Holy mackerel, That had to be a hell of a surprise. No injuries I hope. Now I understand why it's called a Gun Drill!
Reduce cue weight by drilling out wood?
- Thread starter VTEC John
- Start date
Coos Cues
Coos Cues
I don't like to do major modification work on customer's cues. For that very reason of not knowing the construction.
These were my own new cues that I wasn't happy with either the overall weight or the balance point being too rearward. Piss poor planning was the root cause usually by using too heavy of a core wood or handle wood. This is why I always leave my rounds as large as possible when coring them, even for forearms I start with a big round knowing I'm going to remove most of it when tapering.
Since they are full cored my process was to gun drill out the heavier .800" handle core wood like jatoba or PH and replace it with a lighter wood like light hickory or padauk. Just recore the core. I was shooting for a half ounce and in order to do this I calculated I needed to replace about 13 inches of Jatoba. This brought me dangerously close to the A joint but it's a solid core up until there where it get's thinner in the forearm as it's stepped. So drilling an .800 core with a .681" gun drill seemed safe as long as it was going straight but it wasn't in this case. Still not exactly sure what happened. I was not happy as the cue was basically complete by then. But I didn't like the weight distribution.
Coos Cues
Coos Cues
The part that broke was inside the spindle of my lathe so it didn't go far. I was coring a piece of cocobolo one time and it exploded in there and broke my gun drill. I was coring too fast that time. I went to using my tailstock and not my carriage feed after that so I can feel what's going on. It's always a learning event.
John brought his cue by a couple weeks ago. It was a simple one piece bacote with a thick bumper held in with a screw. I had a 0.650 in. ribbed replacement bumper. The original bumper and screw was 0.2 heavier than the replacement bumper so it only needed to shed 0.43 oz. I bored a 5/8 x 1 inch starter hole and drilled a 5/8 hole ~4 inches deep. The opening was counterbored for a very snug bumper fit. Final weight loss was 0.64 oz.
Cool, I wonder if you found a wood density chart and did the math if it would have been a predictable result? This is always an interesting topic.
Some wood is very heavy and if you get rid of some you will have a lighter cue. some more than others. I got laughed at about 18 or so years ago on this very sight for suggesting to a guy who was looking for a way to make his cue longer. I said have a cue maker make a piece that has fits between the but and shaft with whatever thread joint you have. You should have heard the oh my got the feel of the hit the balance point oh my god it's a pool cue don't mess with it shit I took. I should have patented that one eh? How did you ever get the guts to bore it out 4 inches?? MY god you are daring! Lol
Some wood is very heavy and if you get rid of some you will have a lighter cue. some more than others. I got laughed at about 18 or so years ago on this very sight for suggesting to a guy who was looking for a way to make his cue longer. I said have a cue maker make a piece that has fits between the but and shaft with whatever thread joint you have. You should have heard the oh my got the feel of the hit the balance point oh my god it's a pool cue don't mess with it shit I took. I should have patented that one eh? How did you ever get the guts to bore it out 4 inches?? MY god you are daring! Lol
I love the smell of bocote shavings!
I have a spreadsheet to calculate the effect of hogging out a cue. I don't use it much after getting Kelly's (far superior) CueBalance program.
You should have patented your cue lengthening idea.
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Joe Sanko made this a long time ago ( late 90s to earlly 2000s) He was making them as a jump handle. I had him thin it out and thread both ends. I was using it as a mid cue extension at the time. I bought it at SBE and he only sold there for a couple years.
