i have a few tools but dont have the space or money for the lathe shop of my dreams. Right now im working on converting a drill for spinning shafts.
The rosewood came in with an 18 pin flat faced phenolic joint at 19oz on the nose with a 3.9oz shaft, with an 18” balance point. This was part of why i decided to experiment with it. The cue i had been using for 15 years had a steel joint with a 14 pin, with closer to a 20” balance point (forward weighted).
when i sent the PTO shaft back, i actually had a kielwood made for her cue by AZBs own
@GBCues. It plays! I also had him plug and tap the rosewood for an extension bumper. Good, affordable work. Recommend.
David gave me a 5 week lead time so i used the keil/rosewood combo in the meantime:
Results of the experiment: I did not like the rear weight. I did not like the rear balance. The kielwood shoots straight as an arrow but juiced the rock significantly less than my ob1+.
i decided to fiddle. i took every drill bit extension in my house and hodge podged them together. after pulling the weight bolt i used a spade bit and slowly started turning by hand to get a feel for the wood. rosewood is hard. once i had the bit set i slowly spun it on the drill about half the length of the weight bolt and then tapped threads in my new hole. I put the weight bolt back in, and measured the balance point. Unchanged. i had removed enough material to lighten up the weight but what i moved forward was not enough to offset the loss in terms of balance.
I did this back and forth for a day or so, scared to go too far. by the the time the cue hit my desired 19” balance point i had basically hollowed out half of the cue. I settled on 18.4oz, figuring half an oz wont matter much and that the change would be good for me in terms of my experimentation.
I loved it. The kielwood already resonates so nicely but when attached to a hollow piece of rosewood it rang like a bell.
You can kind of hear it in this video:
but there is no way to show yall the feeling. i am a fan of haptic feedback, and dislike stiff unresponsive cf. this felt like the opposite of that, yet insanely low squirt.
fast forward five weeks and my cue butt arrives. now i need to get the kiel to fit. some azb searches and discussions with friends led me to believe i could do it. as the rosewood used an 18 pin, i was able to use standard hardware; a bolt in the insert and two jam nuts up against it. i crumpled up foil to use as a heat shield. i used the schmelke maple shaft as practice, first, but did it to both.
I layed out the shaft and propped up my torch. couple minutes and it spun right out:
i happened to have a 5/16-14 schmelke insert with a 7/16-14 install thread that i bought at the same time as the rosewood. i retapped the threads to clean them and then spun the insert right in. i decided to forgo the epoxy until the insert twists itself out… but it aint goin anywhere anytime soon.
the kielwood was more difficult. everything came out fine. I made a much bigger diameter on my aluminum foil heat shield this time.
this is where things get REALLY dumb. I only had a 7/16-20 install thread self aligning insert on hand.
heres a photo of what i had next to what came out of the kiel:
For the sake of experimenting, i decided to file and tap the insert to a fully threaded 7/16-14. I smashed the ever-loving hell out of the insert in the process. I took an old extension bumper and filed two sides flat so I could put it in my bench vice. I put a pin in the bumper and the insert on the pin.
Once secured, with a moderate amount of unsavory language and time, i was able to transform the insert into a usable one
Some sanding and polishing and smashing got the insert back to where it looked good enough for me.
plays like an absolute dream. the weight, balance, hit, and deflection are ALL the best of any cue i’ve ever held (which truthfully is not many), let alone a cue i own.
however now my beautiful rosewood had no shaft…. So im currently in the process of swapping the pin from a flat faced 5/16-18 to a piloted 5/16-14.
getting the pin out was easy. as per some of azbs instruction i used modeling clay to fashion a sleeve for the joint collar and then stuck it in the freezer, as well as a tshirt for good measure. Once cold, i slipped the clay over the collar and wrapped the cold shirt around the forearm and repeated my process, and it twisted right out with a pair of channel locks. I checked the collar afterward and it felt maybe slightly warmer than if left in a hot car. retapped the threads (with a 5/16-14 pin that i dremel’d cuts into to make a tap) to clean them and my new pin screws right in. epoxy recommendations are welcome.
now the scary part. best i had to pilot the hole was a bench vise and a drill press stand. not a drill press. a stand that you put a drill in. I used a 29/64ths bit and spent a good hour making adjustments until i had it as center as possible. i failed to deliver a perfectly center hole, but i intend to clean it up by hand. thats the last straw for that stand, though. ive been checking FB marketplace for a drill press.
as it sits currently:
anyway. that’s what i’ve been up to.
