Just to clairify ...
merylane said:
willie cue , i gave some more thought to the subject. i can understand how you didnt follow my analogies. i assumed you would, being you made cues.sorry my bad.
when i say part of the structure i mean it becomes part of the mechanical structure.
like with a fullsplice the splice actually becomes the handle.
and with the short splice this cluster you have glued up is actually what you connect the handle to. in most cases. like george gus.
I am not trying to be a know-it-all but simply sharing some things as I see them. These are just my opinions from what I have learned over the last four and a half years making a few cues. So ... please ... take it for what it is worth and feel free to correct me if you think I am misinformed.
Take a full splice cue and cut into just below the splice.
Screw and glue it back together and you now have a half splice.
The half splice is weaker then the full splice because it has an extra joint.
The "A" joint as it is called.
The relevent question is not 'how strong is it' but rather 'is it strong enough'.
If the cue fails from normal use then it obvioulsy was not.
If it holds up for years and years with no problems then it was.
So the issue of which type is stronger is really not an issue at all.
A pool cue was never designed to withstand a hundred pounds of side force or being slamed down on the table or thrown to the floor after a missed shot.
That is abuse and if something fails dont be suprised.
merylane said:
this does not happen with floating points?
Half splice and floating point cues are the same in as much as both uasualy have a "A" joint and both have a cavitys in the forearm that have been filled with other material. That is why I said they were much the same not ...THE same but ... much the same. Floating points uasualy do not touch the "A" joint as the half splice points do ... but they could ... or even run across it. Hope this clears that up.
merylane said:
being old school i like things done the old way.
but its too time consuming for people trying to make money.
much esier to do things in the virtual world and then push a button and let the machine do the work
This is a common misconception by people that do not own or operate a CNC machine. Sure .. after you spend many hours learning to operate your machine, adjusting and tuning it, learning how to use the software, drawing the designs, creating and debuging the G-code, running test pieces, and hoping the bit dont break, yeah ... you push the button and watch the machine do all the work. Remember ... you need to do all this for the pocket and the inlay piece as well. If they dont fit right then it is back to the drawing board. But when you get everything running right it is a thing of beauty. I have done several half splice cues in 4, 5, and 6, points and they look much like everyone elses half splice cue. Not much you can change except the material and veneer color. The CNC machine allows me to design and inlay anything I can think up and figure out how to program into the machine. This is its greatest asset. It allows me to make cues that look different that all the cues you see in cue shops across the country. The CNC machine can also produce shafts with any profile you program it to cut. You can cut one or one hundred and they all will have the same profile. That is very handy when a customer wants you to make him a second shaft profiled like his first one. It also can be doing something while I am doing something else. Most of this can be done with a pantograph machine and about the only difference from the CNC machine is that the computer is guiding the stylus around the pattern template instead of your hand.
All in all it is the finished product that counts and it is just as easy to make crappy cues with a CNC machine as it is to make them by hand.
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