A metal shaft has a ton of end mass. How are you sure it's the lack of shaft deflection that is at the root of the problem?
My theory on Deflection
- Thread starter nineballsafety8
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A metal shaft has a ton of end mass. How are you sure it's the lack of shaft deflection that is at the root of the problem?
Try this for yourself. Take 5 or 6 different cue butts with the same joint pin and put the LD shaft on each one. Be glad to send you one of my 6-pie laminated butts as one of the group for you to try.
Here's the way I see it, take it for the two cents I'm offering it for. The easier the equipment is to master, the flatter the playing field will be.
If we take standard 5" pockets and reduce them by 20% of their size to 4" pockets, every C player in the world would take up bowling. If we increase them in size by the same 20% to 6" pockets, C players like me would be running out from everywhere, blindfolded and behind their back. Now, other skills would certainly be needed, and would certainly separate lesser players from the best, but great shotmaking ability would simply cease to be a necessity to high level play because everybody everywhere would be able to make all the shots every time.
In such a scenario, I think it would very hard to distinguish the elite player from the shortstop outside of painfully long sets. Even then, the very nature of what determines excellence would change, favoring the player with the most endurance and the best long-range focus rather than the player with the best shooting skills, won hard during endless hours of practice.
Send me five or six different cue butts along with the shaft and I'll give it a very serious try. I may even buy one of your LD shafts if I like it enough.
As it is, I'm a one cue kinda guy. Don't even own a break cue or a jump cue. Once I get around to making some cues, though, I will certainly take you up on it.
It won't change my opinion that this is a very subjective way to test for deflection, though. Even the best players never even knew it existed before it was pointed out to them. I feel even Mosconi himself would find it hard to quantify deflection in this manner.
Edit to add:
Sorry, I just re-read your post and realized you are speaking of laminated butts, not shafts. If I can get my hands on a LD shaft I may still try your butt against others I can come up with. I don't "believe" in using LD shafts, so I don't own one.
Will you be at SBE? Perhaps you can demonstrate this there. I'll be there Friday-Sunday.
Cheers
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Send me five or six different cue butts along with the shaft and I'll give it a very serious try. I may even buy one of your LD shafts if I like it enough.
As it is, I'm a one cue kinda guy. Don't even own a break cue or a jump cue. Once I get around to making some cues, though, I will certainly take you up on it.
It won't change my opinion that this is a very subjective way to test for deflection, though. Even the best players never even knew it existed before it was pointed out to them. I feel even Mosconi himself would find it hard to quantify deflection in this manner.
Edit to add:
Sorry, I just re-read your post and realized you are speaking of laminated butts, not shafts. If I can get my hands on a LD shaft I may still try your butt against others I can come up with. I don't "believe" in using LD shafts, so I don't own one.
Will you be at SBE? Perhaps you can demonstrate this there. I'll be there Friday-Sunday.
Cheers
I was speaking about the difference of a shaft, laminated or otherwise, on different butts, laminated or otherwise. Surely you know 5 others with a cue having a 3/8x10 pin, you don't need to own them all. Try switching an LDshaft from one cue to another and see what happens.
You can do a little math test. Take the mass of a 12.75mm shaft with a .250" hole 4" deep. Now figure out what diameter a shaft, with no end hole, would be at this same mass. Do the 2 shafts have the same deflection value? If not, why?
Since you believe that only the first few inches of the shaft effect deflection than it follows that the taper of the shaft is irrelevant as are other factors. So tapers are simply for looks and how your fingers slide up and down the shaft? Schuler would have disagreed with you as would a number of other cue makers. Scientific testing is repeatable, meaning you can get the same results again. The deflection tests show that not only do 3 people strike the cueball differently than each other but also can not strike the cueball the same twice in a row. Averaging the results is not indicative of the true value of deflection. If someone with better mechanics than comes along and has repeatedly lower deflection values has the real deflection of the shaft changed? That one person has consistently higher deflection results than the others prove that the shaft has more deflection?
As for SBE, no I will not be there. But there may be someone who will that can show you. Will get back to you about this.
I think everyone has the ability of visually judging angles and lines even without standing right along the line. However, the accuracy of the estimation would be dropping dramatically when you line of sight moves away from the lines you are trying to judge.
The same principal applys to every aspect of pool playing, which is a game of odds. Any thing of any method that can consistently lower your error margins should be adapted.
LD shaft does bring your line of striking closer to where the CB meet the OB, that means less error when your brain doing the estimation of the angle OB and CB is taking after the contact.
That is one more factor that LD cue users will have advantage over non-LD cue users, even they all have learned perfect squirt adjustments.
The same principal applys to every aspect of pool playing, which is a game of odds. Any thing of any method that can consistently lower your error margins should be adapted.
LD shaft does bring your line of striking closer to where the CB meet the OB, that means less error when your brain doing the estimation of the angle OB and CB is taking after the contact.
That is one more factor that LD cue users will have advantage over non-LD cue users, even they all have learned perfect squirt adjustments.
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Bob, I'm not going to pretend I can come up with a definitive answer to your question. I would guess that the skinnier shaft that has the same end mass as the 12.5mm shaft with the hole drilled in it would deflect less since it will be able to bend to the side easier and redirect more of the momentum that would deflect the CB to the other side. Even if that's correct, how would I go about quantifying the amount of CB deflection without using some purpose-built machine? If you have an easy test I can set up for this I'd be more than happy to give it the old college try.
Anyway, thanks for your thoughtful responses. I see now you live in the great state of Washington, so I know why you won't be at SBE. I'd love to talk to cue makers about all this stuff in person. The Interwebs are wonderful, but it certainly is a slow and tedious way to banter back and forth. If there's anybody you can turn me on to that is interested in this subject I will certainly look them up while I'm there. I do have an open mind, and I ain't afraid to flip off a know-it-all scientist if I can prove them wrong, but so far, the score is Physicists 100, Danny Boy 0.
Danny Fera
You alluded to it in an earlier post, but not sure you quite understand it yet. Yes, a metal shaft has a ton of end mass. That means that it is stiffer, and will deflect less. The less mass, the easier for the shaft to deflect from the cb, thereby, the less the cb will squirt.
With a very stiff shaft, such as a metal rod, even if the end mass was the same, it is not pliable enough to bend out of the way of the cb. So, you will still get the squirt. You need low end mass of a pliable material, such as wood, to lessen the squirt of the cb and increase the deflection of the shaft.
Neil, since you actually tried this out in real life, I wasn't sure you understood it, either. Lol
What if that same end mass that was in the metal shaft was attached directly in front of a section of shaft that allowed it to bend out if the way in the exact manner that a wooden shaft would? Would that yield an LD shaft as well?
BTW I'm just teasing you. I've done plenty of those "confirmation" experiments myself. One time I wrapped a few ounces of lead solder around the end of the shaft and shot that way for a hour or so. Veddy, veddy, interesting.
Neil, since you actually tried this out in real life, I wasn't sure you understood it, either. Lol
What if that same end mass that was in the metal shaft was attached directly in front of a section of shaft that allowed it to bend out if the way in the exact manner that a wooden shaft would? Would that yield an LD shaft as well?
Going by YOUR statement, yes. I only say yes, because you said it would bend in the exact same manner as a wooden shaft. However, I don't believe you can get it to bend the exact same way. And, if it doesn't, (meaning the last 8-9" of the shaft), then, no. No, because only the last 9" or so matter. By the time the force was transferred from the stiff material to the pliable material, the cb would be gone already.
Obviously, a well-designed cue-testing machine would provide the best results. However, if one doesn't have such a machine, I think the setup and procedure described and demonstrated in the following video produces fairly consistent and reliable results if one is careful and has a decent stroke (and throws out the shots that are obviously poorly hit):
NV D.15 - Cue and Tip Testing for Cue Ball Deflection (Squirt)
Give it a try,
Dave
Technically, nobody hits the CB exactly where they are trying to hit it, but the pros come very close most of the time. The vast majority of amateurs don't.
Aside from developing your fundamentals to improve cuing, there are a couple of things you can do to help mitigate imprecise cuing. First, there's backhand english, which works very well as long as your bridge length puts your bridge on the pivot point of the cue. Second, there are LD shafts, which allow for more cuing imprecision before causing a miss. The interesting things about these two things is that they are somewhat at odds with each other because a LD shaft usually has a pivot point that is too far back to use as a "go to" bridge point. For a LD shaft, you can still pivot around that point when aiming, but it's not going to help with imprecision the way backhand english does with a standard shaft.
Personally, I play with an LD shaft and use parallel aiming, intentionally/subconsciously compensating my aim for squirt and swerve when applying english. I find that playing that way works for me and is adaptable to more situations because I'm not relying on my bridge being on the pivot point of the cue. I know lots of very good players that depend on the higher pivot point of a standard shaft. They don't like playing with my cue because they miss shots that they normally make with their cue because it automatically compensates for imprecise cuing as long as their bridge is in the right spot.
So, it's not clear that a LD shaft will help any particular player, but it is clear that it allows for more cuing error independent of the bridge length. The sacrifice is having a pivot point in a spot where you're not as likely to put your bridge. Every once and a while, I will play around with a standard shaft just so I can mess with backhand english, but I always go back to a LD shaft.
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If people are really curious about what causes squirt (AKA "cue ball deflection") and what doesn't, check out the "What causes squirt?" page. It contains detailed descriptions, illustrations, and supporting resources.
A solid-metal shaft would certainly have significant endmass. The "effective endmass" is affected not only by the mass of the material close to the tip, but also by the stiffness. For more info, see the endmass and stiffness resource page.
Regards,
Dave
I disagree. I think that even if a carefully engineered cue were made to fit the criteria I mentioned (and this is totally possible to design), the inertia inherent in that mass at the end of would increase the deflection because it would have more momentum acting on the CB at contact. I think it's really a combination of both things, reduction of actual end mass and reduction of stiffness that contribute to the final effective end mass.
I'm curious to see if Dave agrees with this, though.
I hope I don't misrepresent his thinking, but Bob Meucci is a believer in the butt having an effect on cue-ball squirt.
Bob came to this position rather accidentally. One of the cues he built for his 97 Series (model 97-21) was constructed with a combination of plastics and wood (that is more flexible than an all-hardwood butt) for reasons having nothing to do with squirt. But when he tested the cue for squirt, he discovered that the construction had a beneficial effect. That led Bob to develop a whole bunch of cues constructed similarly, and he dubbed it his "Power Piston technology."
Yes, I fully realize that this is inconsistent with the science that says that nothing about the butt can affect squirt because the CB is gone from the tip before the transverse shock wave reaches the butt.
Well, I don't think it matters especially if aiming is rigid and mechanical, or a touchy feely process.
The bottom line is, after a few years, you figure out how to hit point A, when you aim at point A.
What the LD shaft does is, if you accidentally put a half tip of left on the ball,
it will arrive closer to the intended point than if you'd used a standard shaft.
You also mentioned perception. To me that's the main advantage to LD shafts -
perception. With a high deflection shaft, I might need to aim an inch or more away
from where I intend the cue ball to make contact. It's tough to fine tune your aim,
when your initial guess for aim is some imaginary area
way to the left or right of the contact point.
I dunno about anyone else but my brain HATES aiming at the left side of the ball,
if I intend to hit the right side of it (which comes up in cases of extreme deflection).
Well, that's the big question... "if it is true".
LZR's advantage is easy to prove on paper.
Within weeks of it being released, multiple world records were broken.
LD shafts have had nowhere near the same impact. Nobody ran over 526 with one.
If you honestly think they're that much better then I dunno why we're arguing,
because I already believe they're better too
In which case your complaint is... that I have to own the shaft just to be competitive?
Meh, 200 bucks. Tiger's golf clubs cost 10x that. And probably you need 2 million to
do NASCAR (just a random guess don't hold me to it).
Pool players get off easy.
The argument for LD shafts (one of them) is that they minimize the impact of stroke errors.
Like accidentally adding a half tip of left may not ruin the shot on an LD shaft.
If LD improves potting odds for a pro, then the advantage is even larger for an amateur
who needs all the help they can get with potting.
Neil, since you actually tried this out in real life, I wasn't sure you understood it, either. Lol
What if that same end mass that was in the metal shaft was attached directly in front of a section of shaft that allowed it to bend out if the way in the exact manner that a wooden shaft would? Would that yield an LD shaft as well?
Supposedly only the last 5 inches of the shaft matter. If you sawed the end off an OB,
stuck it on an 18 oz metal rod, you'd have a working LD cue. A very ugly one.