Repair customer craziness...

Tommy-D

Tommy-D

World's best B player...
Silver Member
> I took in a repair tonight that was the result of near-abuse,and someone else's incompetence. The cue was a Jerico Stinger,and I have no idea what he did to tear it up to start with,but he spent almost an hour trying to explain it over the phone,even after I told him twice "bring it to me and I'll tell you the deal". Apparently these are made somewhat similar to Varney's ferrule construction,where a canvas or phenolic resin tip is threaded down into the ferrule,in this case the tip was actually threaded into the tenon. He said he was jumping balls with it and the tip cracked in half along the face,leaving part of the tip intact and the threaded section. He took it to a guy his friend recommended and he tore it up worse. Instead of just cutting it off and facing the ferrule,he used a die grinder and ground it away,and glued on a phenolic tip,but didn't even try to clean the ferrule up afterwards,claiming he didn't want to mess with the insanely thick sprayed finish on the wood. It felt like a CueTec SST does when new.


He took it to the poolroom and broke 3-4 racks and jumped a few balls,and the ferrule completely came loose and went flying,an obvious complete glue failure,and a surprise to me as well,thinking a knowledgable cuemaker like Jerry Powers would thread them on. Luckily,the ferrule survived and the tenon was undamaged. It took a while to convince the customer that the phenolic tip will be impossible to save if I reinstall the original ferrule,because the tenon is longer than the ferrule would suggest. I couldn't even get the ferrule to bottom out on the shoulder with the tip intact,so I cut it off. I got the ferrule back on,and actually had to take a light cut and sand it back to flush,I have no idea how the ferrule was oversized to begin with,but it was. I also discovered that the oddball joint pin they use is slightly undersized 3/8-16 rod turned down to slide into the unthreaded part of the insert. I installed the next to last black Future tip I had because I don't have any phenolic other than a slab of it,and we went to experiment with it. I had no problems,but on the 2nd jump,the tip came off. I took it back to the house and hooked him up with one of my "abused" Triangles,and we went back out to experiment. He complained that it just wasn't as "easy" to jump balls as it should have been,while we're using a Valley bar ball on a thin,Simonis-type cloth. He didn't understand "well of course it isn't" either. The truth is,this guy pretty much CAN'T jump without phenolic,and looked at me funny when I suggested that maybe too many players use the ease of phenolic to compensate for a lack of quality fundamentals.

The guy that did the original hacking on this shaft sent a text message to the owner and said that it wasn't his problem,because the glue failure wasn't his fault,the lathe he used "never got over 2000 RPM,so it couldn't have gotten hot". His name is Zach Pooler. Tommy D.
 
Last edited:
I believe Jerry Powers guarantees the tip for life. Why didn't the guy send it back to him to begin with?

JMO
Craig
 
Send it to me if you like. I can fix it to look original except with better parts. If I fix it once he'll have no further issues.;)
 
i don't know you or the customer,but as an unbiased observer,i don't think it is your place as a cue repairman to criticize your customer's jumping prowess or his alleged abuse.in fact you basically sriticize anyone who uses phenolic or G-10 or hard like substance for jumping,and you say this individual,:pretty much CAN'T jump without phenolic".i jump with an X-Breaker and they jump very well.i don't use leather b/c i don't need to and neither does your customer.you sound like you are angry maybe b/c you couldn't fix it properly or something.anyway i just don't think it is right for you to criticize the guy if he is a customer of yours.if he reads your thread,he probably won't be a customer of yours anymore.
 
> The only phenolics I've seen broken were done as a result of jamming the tip into the cloth trying to shaft-jump a ball. This guy can't draw his ball 5 feet,so obviously his stroke needs work. It doesn't take a genius to figure that out. I don't have a problem with people using ANY of the synthetic tips available to make it "easier" to jump,but usually the people that use these can jump a ball to start with,and aren't using the ease of those materials as a "crutch". He's part of the 'instant gratification" generation,putting the cart before the horse,period. I suggested he send it back to Jerry,and mentioned Varney to him,but he claims to be in "constant action" and can't be without it.


He's called me back twice since I finished the work,saying he likes it more and more,for both breaking and jumping,so I must have done something right. He's also shown it to 5-6 people,and all agreed it looked and felt better than when he got it. Tommy D.
 
Speaking on the player side, I have never been much of a jumper, because I usually try kicking before I will go to a jump Cue, and sometimes they are not allowed, but I do have 2 jumpers. One has a solid phenolic 1pc ferrule/tip, and the other has a phenolic ferrule with a super pro hard tip compressed in a simular way to milks Duds. They both seem to work when you get the feel for either one, but the phenolic tip combo seems to get the cb in the air alittle easier.

For Breaking, and this is after using a phenolic tip combo for a couple of years, I think I would like the phenolic ferrule & super pro hard tip better. A tight threaded, wood to wood, 3/8 pin, in a somewhat lighter weight cue for more speed on the snap seems to work really well with that ferrule & tip setup, and increases cb control for me over the phenolic tips.
This is why for Me personally I'm working on a cue for breaking, and another one for jumping. I could use 2 different shafts with a jump/break combo I suppose, but I've decided to build two seperate cues, each dedicated to either jumping or breaking.

I can't say which are better for what, everyone's different, but from My observations, this is what I've noticed from using them.

With the customers cue. If it came in to me, My first recomendation would be to get original maker to fix, but if I was pushed into It after that, I suppose My solution would be to try & keep it as original as possible in design, even If I had to replace and machine a new ferrule and tip, but if I suspected that a better material could be used as Varney mentioned, then I'd probably go with the stronger material, especially if the customer seems to be hard on cues. This would be assuming the stronger material did'nt alter the feel in a negative way, and the customer was ok with any change should there be one.

Greg
 
Last edited:
Tommy-D said:
> I took in a repair tonight that was the result of near-abuse,and someone else's incompetence. The cue was a Jerico Stinger,and I have no idea what he did to tear it up to start with,but he spent almost an hour trying to explain it over the phone,even after I told him twice "bring it to me and I'll tell you the deal". Apparently these are made somewhat similar to Varney's ferrule construction,where a canvas or phenolic resin tip is threaded down into the ferrule,in this case the tip was actually threaded into the tenon. He said he was jumping balls with it and the tip cracked in half along the face,leaving part of the tip intact and the threaded section. He took it to a guy his friend recommended and he tore it up worse. Instead of just cutting it off and facing the ferrule,he used a die grinder and ground it away,and glued on a phenolic tip,but didn't even try to clean the ferrule up afterwards,claiming he didn't want to mess with the insanely thick sprayed finish on the wood. It felt like a CueTec SST does when new.


He took it to the poolroom and broke 3-4 racks and jumped a few balls,and the ferrule completely came loose and went flying,an obvious complete glue failure,and a surprise to me as well,thinking a knowledgable cuemaker like Jerry Powers would thread them on. Luckily,the ferrule survived and the tenon was undamaged. It took a while to convince the customer that the phenolic tip will be impossible to save if I reinstall the original ferrule,because the tenon is longer than the ferrule would suggest. I couldn't even get the ferrule to bottom out on the shoulder with the tip intact,so I cut it off. I got the ferrule back on,and actually had to take a light cut and sand it back to flush,I have no idea how the ferrule was oversized to begin with,but it was. I also discovered that the oddball joint pin they use is slightly undersized 3/8-16 rod turned down to slide into the unthreaded part of the insert. I installed the next to last black Future tip I had because I don't have any phenolic other than a slab of it,and we went to experiment with it. I had no problems,but on the 2nd jump,the tip came off. I took it back to the house and hooked him up with one of my "abused" Triangles,and we went back out to experiment. He complained that it just wasn't as "easy" to jump balls as it should have been,while we're using a Valley bar ball on a thin,Simonis-type cloth. He didn't understand "well of course it isn't" either. The truth is,this guy pretty much CAN'T jump without phenolic,and looked at me funny when I suggested that maybe too many players use the ease of phenolic to compensate for a lack of quality fundamentals.

The guy that did the original hacking on this shaft sent a text message to the owner and said that it wasn't his problem,because the glue failure wasn't his fault,the lathe he used "never got over 2000 RPM,so it couldn't have gotten hot". His name is Zach Pooler. Tommy D.
Click to expand...

Tommy D, I build custom jump break cues for my customers on a regular basis, along with applying phenolic ferrule tip assembles to cues.

Tommy, the best way I have found to apply jump break ferrule tips is to drill the center of the shaft. In the same manner you would repair a broken tenon, with a 5/16 drill bit approximately 1 1/4th inch. Then take a phenolic rod 2 1/4 th inch long and turn down 1 1/4th inch to .305, thread it, then screw and epoxy it into the shaft. This will leave approximately 1 inch of solid phenolic rod, which can be turned down to the size of the shaft, and have it's exposed end round as the new tip.

Shafts prepared this way will transmit more power than any other phenolic tip or ferrule screwed onto a wood tenon. They do not have the tink sound, and I have been doing this for more than a year with no failure of a shaft, tenon, or ferrule.

Have a great night!!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top