DJ's learning experience for the week.. 
Some of you may remember back to me saying I used "alcohol" to clean my shafts.. Shortly their after I came on here saying my Schon was warped and would no longer be using alcohol to clean my shafts. Well I'll be using alcohol to clean my shafts again it wasn't the culprit after all.
Most pool cues have an ever so slight "bow" in the shafts.. It's so slight that it would never effect the playabillity of the stick, but it is something you can see. Well it didn't seem that the ever so slight bow had got any further out of round, yet the tip of the cue seemed to not "roll" smooth like it used too. Not that it would flop around or anything, but you could noticeably see it not rolling smooth like the butt.
If I was to put the joint up on the rail and roll the cue so that the shaft is out in the air (this magnifies warpage on a cue and where it's coming from) I could see the shaft swinging through the air pretty far outta whack, but not nearly that bad on the table?
My friend Kent Davis (cue builder that learned from Arial Carmelli) happened to be coming down to San Diego for a tournament and he stopped by my house to get in stroke. I was telling him about what happened, and he looked at it, and said "I don't think your cue is warped, I think the pin is slightly bent in the butt!"
I'm a machinist with a heavy background in engineering... All of a sudden al sorts of things made sense!! I'm sure many of you have the age old problem where you tighten the shaft on the stick, and then at the end of the night it's worked it's way so tight that you can't get it off? (Takes two people to break the cue apart) I had that problem with the shaft that I never played with on my Schon. My playing shaft would always come apart fine, but the one I never played with wouldn't tighten up so tight it was ridiculous.
Well my theory is this.. Years ago I must've ever so slightly (very slightly) bent the pin in my Schon.. My playing shaft tightened down, on the joint collars, but instead of being flat one side was contacting, and the other must've had a .003 - .005 (1 human hair) gap.. After breaking with that shaft like that for years the joint collar on the shaft is actually becoming ever so slightly crooked. Something to note here is the varnish on my joint collar had started to crackle around the ring! (tell tail sign #1) Cuemakers told me it was from expansion and contraction, which is what I expect to be the case on most cues, but not mine. I'm sure of it, the joint collar was being pushed unevenly and causing it to compress funny.
A few months back ago I dropped my case..
Again no joint protectors, I think this bent the pin in my Schon a little bit more. Again I played with it, until I noticed it had what I thought "warped." I was pissed thinking the alcohol had done this.. I switched shafts and the cue rolled straight, so I started playing again. Well I quickly noticed that the extra shaft would get on their so tight I couldn't get it off.. Often taking two people to break it loose! This is nothing new, I've often seen this over the years at pool halls.. Some shafts just do that. I never gave it any thought as to why they do it.
Well in my case, and ever so slightly bent pin, was making my other shaft (with straight joint collars) settle on the stainless joint. One side would be bearing almost all of the tension while the other would bear very little if any. After breaking with the cue a few times, the shock of the impact would allow those acetal peaces to compress ever so slightly allowing it to get more and more of a grip on the stainless, and in effect to start transfering the loads across a wider area.. Now a tremendous amount of compression is being put on one side of the joint collar, and being spread further around. This is in effect trying to push the joint collar up on one side and make it match the stainless part, while the inside of the joint is now trying to match (slightly bending back acting as a spring inside) the pin angle. That spring loading is what's making it tighten up so ridiculous and what is causing all this.. Pretty soon I'll have two shafts that don't roll so straight.
I actually bought a Runde shaft from a member here before I talked to kent and figured out what it was. That being said, Kent is going to pull the pin on my schon, take a skim cut on the stainless joint to make sure it's perfectly flat and clean up years of dirt etc.. Then take skim cuts on all 3 of my shafts and put a new pin in the cue.. (amongst rewrapping and other things) At the end of the day the cue will roll straight again and maintain the original shafts + my new Runde.
So the answer is yes... It is possible to straighten a warped cue! The question is, did the wood actually warp? Or did something else go amiss in there. In my case it was lack of joint protectors, not warpage.
I will be sure to let you know how it turns out, and if I can get him to take any pictures of the cue in process I'll post them for you all to see. He's also refinishing the cue for me while it's up there and lightening it an ounce (always been a little heavy for me).
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on my theory about the joint collars compressing at an angle over time etc..
DJ
Some of you may remember back to me saying I used "alcohol" to clean my shafts.. Shortly their after I came on here saying my Schon was warped and would no longer be using alcohol to clean my shafts. Well I'll be using alcohol to clean my shafts again it wasn't the culprit after all.
Most pool cues have an ever so slight "bow" in the shafts.. It's so slight that it would never effect the playabillity of the stick, but it is something you can see. Well it didn't seem that the ever so slight bow had got any further out of round, yet the tip of the cue seemed to not "roll" smooth like it used too. Not that it would flop around or anything, but you could noticeably see it not rolling smooth like the butt.
If I was to put the joint up on the rail and roll the cue so that the shaft is out in the air (this magnifies warpage on a cue and where it's coming from) I could see the shaft swinging through the air pretty far outta whack, but not nearly that bad on the table?
My friend Kent Davis (cue builder that learned from Arial Carmelli) happened to be coming down to San Diego for a tournament and he stopped by my house to get in stroke. I was telling him about what happened, and he looked at it, and said "I don't think your cue is warped, I think the pin is slightly bent in the butt!"
I'm a machinist with a heavy background in engineering... All of a sudden al sorts of things made sense!! I'm sure many of you have the age old problem where you tighten the shaft on the stick, and then at the end of the night it's worked it's way so tight that you can't get it off? (Takes two people to break the cue apart) I had that problem with the shaft that I never played with on my Schon. My playing shaft would always come apart fine, but the one I never played with wouldn't tighten up so tight it was ridiculous.
Well my theory is this.. Years ago I must've ever so slightly (very slightly) bent the pin in my Schon.. My playing shaft tightened down, on the joint collars, but instead of being flat one side was contacting, and the other must've had a .003 - .005 (1 human hair) gap.. After breaking with that shaft like that for years the joint collar on the shaft is actually becoming ever so slightly crooked. Something to note here is the varnish on my joint collar had started to crackle around the ring! (tell tail sign #1) Cuemakers told me it was from expansion and contraction, which is what I expect to be the case on most cues, but not mine. I'm sure of it, the joint collar was being pushed unevenly and causing it to compress funny.
A few months back ago I dropped my case..
Again no joint protectors, I think this bent the pin in my Schon a little bit more. Again I played with it, until I noticed it had what I thought "warped." I was pissed thinking the alcohol had done this.. I switched shafts and the cue rolled straight, so I started playing again. Well I quickly noticed that the extra shaft would get on their so tight I couldn't get it off.. Often taking two people to break it loose! This is nothing new, I've often seen this over the years at pool halls.. Some shafts just do that. I never gave it any thought as to why they do it. Well in my case, and ever so slightly bent pin, was making my other shaft (with straight joint collars) settle on the stainless joint. One side would be bearing almost all of the tension while the other would bear very little if any. After breaking with the cue a few times, the shock of the impact would allow those acetal peaces to compress ever so slightly allowing it to get more and more of a grip on the stainless, and in effect to start transfering the loads across a wider area.. Now a tremendous amount of compression is being put on one side of the joint collar, and being spread further around. This is in effect trying to push the joint collar up on one side and make it match the stainless part, while the inside of the joint is now trying to match (slightly bending back acting as a spring inside) the pin angle. That spring loading is what's making it tighten up so ridiculous and what is causing all this.. Pretty soon I'll have two shafts that don't roll so straight.
I actually bought a Runde shaft from a member here before I talked to kent and figured out what it was. That being said, Kent is going to pull the pin on my schon, take a skim cut on the stainless joint to make sure it's perfectly flat and clean up years of dirt etc.. Then take skim cuts on all 3 of my shafts and put a new pin in the cue.. (amongst rewrapping and other things) At the end of the day the cue will roll straight again and maintain the original shafts + my new Runde.
So the answer is yes... It is possible to straighten a warped cue! The question is, did the wood actually warp? Or did something else go amiss in there. In my case it was lack of joint protectors, not warpage.
I will be sure to let you know how it turns out, and if I can get him to take any pictures of the cue in process I'll post them for you all to see. He's also refinishing the cue for me while it's up there and lightening it an ounce (always been a little heavy for me).
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on my theory about the joint collars compressing at an angle over time etc..
DJ
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