Predator shaft warpage
- Thread starter RiverCity
- Start date
Chuck, hopefully they will cover it under their warranty, then they will have to replace it. There is nothing that can be done with a warped shaft other than replacement.
Hope things work out, and take care.
I agree replacement is the best solutions..Try to contact the predator about your problem, and hope that they will accept that in terms of their warranty. As far as i know, they have requirements for you to take the warranty.
Hope things will ok..Good Luck
Hope things will ok..Good Luck
A few more details on the shaft would be helpful as far as my offering advice. Has the shaft been turned-down? If so, to what diameter?
There are stipulations to the warranty. Are you the original owner?
Predator shafts are easy to straighten. The method that Ryan offered works quite well. This is an instance where you DO want to try this at home.
There are stipulations to the warranty. Are you the original owner?
Predator shafts are easy to straighten. The method that Ryan offered works quite well. This is an instance where you DO want to try this at home.
When they do that to partials returned, Really pisses me off.
It also really pisses me off, for the price of these shafts and what they cost to manufacture replacement should be the only option in my opinion. The fact is simple, if you can bend the bend out of shaft in most cases it will return, because there is some kind of weakness at the original location of the bend.
Locally, I have a good friend who was is Japanese, he comes from a family of wood workers that go's back centuries. He taught me some time ago how to straighten a non-laminated shaft. According to Mr. Yamamoto all wood has a memory and it will return to its original state. The method will remove warp or bend from a solid Maple Shaft if the reason for the bending was abuse, IE, leaving leaning on a wall, exposing it to heat in the trunk of a car, or by other means of abuse caused by heat or stress. Like Ryan and KJ said first you locate the bend and bend it according to that bend, I also mark the high point with a pencil, next at the same location I use a lightly damp cloth and a Iron on the linen setting at the bend location and then bend it again. Now one thing I have found doing this is that in most cases there is not a single bend, generally it is more of a twist than a true bend. Last, I hang the cue for 48 hour's with the shaft attached to the cues butt, sometimes it takes a couple of treatments to get a shaft straight again, it all depends upon how long the shaft was bowed.
Now I must admit that by having done this several hundred of times it is a crap shoot, in many cases (around 50%) the shaft will warp at the same location again over a period of time.
So like I said above marking and bend a shaft at a high spot is a crap shoot, and some one offering a product for sale should just replace it. However, in the case of valuable Collectible cues trying to remove a bend in this method can increase a cues value and keep it original.
JIMO
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I've always wanted to build some kind of steaming jig for doing that. Box steam for a set time and lock the shaft into some kind of tapered device, possibly with slots all along to speed the drying process. You would maybe have to keep it in there for months to fully cure possibly. If you had cnc you could just cut the taper into two flat boards and clamp it together, and possibly help remove the moisture better?
I thought this was a pretty clever gizmo. I don't own it, and have never tried it.
Mr H
Mr H
nice that is clever
True that, For the price, they are pretty proud of their products. I haven't been proud of their products for a long time.
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Pred needs to move to Canada or Michigan.
Next to the sawmill there.
Cut the pies from the same freaking board.
Next to the sawmill there.
Cut the pies from the same freaking board.
Predator does NOT warranty their shafts against warpage. I found out this bitter truth after discovering my original pre-cat 314 shaft had developed an unbelievable warp.
I always store my cues and shafts in good quality cases, never allow them to be exposed to climate changes, never lean a cue against a wall, always keep them clean and burnished. Never turned down a shaft, etc, etc, etc.
When I discovered that my 314 was warped I contacted Predator, and was told point blank, they do not cover warpage. So, why didnt my first gen Z shaft or my Falcon break shaft or my OB-1 shaft warp in the same case?
Go figure...Predator left quite a distaste in my opinion. They should have at least looked at it and tell my why it warped so bad that you couldn't even put it on a lathe.
:angry::angry::angry:
I always store my cues and shafts in good quality cases, never allow them to be exposed to climate changes, never lean a cue against a wall, always keep them clean and burnished. Never turned down a shaft, etc, etc, etc.
When I discovered that my 314 was warped I contacted Predator, and was told point blank, they do not cover warpage. So, why didnt my first gen Z shaft or my Falcon break shaft or my OB-1 shaft warp in the same case?
Go figure...Predator left quite a distaste in my opinion. They should have at least looked at it and tell my why it warped so bad that you couldn't even put it on a lathe.
:angry::angry::angry:
Well, I had a buddy of mine who had a warped shaft from Predator. He sent it back and they "repaired" it. He said it was fine, but I havent looked at it since he got it back.
Every so often I screw around with different shafts and stuff, so I bought a predator from Neilsons, and within a month or so it warped. I have been bending it, but it seems like it keeps coming back. Its not Joes problem, so I wanted to know what Predator does to "fix" a warp.
Chuck
Every so often I screw around with different shafts and stuff, so I bought a predator from Neilsons, and within a month or so it warped. I have been bending it, but it seems like it keeps coming back. Its not Joes problem, so I wanted to know what Predator does to "fix" a warp.
Chuck
Chuck, I think you have to give this some thought, why would a laminated shaft constructed from pie segments warp in the first place, the wood is stress relieved as part of the lamination process?
Over the years I have seen a number of problems with Predator shafts. I have seen them split along seams / laminated segments, I have seen them bored off center from the ferrule down, and I have seen them break from the collar up. In every case I have seen, the laminated sections ( Pie Shaped Sections) were not equal, this could be caused by turning out an existing wobble, it could have been caused by being turned between non-true centers, or by other problems. However, when this occurs it creates a weakness at that location which will cause a wobble, split, or a complete failure over time due to this weakness.
JIMO
Well, out of all of the cue manufacturers in the world and all of the hundreds upon hundreds of cue makers, I only know of 2 or three who do guarantee their shafts not to warp and those two or three make you jump through hoops and other obstacles which end up costing more than they have tied up in a replacement shaft. You can't know what is going to happen to the shaft once it leaves the shop. If it warped in a week or two after you received it it would be one thing but after a short period of time you're on your own.
Dick