i have an extra regular maple shaft and was wondering if i could chuck it up, take the tip off and bore, say quarter inch dia hole about, say 4 inches deep, fill it with "foam", put on a capped ferrle and then a tip and thus make a "lower deflection" shaft? this would be for my use only.
shaft question
- Thread starter Jcat
- Start date
Of course you can. Predator has a patent on their shaft so that would be the only thing to worry about.
Predator drills a two step hole. The bottom 3" is 1/4" and the top 2" inches is 5/16. The foam is just at the top 1/4" and appears to be to keep any dirt out of the hole while working on the shaft.
You will probably lose about 1/2" in length because you must cut a tenon into the last 1/2" of shaft and slide the ferrule over it.
Well as long as you are not trying to make the shaft for sale the patent is nothing to worry about. And as for loosing length you can always just replace the maple tenon..
Wouldn't replacing the maple tenon reduce the effectiveness of the shaft by adding weight that you had just removed??
Ok so just as a test I took a 8" scrap pieece of maple and cut a 1" long x 5/16 tennon on the wood and weighted it. It came in at 49 grams.Then I drilled a 5/16 hole x 4" deep and replace the tonnon with a 2" x 5/16 plug as if I were going to replace the tennon on a cue and weight the piece again. This time it came in at 46 grams. So just to see how much difference a 6" deep hole would make I drilled it out to 6" and weighted everything again. This time its down to 44 grams. So with all that being said I dont know how much the foam would weight but with out the foam I was able to reduce the weight of the wood atleast 3 grams and at most 5 grams with out changing the length of the cue.
I don't believe that even an O'haus quad-beam would be able to accurately tell you how much the amount of foam in a Predator shaft weighs.
The reason being, the 'amount of foam' consists of a foam disc 1/4" in diameter and 1/8" thick, which is 90% air.
Thank you for your efforts Joe, you should carry your test at least one step further.
A penny weighs 3gm. Tape a penny to the ferrule of your cue and notice the increased deflection. Now, tape two. Your results may vary.
The reason being, the 'amount of foam' consists of a foam disc 1/4" in diameter and 1/8" thick, which is 90% air.
Thank you for your efforts Joe, you should carry your test at least one step further.
A penny weighs 3gm. Tape a penny to the ferrule of your cue and notice the increased deflection. Now, tape two. Your results may vary.
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