Shaft quality

[8onthebreak]

What does a "great" shaft look like? What do cue makers look for in the wood?
How can you tell which shaft will play better...(wood-wise) by looking at it?
I have shafts with dark rings, some with light rings, some with no rings at all...
It seems that the real great cue makers shafts seem to have a more noticeable rings in the shafts, and in the cheap cues, I see no rings at all?

Is there something to it?

Weight?

Sound?

Any SIMPLE tests that a person can do to test a shaft for the quality of the wood? Photos would be great.

We're talking WOOD ONLY in this post please, we all know that taper, ferrule, tip, joint etc affect quality of the hit.

 

[Chopdoc]

In cheap cues you see no rings?

What are you calling rings? I can only assume you mean growth rings. I've never seen a cue shaft with no rings.

Anyway, this has been addressed (and argued) in the cue makers forum. You can find plenty on it there.





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[8onthebreak]

In cheap cues you see no rings?

What are you calling rings? I can only assume you mean growth rings. I've never seen a cue shaft with no rings.

Anyway, this has been addressed (and argued) in the cue makers forum. You can find plenty on it there.
.

I did look in the cue makers forum...I guess I didn't understand exactly how the grain runs...I see now, I also found a very entertaining post about shaft wood, it's origin, tone, etc...needed some beer and popcorn! Lol

What I'm seeing is the growth rings...and on the better shafts, there are more and tighter...so you see circles on the SIDE of the shaft...where the taper crosses in and out of the growth rings.

It's more prominent because there's more rings and they're tighter on the good shafts. Question answered. Thanks