I know that some people have the luxe of having a climate and humidity controlled room. Others use the dipping in Nelsonite technique.
Sherm:
Most top cuemakers use both in the U.S.
Tom said:
But I believe that the best way to dry wood is still the way it was done untill the beginning of last century... Air dry it!
Sherm:
Yes, this is done first, even with the other techniques in place.
Tom said:
The tension (stress) built up in a piece of wood can only go away if you expose the wood to the natural conditions of Mother Nature. Leave the pieces exposed to the cold and humidity of winters, the heat and drought of the summers... The wood will expand, shrink, expand and shrink again for a certain time. After a while (may be a few months, or a few years) the wood doesn't shrink or expand anymore.
Sherm:
I don't know about this part I believe that wood will continue to move to a certain extent. Strees relief, IMHO, must be done with incremental turning. The fibers in the wood in the wood run lengthwise and each strand can have different tensions. As you peel off the outer layer, by incremental turning, you allow the grain to pull more on one side than the other. If you visualize the wood as strandulated something like a muscle. Some strands are under more tension than others. If the force is greater on one side than the other, movement occurs, like a di-electric strip in a thermostat.
Tom said:
It's not the moisture in the wood wich is the cause of warping, but the resin. The resin has to harden out to make that piece of wood stable.
The way it was done in the southern parts of Europe: Italy, Spain, mediterranean part of France, was to cut down the trees in the old moon period wih is only one or two days per moon cycle (the best was the winter old moon).
Apparently, the moon has a big influence on the sap and resin levels in the trees as the gravity of the moon reacts on the earth, and thus the trees.
Then, the logs would be stripped from their bark and thrown into the cold springs. The water of the streaming spring would make the logs sink, and after the sap has been washed out of the logs (takes 8 to 14 months), they would start to flote again.
The logs were then removed from tthe springs and put into big caves so they could air dry.
Two seasons later, that wood was quarter sawn and would never move again.
I've seen houses made out of oak wich was dried that way and were built in the third of fourth century a.d.
They still stand as straight as new build houses...
Maybe that's why old growth wood is the most ideal wood to make shafts with in these times, when the only wood we can get legally is plantation wood. The only point to refuse to use the wood might be the color and sugar as almost every client wants clear snow-white shafts.
But a big contreversy is that they adore the old school cues like the Balabushka's, Szamboti's...etc.
Those cuemakers were not concerned about a little bit of sugar or brown spots in the wood.
It might be a very good idea to reeducate the clients by telling them the truth about shaft wood and telling them that the whitest and clearest shaft is not by definition the best hitting shaft.
Sherm replied: You have some good points.
I think we have Bob Meucci to thank/blame for this situation! He was the one who started using the softer whiter shaft woods to begin with and convinced the sheep that it was better! He had the most aggressive advertizing campaign in the history of pool, until Predator came along! (That's another story altogether) It's amazing to me how much influence advertizing actually has on the buying public! They are like sheep! It took a decade before some people started realizing that the Meucci's were like Bic lighters! Disposable cues! The first time I met Bob, I stopped by his booth at a BCA trade show in the 80's. David Howard and I were very good friends and I was supposed to meet him to go out and have lunch. David was a player rep of Meucci's and introduced me to Bob. I'd wondered why he used the ferrule material he was using, for quite some time, and could not resist asking him, when I had him face to face. He looked me right in the eye and said "Sherm, I don't want to build cues that last forever! You can't make any money doing that! If they don't wear out, people won't buy new ones!" He may have been speaking half in jest, because a few years later he was claiming his cues had "ZERO DEFLECTION" due to the shaft taper and ferrule he used. He used to get hot at David when he sent shafts to me to have good ferrules installed! lol
Tom Said:
Anyway, turning the wood down with a few tenths of inches every so many weeks or months can accelerate the process. And I don't think that maple has to dry for longer than 18 months, if cut and sawn properly (quarter sawn).
Sherm replied:
I'm sure you mis-spoke here. "A few tenths of an inch"... over 1/4 of an inch in a pass?
A while back there was a thread in one of the forums regarding the importance of shaftwood being quartersawn. I've always bought in to the theory that shaftwood had to be quartersawn and had always used blanks that were purported to have been quartersawn. After reading that thread, I'm not so sure! I don't know an easy way to diagram this for a forum, but if you draw 2 circles with growth rings inside. Quarter one of them and slab the other, then draw a bunch of small circles to represent the dowells. The grain lines in the shafts are identical. I'm beginning to wonder if this wasn't just a woodworking principle, originally associated with furniture building and crafts that used mostly flat lumber, that was applied to cuemaking without reasoning it out. Anyone know what difference it could really make, when the wood is cut into dowells?? From the diagrams I've seen, I can't tell how it would make any difference at all, but I'd love for someone to explain otherwise!
Sherm
