Cory, It's not that at all! I'm a one man shop, custom cuemaker. Quite frankly, I've never considered that they could be hurting anyone's business, because I have trouble keeping up with all the work I have, as it is! But now that you bring it up, I guess that there are a lot of people who are hurt by their marketing. There's only so much expendable income to be divided up among the industry. When you have a product that "catches on" primarily due to marketing, and the product is IMHO, marketed with a retail price, twice it's value, it can have an adverse affect on the industry as a whole! But this something I've never considered until you brought it up.
My contention is based upon 25-30 years experience as a cuesmith and pool player. First off, I don't subscribe to the school of thought that the ultra low deflection shafts are necessary or even better! ALL shafts have some deflection that must be compensated for. This should be done in a subconscious manner. If you have to consciously make these adjustments, the shaft isn't going to help! Second, Pool players have been getting along fine for quite a while with solid shafts. Some of them could even run out! In this day of technology, it seems we are always looking for a gimmick to take the place of old fashioned practice! Meucci started with this line of BS back in the 80's when he used to claim his cues had ZERO DEFLECTION! His proof at the time was that David Howard and Jimmy Rempe could shoot the cueball exactly where they planned to! lol I think we all know that with a little adjustment, any of the top pro's, will adjust to about any cue, within reason! OK, it did take Earl about a year to get the hang of the cuetec, and Efren's game suffered when he tried to play with the Meucci. Earl overcame the hurdle and eventually got at least most of his game back, Efren decided it wasn't worth the effort and went back to what he was used to, because he gambled regularly and could not wait til his subconcious reprogrammed itself! Third and the main reason I dislike the Predator is from a cuesmith's standpoint. I know for a fact that the shaft wood I use is a much better grade and is much denser and harder than the wood used in the predator. I can easily tell this when I have to clean and remove the knicks from one! Often the segments seem to be of a different hardness also. I have seen many times where a dent will cross a glue joint and it is sort of deeper on one segment than the adjoining one. One must be very careful when removing dents fron the Predator shaft! As I mentioned before, the glue is only rated to 140 deg F. Steaming the dent out is not an option! Even burnishing the shaft will bring the temp way over 140 deg. This may cause problems later, even if they don't show up at the time of repair. The ferrules also suck, IMHO! My old partner Dickie, was cleaning one once and got it too hot. It sagged like a limp d**k! He pushed it back into place and held it til it cooled, and it sort of stayed that way! lol In short, I do not think that the trade off's in durability, reliability and inferior materials, are offset by slightly less deflection!
Nothing personal. I know lots of people who have bought in to the hype! It's just that I've been working on cues, too long, to believe they are an improvement! I'm off my soap box!
Just more hot air!
Sherm
