Thank you. Food for thought.
Perhaps that is why I tend to like Skip Weston's taper. It stays fairly straight from the joint about 4 or 5 inches (very thick). Then dips down fairly quickly in an S turn. Then very gradual taper to the tip. It seems to have be fairly rigid, yet has that gradual taper through the stroke area that I like.
Thanks everyone for the comments thus far! :thumbup:
Hi,
I think what your are describing on Skip's cues is a parabolic curve into a modern pro taper climb at the end similar to the Omega DPK Cues. I just reconditioned a couple of Mike Bender shafts at my shop and he also has a killer stiff hitting shaft taper design.
There is a million variations and permutations of this geometry or any other shaft taper and each cue maker plots his taper bar for his own specific profile. Eric is absolutely correct about the density playing just as much a factor as the geometry. So having 4.0 oz or better at 13mm for example would bring out the best situation for the stiff hit. Shaft taper and quality of the shaft wood are the most important elements of any playing cue.
I am a firm believer of this approach, the parabolic end is usually from about the joint to 15" to 16" to form a stiff spine contour and then it graduates to a 13MM tip end but there is no standard or road map. IMO this configuration allows the player to put more english to the cue ball with less tip widths of english. Or better said, you can hit closer to center ball when you want to use side english.
One of the good features of the pro taper is that there is a climb through the bridge area and if you are using a closed bridge, the cue shaft become tighter in that bridge which actually makes the stroke alignment more accurate. Many times you will observe a player with a real skinny shaft within a closed bridge and the cue is only interfacing the lower part of the finger bridge and because it is not encircled with the finger flesh and it is essentially an open bridge. The climb through the bridge zone is a real plus if understood and used properly.
If you view Willie Mosconi's bridge you will notice how tight his forefinger encircles the shaft through the entire stroke.
My partner and mentor Mr. Ray Hernandez is a retired Tool & Die engineer and was the last guy to build cues in Waconda in the Omega Shop. Ray is a good one pocket player and fell in love with Omega's taper. When we built our taper bar we used the Omega Shaft as our "Start Datum" and took a slight amount of the parabolic taper out in the 1st 16 inches downstream of the joint and then plotted the pro contour to the tip.
Ray plotted way over 1000 vector points on Auto Cad to create the G-Code to mill our aluminum bar so that out taper was not just a random contour. It was specifically designed to exceed the stiff hit of the Omega Design because he extrapolated the spine geometry in that direction and the CNC interpreter program quantized the vector points to create the curve.
I can see you are high on Ship's shaft contour and I think what Neil was saying about the snooker cue taper hits on this concept but at an outside end of an envelope because to the snooker cue player's preference. Tony has also explained how he has basically done what we did in our shop only he took a little stiffness out as that is his and many other people's preferences.
Disclaimer: I am not against open bridges, skinny shafts or other shaft designs and don't want to get anyone pissed off because they like something else. Efron Rayes's preference is at the other end of the spectrum and he plays with a 11MM shafts and a soft tip. He is the Magician.:bow-down:
Rick G
:grin:
