So many pro's using SS joint

O

Oranzith

Registered
This comes across very odd to me.


In watching the IPT and US 9 ball champs the last few days, it seems to me that 90% of the pro's are using SS joints. I have seen pagulayon/bustamante/deuel/varner/strickland/hall/and a load of other pro's all using a stainless steel joint.


in fact, the only one i can think of that wasnt using an SS was efren. But thinking to the hong kong 120 9-ball match between earl and effie, efren used SS there (granted, in the 80s)


Still, it seems remarkably prevalent for the fact that it seems to be widely spread that a w/w joint feels much more natural.
 
Personally ...

A piloted SS joint has the best feel to me, espec ially when comparing costs involved (Ivory ?). A solid feel without a 'dead' feel.
 
Jimmy Reid says in his video that more championships were won by players using a stainless joint, and ivory ferrule. I think He also metnioned a leather wrap.

One cuemaker told me that it is harder to make a good stainless joint than any other type and that is why most joints today are not stainless because they don't know how to make them the right way.
 
1. Stainless Steel Uni-Loc for me.
2. Stainless Steel 5/16 18 count thread.

I've never had any issue with the Uni-Loc, strong fit solid hit, easy and quick to break down. Get tired of all the twisting with a regular joint.

Black Cat :cool:
 
there are a ton of pros that don't use stainless steel joints. And I don't think that many play with ivory ferrules. I've seen a few that use steel but check out the pros and what they use thread. You'll find alot of them don't use steel.

Tony
 
Oranzith said:
This comes across very odd to me.
Click to expand...

I don't know why this should be so odd to you.

If you check around, some of the most collectable cue makers in history, have used stainless steel joints.
Does the name Balabuska come to mind?

There is nothing wrong with a stainless steel joint, when it is done properly, the same as any other joint.
 
Oranzith said:
This comes across very odd to me.
In watching the IPT and US 9 ball champs the last few days, it seems to me that 90% of the pro's are using SS joints. I have seen pagulayon/bustamante/deuel/varner/strickland/hall/and a load of other pro's all using a stainless steel joint.
Click to expand...

Two quick comments:

1) Most players who learnt to play more than 10-15 years ago (E.G. Varner, Strickland, Hall) during a time when Stainless Steel joints were the only choices for a high-end pool cue. It has only been comparatively recently that there has been a large amount of choice in terms of cue construction technology, at least in the high end. Once such players have honed their skills on these cues they tend to have little desire to change it later.

2) Many modern cues are now built with sleeved joints, where a thin ring of material is layered on top of a regular phenolic joint for cosmetic reasons. This thin top layer can be Stainless steel, wood, Ivory or pretty much any other material desired. It would be impossible to know the difference when looking at the assembled cue as a spectator.
 
Oranzith said:
This comes across very odd to me.


In watching the IPT and US 9 ball champs the last few days, it seems to me that 90% of the pro's are using SS joints. I have seen pagulayon/bustamante/deuel/varner/strickland/hall/and a load of other pro's all using a stainless steel joint.


in fact, the only one i can think of that wasnt using an SS was efren. But thinking to the hong kong 120 9-ball match between earl and effie, efren used SS there (granted, in the 80s)


Still, it seems remarkably prevalent for the fact that it seems to be widely spread that a w/w joint feels much more natural.
Click to expand...

I don't mean to hijack the thread, but where are you watching the US 9 ball championships?

BTW, I play with a Schon SS and it is worth every penny I paid for it.
 
Oranzith said:
This comes across very odd to me.


Still, it seems remarkably prevalent for the fact that it seems to be widely spread that a w/w joint feels much more natural.
Click to expand...

I'm also at a loss as to why you feel it's odd. As previously stated, a lot of these guys grew up with SS and are probably just accustomed to the hit. Also, the natural feel you speak of is not necessarily a good or bad thing. I love SS and to me, it is a natural feel.

Everyone seems to look to the pro's to find out what best suits them, including myself until recently, but you will never know until you try it all and decide for yourself what combination works best for YOU.

Another thing to consider is that most production cues have SS joints and a lot of pro's use a production / Predator combination.

Koop
 
I don't want to discount or discredit here, but I would LOVE to see if anybody (pro, cue maker, guy off the street) can distinguish the difference between these types of joints, in a meaningful way.
Joints.jpg


My thinking is that even a seasoned pro, or cue maker CANNOT tell the difference between joints if they were taped or covered up.

The only time I pay attention to my cue's joint is when I am breaking it down and putting it away.
 
Interesting post I ran into a while ago on alt.sport.pool:

From: Jeff Cavanagh - view profile
Date: Tues, Aug 28 2001 11:10 pm
Email: "Jeff Cavanagh" <jeff_cavan...@bigfoot.com>
Groups: rec.sport.billiard, alt.sport.pool
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Maybe the problem is at my end, but these google addresses never seem to
work for me...
Jeff
the message was as follows:

Here's something interesting we tried in 1991:
At an event we had 16 cues with the butt, joint and the ferrules covered with masking tape...then numbered. No one could "see" if the cue was a steel, plastic or wood joint (as in a Pete), nor detect by the style of ferrule. We had 70 players...each hit balls with the cues throughout the weekend.

The results:
Of nearly 800 attempts over the time period, the players guessed wrong about what type joint was in the cue more than 7 out of 10 times. A top pro (Meucci staffer) happened to be there, having done an exhibition and the cue he liked the most during the attempts: He thought was surely a Meucci, plastic joint when in reality it was an older Adams with a piloted steel joint; and additionally guessed the Meucci he shot with as a cue with a steel joint.

Again, I maintain that cues with different joint materials may sound differently; may be balanced differently, but what is "hit"? Doesn't "hit" have to do with all the senses: Vibration (feel), sound, balance, etc. What is a "soft" hit? What is a "hard" hit? (what does this mean, if not the sound the cue makes upon impact, or are people ref. to the vibration in the butt?) Does a hard hit vibrate more and make a different sound? A soft hit vibrate less with a different sound?

I maintain that the primary criteria that differentiates one cue from another begins with:

>The tip (soft, med or hard)
>The shaft diameter and density of the wood
>The taper (or stiffness of the shaft)

To this day, I still don't believe the joint has much to do with the reaction of the cueball off the shaft, rather it is the 3 aforementioned that have far more bearing on how a cue plays than anything else.

Remember, what makes the predator shaft play differently is what is located at the tip, inside the shaft, the ferrule and the laminations....not the joint or butt.

In closing, our experiment asked which cue the players liked best: Of the 70 players, nearly 55 liked the hit of two cues with different numbers: When the two were exposed, they both were sneaky petes, wood to wood joints, (one a Scruggs and the other a Huebler); both about 19 oz., both about 13 1/4mm and tended to be on the stiff side of "hit". By the way, the 55 who liked the hit of these two cues: more than half thought they would be steel jointed.

John McChesney
 
StevenPWaldon said:
In closing, our experiment asked which cue the players liked best: Of the 70 players, nearly 55 liked the hit of two cues with different numbers: When the two were exposed, they both were sneaky petes, wood to wood joints, (one a Scruggs and the other a Huebler); both about 19 oz., both about 13 1/4mm and tended to be on the stiff side of "hit". By the way, the 55 who liked the hit of these two cues: more than half thought they would be steel jointed.
John McChesney
Click to expand...

This is my point;They are speaking like the joints have a difference in feel like driving a trash truck or a Lamborghini.

People speak so passionately about the "hit" a type of joint has, when, in reality, they can't even tell the difference.
 
Rich R. said:
I don't know why this should be so odd to you.

If you check around, some of the most collectable cue makers in history, have used stainless steel joints.
Does the name Balabuska come to mind?

There is nothing wrong with a stainless steel joint, when it is done properly, the same as any other joint.
Click to expand...


whitewolf said:
NOT!!!!

Stainless steel joints are heavier than wood to wood joints - a fact - and my own personal opinion on the matter is that the pros use these to make their cues more forward weighted.
Click to expand...

"NOT" -- WHAT???

I didn't discuss the weight of the joints and I didn't discuss the balance of the joints. I simply said that SS joints were not "odd", there is nothing wrong with them and that many great cue makers used them.

If you are going to disagree with me, at least disagree with something I stated.

BTW, I have a SS jointed cue that is not any heavier than my other cues and it has, IMHO, great balance. Also, there are other ways to make a cue forward weighted, without the use of a SS joint.
 
Rich R. said:
Also, there are other ways to make a cue forward weighted, without the use of a SS joint.
Click to expand...

This is true, the cue I have with the most forward balance point is actually my gilbert J/B which is about 20.5" from the butt of the cue. It has a faux ivory (I assume some type of plastic) joint.
 
This has been an incredibly enlightening thread, thanks all.

And yes, it makes large amounts of sense to think that during the era in which the 'older' pro's were learning, the only top end cues available, custom or otherwise, would come with a more structurally reliable material.
 
I agree

I am a avid player myself and play good. I have to admit, every stainless joint I play with I love the way the cue hits. My only complaint is the glare in my eyes sometimes when over a shot. However, for some odd reason I really never miss a ball when that happens. It's like it reminds me I am stroking the cue and gives me a sense of better focus. Thats my experience. Thanx Aaron
 
I don't know. I asked his partner Mike Cochran about an ivory joint once and he told me that most of the differences between joints was in players imaginations. I own 4 Scruggs cues (5 on Saturday), a Joss West, a couple of Joseys, a Layani, and a Pechauer. Piloted stainless steel, flat faced radial with steel collar, ivory, phenolic cone seated in stainless steel, and wood to wood with phenolic collar. The balance point on all of them between 19 and 20 inches from the end of the butt.

I am not sure what you can deduce from this. My 1987 JW is right around 19 inches with an ivory joint, but it has the fattest butt of all the cues I own. The Joseys are also around 19 inches, and wood is lighter than ivory. Have you ever looked at Keith's shaft taper? His shafts are the heaviest of all the 20 or so I have laying around. The Scruggs all come in around 19.5-20 inches, and they all have some variation of a steel collar.One other thing to note is how very consistent my Scruggs cues are as far as balance point even though the cues don't weigh the same or have the same woods. I am assuming this is because they are cored.

It just seems like there are too many variables to say that one joint type is bad or good. Besides, how much difference can an inch make? I tell my old lady that all the time...:D
 
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