How tight cloth affects deflection?

jacob

jacob

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Just want to put this idea out there. Does the tightness of cloth on a table affect the amount of deflection in a shot? I have been changing shafts lately, between a shaft with little deflection and one with moderate deflection. So I have been paying extra close attention to deflection. I seem to have noticed that on a table with cloth stretched to the max deflection is less. On tables with loose cloth, like when you put your bridge hand on the table you can move the cloth rather easily deflection is a little out of control. I probably are being crazy, I just wondered if anyone on here has considered this before?
 
i've noticed that when the cloth is super slick and fast, there is a little more deflection. i was playing on new 760 cloth which was like greased lightning and i got more deflection. think it is because there is less friction between the ball and the cloth. i've also played on some really nasty cheap ass felt, like on the cheap plywood home tables, and they have so much friction, there was hardly any deflection.
 
I know patrick johnson's gonna wanna jump all over this one.

The science guys will say deflection is a measurement of how much a stick tends to cause squirt, and squirt is the word when the cue ball leaves the tip at a slight angle due to hitting it with sidespin.

But nevermind that, I tend to call it deflection too.

The cloth doesn't matter at all. The path that the cue ball takes after leaving the tip is decided within the first millisecond after you hit it. All the cue ball cares about is how far off to the side you hit, how forcefully you hit, and how much the shaft "gives" during that split second where the tip makes contact.

That's what determines the line the cue ball takes after leaving the tip. It's not like the tiny fibers in the cloth are turning that big old cue ball off course, so it only deflects half an inch instead of an inch or whatever. The 'grabbiness' of the cloth might affect how much a ball wants to swerve, and it definitely affects masse action when you elevate the cue... but those are whole different topics.
 
yeah i understand deflection is a factor of the tip offset and the mass of the tip end of the stick relative to the mass of the ball. but if the stick is pushing the cue ball offline to create deflection, if the surface is stickier wouldn't that oppose the pushing offline of the cueball a little? not sure if this could be enough to be a noticeable factor or not. or it could be a masse effect like you mentioned, where the cueball is swerving differently due to the cloth, creating the effect of different effective squirt.
 
For the first 3 weeks that I had Velocity Pro on my Valley 7' table I got a lot of what I call skid. I would miss 6' 45 degree cut shots by a few inches. This cloth was put on super tight and it was worse on hot days. The table is on my screened patio. Now that the cloth relaxed a bit, it seems not to skid at all. Johnnyt
 
McChen said:
if the surface is stickier wouldn't that oppose the pushing offline of the cueball a little?
Click to expand...

There is no "pushing offline". The CB only "pushes" in one direction, and that's the "line"; the fact that your stick is pointed a little to the side of that line doesn't mean there are two lines. A shot with squirt acts exactly like a shot without squirt.

Cloth friction exists on every shot; it simply slows the CB down.

pj
chgo
 
Johnnyt said:
For the first 3 weeks that I had Velocity Pro on my Valley 7' table I got a lot of what I call skid. I would miss 6' 45 degree cut shots by a few inches. This cloth was put on super tight and it was worse on hot days. The table is on my screened patio. Now that the cloth relaxed a bit, it seems not to skid at all. Johnnyt
Click to expand...

The two are unrelated. You can think of skid just like squirt: whatever the reason for it, it's simply the single direction the ball goes.

pj
chgo
 
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