In an effort to minimize expense, but make my Break Cue a bit more playable I have been trying different combinations of weight, shafts and tips. The Cue itself is a Falcon jump/break, originally owned by former WPBA player Jean Vaillancourt. I started using the cue in about 2000, then took about a 12 leave of absence and have now returned to the game in late 2015. Using different shafts, I found the best results were using a TAOM tip, but the shaft seemed somewhat unstable and flexed a lot. I figured it was due to the tapper. I started looking at the shaft on my Hanshew Jump Cue, figured the tapper was better for Breaking, the extra weight of Purple Heart intrigued me as well. So I went online to find a cue maker that could produce a shaft. Of the 12 emails I sent out, I got 2 reply’s within the week. Using only email communication, William Haskins at East Coast Custom Cues produced a Purple Heart break shaft to my specs. (5/16 14 joint, black ring, one-piece ferrule/tip) Within 4 days he sent me the shaft. The difference has been amazing. First off the one-piece tip/ferrule hits very hard. The stiffness of the Purple Heart and the tapper makes for a very stable hit, no flex, no vibration. To me this equates to better efficiency. The heavier shaft has shifted the weight forward, helping me in keeping the tip moving down through impact. The weight of the original Falcon shaft with a Taom tip was 3.55, the weight of the purple heart shaft is 4.3, this make the cue just under 20.5 over-all. I may remove some weight from the back to get under 20. We’ll see how this works for now. For now the $150 of the shaft might be my solution without spending $500 on a Mezz or Predator. For the record, Summit Cue was the other that responded, but wanted me to ship the butt to them to match, I figured that would take longer than I really wanted. Thanks to William Haskins for the extremely quick turn around.
New Break shaft for an old break cue.
- Thread starter BrianaBrown13
- Start date
Could've just bought an OB break shaft and called it a day.
Not really, they responded with their normal email flyer selling full cues. and they don't offer a Purple Heart shaft. I wanted something to on the cue I have because I can modify the weight and experiment with it. Somewhere down the line I might end up going to a new break cue, and would consider them then.
If you decide to get another break shaft at some point we would be happy to sell you an OB break shaft that will fit on your Falcon. Either our control break shaft or our speed break shaft. Both are available to fit on your Falcon (guessing you have a 5/16x14?).