pins not straight

whammo57

whammo57

Kim Walker
Silver Member
I make quite a few shafts for local players. I have noticed that about 9 out of 10 of the 5/16-18 or the 5/16-14 pins in cue butts are not straight or they are not concentric.

I put the butt in the lathe and indicate the joint and make it spin true and I can measure a pin run out of .010 in or more.

Has anyone else seen this ???

Kim
 
My mentor told me before install , chuck up pins and see how true they are ,he said some can be tooled a bit but 0.10 maybe o far gone...
 
Yes I have seen it a lot. And when they use normal methods for matching a shaft to one of those butts you wind up with Taper Roll in the shaft.

Taper roll is where the shaft is turned straight and has not warped, but the back few inches where it was matched to the butt are not concentric with the rest of the shaft and causes the shaft to have a wobble when rolled on a table.

Taper roll was much more common on older cues than modern cues, but is still around on new cues also.
 
I made a butt only for a customer, the 5/16-18 pin was horrible. I got the runout to under 1.5 thousands. Im glad I checked the pin before I used it or the guys shaft would have rolled like an inch worm.
 
Most production cue handles have that sort of pin run out in the handle. Only on some well made production or good custom handles , that I see the pin run very close to true.

My get around for this, is what I think Dick Neighbors posted.
When I make a shaft, they are made to take a joint pin insert.
Then I set up the handle, and place a 1 pitch thick plastic shim on the joint face.
Then screw on the shaft pin insert.Turn the handle end of the insert to clean up.
I remove the pin insert and 1 pitch shim, then put a .001 inch thick mylar shim on the handle face and put the pin insert back on. Usually the area that was turned will run within .002 inch of true. Turn the remainder down to suite the bore of the shaft. Align it all up and glue together. I use the steady rest at the tip end, and use the tailstock to keep pressure on the assembly.
The excess glue just runs up the face where the shim is. Wipe clean the out side.
When set unscrew, remove the plastic shim.
 
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