Seasoned Shafts?

JB Cases

JB Cases

www.jbcases.com
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So I live in China and here the pool rooms all use two piece cues for their house cues.

Often I can find a cue that hits pretty good if I need to. So tonight I was looking at a bunch of cues that were getting new tips installed and I was rolling shafts out of curiosity. Most of the shafts were well played and dead straight.

So I got to wondering if there would ever be a market for seasoned - meaning well played - shaft blanks?

I know Jerry Franklin reportedly said that a shaft should never be cleaned by sanding but only lightly wiped down and a tiny bit of oil applied. Seems to me that these shafts in the pool rooms here have thousand of hours on them and if they are straight after all that then they are likely to stay straight.

So is there a market for shafts that are well used but dead straight? Which can of course be modified to fit any joint type.

Or is too weird?
 
I'm guessing no, since they are at final size, and a CM won't have any material to work with and implement his own taper. Just not worth it since good maple is plentiful.
 
EightballJunkie said:
Well, some have been known to "salvage" shafts from older one-piece cues - the rational sometimes being if they didn't warp over years, they probably never will.

I've done it. I came accross a few old one-piece BBCs recently and one had a remarkably straight shaft, I decided to salvage it. It's pretty ugly though, darkish with a few little pebble sized birdseyes and a light curl - I'll probably keep it for myself since I'm sure no one else will want it :grin:

As to your specific question; used shafts sell all the time so there is a market.

Will people jump at the chance to buy shafts like you describe - maybe, depending on the value proposition and price point.

Keep in mind, "ready to go" production shafts can be purchased on ebay for about $30 and up new - it would be pretty hard to compete.
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I know that new shafts range in price from $30ish to over $200 depending on who it is. Bill Stroud told me he rejected 75% of the shaft wood he bought and he was buying the top grade to begin with. As as result he charged $375 a shaft.

I was thinking the proposition for value is the fact that they are all broken in so to speak. Probably too much effort and "eww" factor to make it worthwhile. Just another JB-idea whose wings are too short to fly :-)
 
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