Mine sure does. Put it in my hand(s) and poof - it's back it it's old self again.:smile:
New shaft break in ?
- Thread starter measureman
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Mine sure does. Put it in my hand(s) and poof - it's back it it's old self again.:smile:
Yes, it's a simple oscilloscope test that's been done hundreds of times by engineers, guitar builders and home enthusiasts. Tighter bass notes and better balance between bass/midrange/treble are the most frequent benefits. Volume is rarely a factor. The first change occurs after only 20 hours of playing time as the wood joints settle into place due to the vibrations. The next change occurs between 800-1200 hours.
Granted, a guitar has a lot more moving parts and wood-to-wood joints than a pool cue, but the concept is the same. In a pool cue the changes are probably so small you'd never notice them -- that's why I said if the OP didn't like the cue now, he won't like it later (same with guitars -- bad doesn't become good; but good can become great).
I can kind of see that the more you play with it the wood fibers may compress a little but not enough to notice.
Include a guitar and a "learn guitar" book. Maybe your shaft will come out knowing how to play the guitar.
How do you go about proving or disproving such things?
I've been fixing, restoring, buying, selling, playing and listening to acoustic musical instruments at a professional level for about 35 years now. There is no doubt in any knowledgeable person's mind that these things not only improve in tone with long playing, they improve considerably.
I used to be a violin bow maker back when I could still get the right wood. I always made them a bit too stiff and strong because I knew they would limber up in time. When I made a custom bow, the player always seemed to like it well enough when new. However, after a few years of serious playing, they usually fell deeply in love with it because the wood fibers had relaxed, making the bow more supple and sensitive to the players fingers. If I started out with a very supple bow, in a few years it would be mushy feeling and not a good player at all.
I still have the last bow I made some ten years ago. I'm not much of a player and hardly ever get it out because of my advanced carpal tunnel. It has barely been played, and it feels as stiff as the day I made it. All of my older bows feel much looser and more limber than this one does. They also produce a warmer and more focused tone. This I know because I still service them with new hair and necessary repairs when asked.
Now, when it comes to cues I cannot say. It does seem plausible to me, though, that the feel/sound of the hit will change somewhat over time. Whether that change is good or bad is for each individual to decide. Some people like a loud hit, some like a muffled hit. I can't picture anything affecting the cue's ability to pocket balls, but the feedback gotten from the cue seems likely to change over time.
Not just dreadnoughts, all the old Martins sound best... provided they have been played hard.
I'm a big fan of smaller Martins, like the 00 and 00 size ones. I also appreciate the Brazilian rosewood models, but I personally prefer to play on 00-18s and 000-18s (mahogany back and sides with spruce top). I went into a music store once and found what I considered to be the Holy Grail for me - a 1952 Martin 00-18.... with the original tags still on it and looking virtually unplayed. I was born in '52, so this was a pretty exciting find. I was ready to drop the $600 on it right there until I tuned it up and played on it.
Deader than a doornail. :frown:
I happen to think any solid wood guitar (plywood guitars never get better IMHO) improves the more you play it, up to a point, anyway. I have had old Stellas and Harmony's that were a delight to play on, even though they were the cheapest of the cheap back in the day. Now, did they sound good like a Martin, or an old Gibson J-200 or Nick Lucas model? Not in a million years. But those beat-to-shit old boxes can sing their own song if you take the time to coax it out of them. :wink:
There is no parallel between a pool cue and a musical instrument.
Guitars, violins, etc are complex constructions of wood, glue and a variety of hardware. Parts and peices are under tension and many other stresses. The tone changes in these instruments because these tensions and stresses are constantly changing over the life of the piece.
None of this exists in a wood cue shaft.
Guitars, violins, etc are complex constructions of wood, glue and a variety of hardware. Parts and peices are under tension and many other stresses. The tone changes in these instruments because these tensions and stresses are constantly changing over the life of the piece.
None of this exists in a wood cue shaft.
it is true. resonance increases as the wood ages because it loses moisture which allows for longer vibration and thus a louder one. moisture in wood somehow "muffles" the sound. it's actually one of the reasons why most older guitars (especially electric) sell for a higher price. i dont have "proof" per se, but this video mentions the same idea.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ic7aMRiAfo
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The wood fibers get more compacted from tons of use of hitting phenolic cue balls. I'm not really sure if this theory is true but I have heard it before, also have heard a shaft will get stiffer from the chalk and dirt build up in the wood grain after so much use.
I agree about the tensions put into the instrument being released by playing, but this happens relatively soon in the life of the instrument. Things stabilize quickly with 150 lbs or so of string tension constantly pulling on the body. The major tonal changes happen over years, way after the initial tension of construction is gone.
And what about the changes in the bows that I mentioned? Yes, there is some tension from the hair, but not so much as a guitar, or even a violin. It's the millions of bow strokes flexing the stick back and forth over and over again. Any engineer will tell you that this constant bending action leads to fatigue and, eventually, failure. Cue shafts flex rapidly with every stroke, violently so with power strokes. The densest maple is way softer than the pernambuco wood that bows are made from. Why shouldn't they get fatigued even easier?
Uh, I was kinda speaking rhetorically. FWIW I used to work in a research setting, so I am well-versed in experimental design.
But you made my point for me with the above comment, so I see that we agree on the subject.:wink:
I'll agree that wood changes over time, a little. You don't really need the guitar stuff to prove that theory.
Break a branch off a young tree... even if it's not green, it may flex and be tough to snap. Give it a year or three and it dries out and becomes more brittle, then it snaps easily. Wood swells and shrinks based on time and exposure to heat or moisture. I'm sure we've all seen inlays pop out, or a back door that used to swing smoothly but now is a pain the ass to close.
The question is, does the wood changing affect how you personally perform with the cue? If it does, the change is so subtle and so gradual you'd have a hard time measuring it. Did that ball deflect 3% less because of wood 'curing'? Or because I hit it a quarter millimeter to the left? Or is it in my head and it deflected exactly the way it was supposed to?
It doesn't pass the straight face test... if someone tells you they missed the shot because they didn't give the shaft time to break in, you've gotta laugh in their face.
The guitar stuff is OT but interesting. Notes are simply vibrations per second. An A is 440 vibrations per second (or 220, 880, and so on). This is easily measured. Probably as wood becomes more dry and brittle, or the finish hardens, it DOES affect how rapidly the whole thing vibrates and echoes your plucked string. But you'd simply tweak your tuning until the strings vibrate at the right frequency.
There are other subtle things like the 'attack' and so on, but I'd think that has much more to do with the strings generating the sound than the hollow wooden box amplifying them. A lot of musical terms are fuzzy and hard to measure scientifically. What's "tight" or "more balanced" mean? Or "warm"? Probably some of this is more the indian than the arrow, just like in pool.
Break a branch off a young tree... even if it's not green, it may flex and be tough to snap. Give it a year or three and it dries out and becomes more brittle, then it snaps easily. Wood swells and shrinks based on time and exposure to heat or moisture. I'm sure we've all seen inlays pop out, or a back door that used to swing smoothly but now is a pain the ass to close.
The question is, does the wood changing affect how you personally perform with the cue? If it does, the change is so subtle and so gradual you'd have a hard time measuring it. Did that ball deflect 3% less because of wood 'curing'? Or because I hit it a quarter millimeter to the left? Or is it in my head and it deflected exactly the way it was supposed to?
It doesn't pass the straight face test... if someone tells you they missed the shot because they didn't give the shaft time to break in, you've gotta laugh in their face.
The guitar stuff is OT but interesting. Notes are simply vibrations per second. An A is 440 vibrations per second (or 220, 880, and so on). This is easily measured. Probably as wood becomes more dry and brittle, or the finish hardens, it DOES affect how rapidly the whole thing vibrates and echoes your plucked string. But you'd simply tweak your tuning until the strings vibrate at the right frequency.
There are other subtle things like the 'attack' and so on, but I'd think that has much more to do with the strings generating the sound than the hollow wooden box amplifying them. A lot of musical terms are fuzzy and hard to measure scientifically. What's "tight" or "more balanced" mean? Or "warm"? Probably some of this is more the indian than the arrow, just like in pool.
I didn't state it's the vibrations from WWII that caused it, it's the aging of the finish. The vibrations allegedly changing the tone of the instrument came about as the result of a study by a magazine.
As far as attesting to the guitar I made, I was comparing professional recordings made, when it was built and 15 years later. I'm afraid I don't have any measurements for you as that's not my area of expertise and we weren't preparing to have an internet argument - only to enjoy the music.
I recognize that one's ears change over time due to the aging process, and conditions experienced. You apparently don't believe the same could be true of a wooden object despite the fact that it is also of organic material, albeit less affected by conditions that human tissue.
You are certainly entitled to your opinion which clearly doesn't agree with my own. Your snarky answer, however, leads me to believe that when disagreeing with others, you find it necessary to denigrate what they say by either misstating it or utilizing sarcasm. That is, of course, your right to do so.
Good day, sir.
Brian in VA
That is damn funny... but quite true.
Very good questions that, unfortunately, lie outside the scope of a pool forum.
Yes, it is very much the Indian. I've been playing acoustic blues at a high level for over 40 years (Jeez, I sound like English now), and I can say for sure that most of my tone is in my fingers. There is a saying about violin playing, "A great player carries his tone with him". That means that, Stradivaris and Guarneris aside, the violinist can bring forth his basic sound on any well-made and set up box.
However, does that mean that Joshua Bell would just as soon play on an exact copy of his Stradivarius as he would on the real one, or that the audience gets no benefit from him playing on the ancient masterpiece? There IS a difference, and top players pay millions to have this small advantage in tonal flexibility and beauty.
All I know is that this old Indian has fixed thousands of guitars, basses, mandolins, violins, cellos. I have had hundreds of old Martins in my hands, and have dozens of them apart on my bench for repair and restoration. I play well enough to know the difference, and I prefer the old ones to the new ones 10 to 1. There are plenty of guys out there making Martin clones, some of the them are using wood that actually came from the Martin factory decades ago, so it's plenty seasoned. They do everything in their power to duplicate the old measurements, glues, finishes, methods, etc. They sound great, but they don't yet have that fat old sound that players love so much.
I can't quantify the changes that occur, but they are very apparent when you have an old guitar in your hands, at least if you can play well enough. It's all FM. A F*cking Mystery.
So this thread has gone to a discusson on guitars and violin bows.
Do I have to put guitar strings on my shaft and check the tonal qualities to get it back on track? :thumbup:
Do I have to put guitar strings on my shaft and check the tonal qualities to get it back on track? :thumbup: