawd, if you unbent it, it might lose the mojo! LOL!
 
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To be honest I don't roll any of my cues. It's a small superstition of mine. If one of my cues is warped I would have to see it, or feel it while I am in stroke. To me it's just better off not knowing.

Even when I play off the wall I'll just grab a cue, feel the weight/balance and check the tip and if the shaft is smooth.
 
gunzby said:
To be honest I don't roll any of my cues. It's a small superstition of mine. If one of my cues is warped I would have to see it, or feel it while I am in stroke. To me it's just better off not knowing.

Even when I play off the wall I'll just grab a cue, feel the weight/balance and check the tip and if the shaft is smooth.
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I do the same if I grab a house cue. If it's obviously a corkscrew I leave it alone, other than that I don't check if it's straight.

I have a superstition.....rolling cues bends them.... :wink:


The only way to really test then is on a lathe anyway.

For selling purposes with used cues, I would want to quantify it as best I could. I would list it with the number of millimeters out of straight....as best I could as I don't have a lathe....yet.

If the bend exceeds the taper, in other words the tip lifts when rolling the shaft....then I would not try to sell that shaft. Anything less I would try to measure and list that way. That's how I interpret a "taper roll"....any warp that does not exceed the taper.
 
it should be dead straight when it comes off the lath or it isnt made properly. that is why they make more expensive equipment for machine shops.
cat 2 is the most off it should be for to be acceptable at all for a brand new cue. you shouldnt be able to visually discern any roll off by rolling on a pool table. if so you just bought a warped cue stick.

after time all sticks get a little out of wack.
 
Chopdoc said:
I do the same if I grab a house cue. If it's obviously a corkscrew I leave it alone, other than that I don't check if it's straight.

I have a superstition.....rolling cues bends them.... :wink:


The only way to really test then is on a lathe anyway.

For selling purposes with used cues, I would want to quantify it as best I could. I would list it with the number of millimeters out of straight....as best I could as I don't have a lathe....yet.

If the bend exceeds the taper, in other words the tip lifts when rolling the shaft....then I would not try to sell that shaft. Anything less I would try to measure and list that way. That's how I interpret a "taper roll"....any warp that does not exceed the taper.
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Glad to see that I am not the only one who does this. I was playing the other week and my fiancee' showed up. I laid my cue on the table across from where I was playing and she started rolling it. I immediately stopped it explaining that I don't roll my cues. She replied with the usual, "You have a sickness".
 
Category 6 on my shaft. I think it has a lazy 's' bend to it. I wouldn't ever change it unless it broke.
 
dead straight!

My cue shaft and butt are dead straight, . . . if I happen to check them at the right time of year! My shaft wanders pretty badly winter to summer. Summer in New Orleans I can wring a half-pint of sweat out of the shaft.

I hate to disillusion those thinking that rolling cues or putting them on a lathe really proves something about straightness to thousandths of an inch, it doesn't. OK, I don't really mind disillusioning them, the set-up in the lathe is very open to question as is the lathe itself. Lathes that are true over 30" of travel are worth big bucks generally speaking, as in six figures or more worth of big bucks. My cue lathe from a well known maker was off nine-thousandths two inches from the chuck when I bought it.

Chucks, tailstocks, every bit of the tooling has to be perfect to measure something as straight too, doesn't happen. Even high dollar collets aren't perfect. Give fifteen to twenty inches to amplify any inaccuracy in the collet and that is enough to make a shaft appear straight or crooked and a good collet set-up is about the best test fixture readily available. Lathe bearings to test at the level of accuracy some think they are getting are five figure items themselves, each! I wanted some small precision bearings a few years ago, much smaller than lathe bearings. I found out that I couldn't get them without a three to six month wait, nobody stocked them they were made to order. A pair of bearings would have cost more than my home too.

Pressures on the ends of shafts while holding them to measure are a whole 'nuther can of worms too as is a little thing called gravity. If you aren't careful you can be measuring straightness, taper, or stiffness of a shaft.

There are work arounds that will let a person check the trueness of a shaft or butt accurately although they take a good bit of time and expense. I am willing to test shafts and butts for true and certify the level of trueness of both shaft and butt. Initial tooling for each butt or shaft will run $3500. Measuring each shaft or butt will run $1000 each. The line forms immediately for anyone that really wants to know how straight their cue is. As for myself, I favor eye-balling them for play. If a shaft or butt "eyeballs" straight just looking down it like a rifle barrel, it is plenty straight enough to play with. If I am negotiating price on a cue I want to buy then I'll "prove" the cue is crookeder than a dog's hind laig one way or the udder!

Hu
 
Very true. But nonetheless, for simply determining how straight it is for general purposes of sale, it need not get so involved.

You remind me of a story. Back around 1989/90 I took my JOSS to a shop for tips. It was the last time I had somebody else do it.

When I picked up the shafts one of them was gouged and screwed up. The hack explained to me that the shaft was warped and he did his work with a lathe so any such shaft was not going to survive it well. I asked why the other one was OK....since it was warped too. He gave a convoluted answer that was basically trying to insult me, my shafts, and my ferrule. I paid him for screwing up my ferrule and left. I polished out his screwed up work on my own.

Not every person with a lathe knows what he is doing, this guy was a hack and was working in a prominent shop.

Anyway, you are quite right, but we need not over-engineer the issue either.

Incidentally, I have shot pool in nine countries and fifteen states with my JOSS, the shafts do move within a small amount according to season and climate, but are incredibly stable within those limits. It's good that you mention that matter. :thumbup:
 
my point exactly

Chopdoc said:
Very true. But nonetheless, for simply determining how straight it is for general purposes of sale, it need not get so involved.
You remind me of a story. Back around 1989/90 I took my JOSS to a shop for tips. It was the last time I had somebody else do it.

When I picked up the shafts one of them was gouged and screwed up. The hack explained to me that the shaft was warped and he did his work with a lathe so any such shaft was not going to survive it well. I asked why the other one was OK....since it was warped too. He gave a convoluted answer that was basically trying to insult me, my shafts, and my ferrule. I paid him for screwing up my ferrule and left. I polished out his screwed up work on my own.

Not every person with a lathe knows what he is doing, this guy was a hack and was working in a prominent shop.

Anyway, you are quite right, but we need not over-engineer the issue either.

Incidentally, I have shot pool in nine countries and fifteen states with my JOSS, the shafts do move within a small amount according to season and climate, but are incredibly stable within those limits. It's good that you mention that matter. :thumbup:
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That was my point. We can easily purchase an instrument with ten-thousandths markings now. That is a far cry from saying we can measure to a ten-thousandth or even a thousandth in many instances. Turning between centers is often as meaningless as rolling a cue. All common ways we have of measuring cue straightness are riddled with possible error. My opinion, a cue that looks straight and feels straight is straight for all practical purposes.

Hu
 
I simply do not understand these people that are "straight Nazis." I am far from a world beater, but I know my way around a table. I, too, like my cues to be "straight." But some of these people are crazy about it. In my opinion, a cue has to be pretty bent in order for it to affect playability. I always figured if the tip and joint collar on the shaft stayed on the table, it is straight. Joint collar and the buttcap for the butt. And tip and buttcap for the cue put together. I often wonder about these people that have this pathological need for their cues to be "dead straight." It just is not that big of a deal to me. But, to each his/her own.

Braden
 
many of my cues are 100% years later. It is the shaft freeze because most shafts do move after time but many of mine do not. It is a miracle.
 
explain 100%

gulyassy said:
many of my cues are 100% years later. It is the shaft freeze because most shafts do move after time but many of mine do not. It is a miracle.
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Mike,

Explain what you mean by 100% please. After dealing with NASA, the military, and working in Design Engineering at the local nuke I have never found anything perfect or anyone that demanded perfection. What tolerances do you consider 100%?

Hu
 
ShootingArts said:
Mike,

Explain what you mean by 100% please. After dealing with NASA, the military, and working in Design Engineering at the local nuke I have never found anything perfect or anyone that demanded perfection. What tolerances do you consider 100%?

Hu
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between centers with a dial indicator in the middle will be within .002
 
Thanks. I can't believe some of the posts in this thread like "the feel of the hit is different with a crooked shaft. " Wow.

joelpope said:
The best post so far... Probably true for damn near 100% of non pros
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