Short Ferrules

Bob Jewett said:
I think it depends on what sort of shots you play. I assume you are referring to the case where there is some kind of pad between the leather tip and a solid wood shaft. My experience with that setup is that practicing fancy shots eventually damages the wood behind the pad.
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I’ve played with shafts that don’t have a ferrule and liked the hit. I’ve never owned one though. Durability was a concern for me. I do like the look of shafts with short ferrules though. I believe the attached pic is of a Samsara Tru shaft, but I’m not sure. I like the idea and look, but I’m not sure a ferrule this small would provide much more protection than no ferrule. Any opinions?
 

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peppersauce said:
I’ve played with shafts that don’t have a ferrule and liked the hit. I’ve never owned one though. Durability was a concern for me. I do like the look of shafts with short ferrules though. I believe the attached pic is of a Samsara Tru shaft, but I’m not sure. I like the idea and look, but I’m not sure a ferrule this small would provide much more protection than no ferrule. Any opinions?
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I've experimented with no ferrule, 1/8" ferrule, 3/16" ferrule, 1/4" ferrule etc....etc... all the way up to 1".

With the shaft taper, length etc...etc.... staying the same, the deflection increases by a large amount as the ferrule gets longer.

As for "protection" from a 1/8" ferrule......yes, even the shortest of ferrules adds stability. What matters more than size of the ferrule is:

What it's made of.....and.....how it's installed.

Bottom line:

Shorter ferrules perform different than long ferrules!

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NOTICE......I said DIFFERENT, not better or worse.

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I'm going to take a wild guess and say most if not all of you think shorter ferrules are a modern trend, maybe lower deflection, whatever.

Here's Willie Hoppe's choice, copyrighted 1941, so I think it's fair to say he used a shorter ferrule way back in the day, lets say about 80 or so years ago. Just some food to fodder over.

All the best,
WW
 

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pt109 said:
I feel the long ferrule was necessary because of ivory..it's relatively fragile compared
to modern materials.
...been playing with half inch for years....uncapped...more wood the better.
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I've had a, 'formula' for my ferrules and tips for many years.

For the ferrule: uncapped 12 mm 1/4"-3/8" long, the wood tendon 6 mm diameter, with 3mm thick walls of ferrule.

For the tip, 12 mm, center of tip height, 5-6 mm. Edge of tip height from top of ferrule, 3 mm. That gives me the curve I like the best on the tip.
 
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I'm the one who played with oldschool maple shafts and traditional 1" ferrules on them that came together with my previous Prather cues. When I started to learn the game 20 years ago I did not hear anything about LD shafts and learned to deal with deflection my shafts had. Once I got interested in cuebuilding two years ago I started to learn all I can about it. Having experience as a player and a coach I knew the importance of practical side of any matter. Learning by doing is one of my favorite principles. So when it comes to the game I try to base my opinions after some practical experience. I'm still a rookie in cuebuilding and have to learn so much more but I'm not in this game and understand I can still learn something about it every day.
Well closer to the theme)... A few years ago I decided to try and build the new playing cue for myself bearing in mind what I want to get at the end. When I worked on the shaft I wanted to get lower deflection then my previous ones ...stiffer and with a good solid hit. I have some great very old hard maple from one of my friends (who is a musician and now my main supplier). So I've decided to experiment a little and build a few shafts out of this maple from the same board but with the slight differences in construction. For the time being I can talk about 3 of them which are ready and tried. Here is a thread for my playing cue and shaft https://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=463154&page=2. Two other shafts are sold already and both buyers are AZ users. Here is a thread with my previous playing cue I've built the LD shaft for https://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=463039&page=2. I have some more cues in the process and once they are ready and tested I will have some more information to share.
Now my conclusion: while the deflection might be so similar for all three shafts I've built and tried the feel of the hit is quite different. The nuances in construction and of course the materials used make a difference in the hit at the end. I was satisfied with all those 3 shafts. Two of them which found their buyers had short tomahawk ferrules with fiber pads going inside c.f. tube with a short tenon. One of them was for 5/16-14 joint i.e. had brass female insert and the other for 3/8-11 joint. Both shafts had very solid and good feel when it comes to the hit but softer then my ferrule less playing shaft which feels stiffer and has a crisper hit. The best part of the hit it does not have that hollow feeling one of the most popular LD shafts among our players have. Just a few days ago my colleaque who is going to the coming EC asked me to change the tip on her shaft. I've put the same tip I use on my shaft and after the job was done just tested how the shaft is playing on my butt. Honestly I would not want to play with such LD shaft which feels that hollow...
I can say after playing two years with my ferrule less shaft and testing the others with shorter ferrules I can not see a reason why to come back to oldschool 1" ferrules when it comes to just normal play. When it comes to durability...well it very much depends on what kind of player you are. If you have a good stroke, use right chalking technique and you have usual preferences as for tip diameter I don't see a problem for using it in normal play. Of course for some fancy power shots, especially when it comes to some big masse shots I've used to practice when participated in Artistic pool EC and WC back then and was so impressed by great Mike Massey... well of course for such use I'll better build another shaft. Otherwise I see no sign of any problem with mine yet after two years of hard use. At the end I can add in my country the most popular billiard game is piramid. The game with the heaviest balls and smallest pockets. The power most players use in normal play is much higher and quess what so many pro players prefer under their tips on their cues and why;).
 

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