You don't know the history with this beta male. This is a conversation that is directed at him. Go stay in the bleachers where you belong, "pocket".
Low Deflection Shafts - What's Your Opinion???
- Thread starter CJ Wiley
- Start date
Refreshing I'd say.
This is a classic example of what gives a player confidence. It isn't about the ld or hd thing. Its about learning your cue.
"What cue should I own?"...a cue for a serious player Must have three critical points. 1. It must have a good tip. 2. It must be straight. And number three almost the sum of one and two, it must allow the user to believe and have confidence in it.
The rest will be learned. As any cue does. I would say if I bought the same ld shaft and replaced what I have. The new shaft would behave different. But it wouldn't matter because I'd put in the time w it and learn its characteristics.
If the feel of a solid maple shaft is what you prefer that's cool, ld laminate same thing. Your game will adjust.
Players prefer a wood built cue. But what could be attained w synthetic materials? Way more consistency. But players still use wood, why? Because they adjust to their stick, they learn it and win!
Don't buy the hype. Use a cue that you like to hit with.
LD shafts are the best thing to hit the market in quite some time.
They seem to address a
- soft(er) hit
- even less squirt (deflection) than regular LS (LD) shafts
than ones with a ferrule. Remember, a ferrule actually has a quite concentrated high mass - when compared to the wood.
That's why they shrink them to 1/4 or something and have smaller tip sizes (11,75cm).
Cheers.
I'd drive down from Lansing to see that lol.
Very nice explanation for your shaft preference. I highlighted the part of your summary that supports my choice of playing shafts.
Shafts are shafts. I don’t hate any of them. I make my own decisions based on my personal experience. I play entirely by feel and have not found benefit out of aiming systems (no complaints about aiming systems). I have always loved the feel of stiff, heavier (4-4.5 oz.), thicker (13.0-13.25 mm) traditional shafts with hard tips. I own an LD shaft (314-2) which feels fine to me. It requires a rack or two to adjust my feel for it, but that is true for any shaft change. However, it does not have the magic feel that my favorite traditional shafts have. Since all shafts that I play with need some level of personal adjustment and all of them deflect to some extent, less squirt doesn’t mean much to me. What matters is finding the natural pivot point for each shaft. Since I don’t play by formula, my final striking stroke for each shot changes slightly based on how I feel the shot. Any change to my warm-up alignment has the same effect on the cue ball as intentionally using BHE. Since I use traditional shafts, I keep my shaft about 12” from the cue ball. Last instant changes to the point of cue ball contact are compensated by bridging at the pivot point.
So, how ever did great players pocket balls before LD shafts were invented? I noticed recently at a broadcasted tournament that all of the players were bridging at about half the length of the shaft (the pivot point for an LD shaft). After noticing that, I did a quick review of YouTube videos of older matches (ca. 1990, before LD) with players who still play occasionally, and they were all bridging about 12” from the cue ball. While this quick survey doesn’t prove anything, I feel justified that it matters more that I learn to use how to best use each shaft than it does which shaft I choose to play with.
I'm talking about production LD shafts vs. most any standard shaft.
*MOST* standard shafts are made from a solid piece of wood, which means a much higher chance of grain variance. Production LD shafts such as predator, OB, etc. are made from several radial segments of wood, providing much more consistency throughout the shaft. A quick google search should provide you with more details.
I think that's kinda the point of lamination - there's less variance over lots of shafts when the shaft wood is an "average" of different woods (and different grain orientations) laminated together.
pj
chgo