" Tapper Roll"

[Fast Lenny]

One thing many fail to realize is a shaft might appear to not be straight when rolled but on a lathe it is and sometimes the joint needs to be realigned because of wood compression or whatever. You might be surprised how many cue shafts have been deemed warped, taper roll or whatever else and a cue maker could fix the problem fairly easily.

Here are a few links.

Joint Run Out
http://youtu.be/S5waICjzthw

Other Videos Talking about Wood Compression and Re-Alignment
http://youtu.be/y5p-2XkL4Cc
http://youtu.be/e7DAs38lpEM
http://youtu.be/Zct3jvpAYhM

 

[brandoncook26]

I think out of all the shafts I have ever rolled, maybe less than 1% of them did not have some light under the shaft. It may have been very minor and the tip never left the table, but I pretty much expect shafts to have a slight variation. These were cues ranging from $100 to $10,000+.

I think "straight" shafts are the exception and not the rule.

 

[Fast Lenny]

I think out of all the shafts I have ever rolled, maybe less than 1% of them did not have some light under the shaft. It may have been very minor and the tip never left the table, but I pretty much expect shafts to have a slight variation. These were cues ranging from $100 to $10,000+.

I think "straight" shafts are the exception and not the rule.

I agree, most shafts do not roll perfect especially after they have been cleaned up, sanded, or re-tapered. I have had very few shafts that were dead straight if there is such a thing.

 

[spktur]

I've said this before and I'll say it again, take a piece of maple and turn it down in a parabolic taper and then beat hell out of it breaking and/or shooting hard and then gripe about it not being perfectly straight. huh Maybe you need to get your shafts made of some manmade material that will stay perfectly straight and then you will beat Efren. Not you Lenny this was to the people who think the cues does the shooting.

 

[OneIron]

Wouldn't any shaft with a pro taper have a "taper roll"?. Unless the shaft was a perfect cone from butt to tip, there would be light visible where the shaft changes from a cylinder to a cone. The way I check a shaft for straightness is
to hand turn it in my lathe and see how much movement I see at the tip.

Or maybe I'm misunderstanding the question...

 

[Fast Lenny]

I learned a long time ago in school that there is no such thing as a perfect circle, so how can you take a piece of wood and make it so?

 

[Blue Hog ridr]

Good point Lenny. Even the slightest amount of dirt, chalk etc, can make your shaft roll a little. Some might be surprised at how little it takes. They can either be cleaned at the least and faced off if more extreme. If it looks dirty, I will clean first and check. Then face off if need be.

And some have thought that joint protectors are dumb.

 

[JB Cases]

so in any case its a f*@#ed up shaft..

No. If you roll a shaft and it's slightly out of round in a spot but straight through the centers then it's a perfectly good shaft. That's what a taper roll is.

And in fact I'd bet that this applies to about 99.99% of the cues made. Especially if there has been ANY hand sanding on the shaft. It is nearly impossible to get a perfectly concentric shaft with hand sanding.

 

[Chopdoc]

No. If you roll a shaft and it's slightly out of round in a spot but straight through the centers then it's a perfectly good shaft. That's what a taper roll is.

That's what a taper roll is to you.

You guys got me thinking (bad idea). My twenty year old Schon has a taper roll. Had it as long as I can remember. The butt is absolutely straight. Both Evan Clarke and Scott at Proficient are sure of that. The shaft rolls perfectly straight? The pin is absolutely straight. The joint faces are as flat as a straight edge can show. Yet, when put together, there is a very, very slight roll to the combined cue.

The shaft does not have a "pro" taper as defined today. The cylindrical area of the shaft is only ten inches from the ferrule to the beginning of the taper. Believe the current "pro" taper is fifteen inches from ferrule to taper. Really wanted to know why they call the "flat" area of the shaft a taper (cone) when it is really a cylinder. Could be wrong though. Not an expert.

With some of my other Schon shafts (8 total) there is NO wobble. See, you got me thinking. Now an enquiring mind wants to know. Damn you guys

It has to do with variations in the Earth's magnetic field.

 

[AtLarge]

Wouldn't any shaft with a pro taper have a "taper roll"?. Unless the shaft was a perfect cone from butt to tip, there would be light visible where the shaft changes from a cylinder to a cone. ...

If a shaft is not conical throughout, e.g. a "pro-tapered shaft," it will not touch the table for some portion of its length, i.e., light is visible under the shaft. But with either warpage or a taper roll (as Kevin defined it in post #4), the amount of space between the table and the shaft varies as the shaft is rolled across the table.

 

[cardiac kid]

Wouldn't any shaft with a pro taper have a "taper roll"?. Unless the shaft was a perfect cone from butt to tip, there would be light visible where the shaft changes from a cylinder to a cone. The way I check a shaft for straightness is
to hand turn it in my lathe and see how much movement I see at the tip.

Or maybe I'm misunderstanding the question...

Hey oneiron,

I'm with you on this. Suggested this in my post. Still want to know why everyone refers to the cylinder area of the shaft as the "taper" when the actual taper is the rest of the shaft not the cylinder!

Lyn

 

[JB Cases]

That's what a taper roll is to you.

And to just about everyone I know. If there is light under the shaft but it's consistent then the shaft has no uneven spots. Thus it can be described as rolling straight without any disclaimer about taper roll.

However I would be more than happy to accede to the majority vote on here as to what a taper roll is. Frankly I never heard the term before joining AZB and the discussion of what it is comes up at least once a year.

So why don't we add it to the lexicon with an official AZB chosen definition?

Ready? Go.

 

[JB Cases]

Any cue I buy (hands on)...I prefer to look down the cue like a rifle barrel.
That tells you everything you need to know.
Most carom and snooker cues have a 'taper' roll because of their shape.

I had a friend in the 80's who used to fiddle with his cues with a file and
a piece of sandpaper. He was filing the joint of his snooker cue 'cause
the joint was a soft material and subject to wear....he made it straight
by eye and then rolled it...it was off...he fiddled with it some more and
it rolled crooked again.....he said "I swear I got it straight, the TABLE must
be crooked.....we all laughed at him.
He rolled it on another table and the cue rolled straight.
We stopped laughing at him.

He is now a fine cue maker.

A lot of people don't know that the tiniest shift in the slate can make a cue appear to be warped. Roll the cue across two pieces and it can look badly warped. Turn the cue around and use the other end of the table and it can be perfectly straight. That's why sighting is the best way outside being able to turn it on a lathe to see how straight it is.

I have seen some cue makers use purpose-built rollers that are true to put the cue on to check straightness.

The Pocket Lathe is a good tool to use for this purpose.

www.pocketlathe.com I have used them extensively at tournaments.

 

[JB Cases]

Hey oneiron,

I'm with you on this. Suggested this in my post. Still want to know why everyone refers to the cylinder area of the shaft as the "taper" when the actual taper is the rest of the shaft not the cylinder!

Lyn

I refer to the taper as the lessening of diameter from joint to tip. The exact wave is the type of taper. Theoretically the shaft could be perfectly cocentric on every slice along it's length. If that were the case then the gap between the shaft and the table should be exactly the same with any rotation.

Instead of thinking of the shaft as one piece how about making the 30" shaft out of rings that are .001" wide fitted to a perfectly cylindrical core that is 30" long then those rings could be made to any diameter and stacked in any order and the resulting rotation on the horizontal axis would or should be perfect. With the rings going from the largest to the smallest of course.

Now make a number of those rings into ovals instead of circles and as long as the largest diameter and the smallest are at each end you will still have a shaft that spins straight but will show some wobble at the rings which are not perfectly round.

I think.

For me as long as the tip and joint don't move then usually the shaft is straight. Rarely do I see a shaft which has been so badly sanded that the sighting test reveals a major problem when the tip and joint stay flat.

 

[cardiac kid]

John,

You lost me. Guess this is really a game (and thread) of semantics. Just find it funny most posters call the first ten to fifteen inches of a shaft, as measured from the ferrule towards the joint (the only area on a modern shaft with the same diameter all along its length), a "pro taper" when the only tapered part of the shaft is from the joint forward to where the constant diameter begins. Its really a play on words. Guess no one else sees the humor . I give up.

Lyn

 

[pt109]

John,

You lost me. Guess this is really a game (and thread) of semantics. Just find it funny most posters call the first ten to fifteen inches of a shaft, as measured from the ferrule towards the joint (the only area on a modern shaft with the same diameter all along its length), a "pro taper" when the only tapered part of the shaft is from the joint forward to where the constant diameter begins. Its really a play on words. Guess no one else sees the humor . I give up.

Lyn

I get it...a carom cue has a gradual taper..a British snooker cue has
an 'abrupt' taper ( it gets small real fast the last few inches to the tip)
..but what we call a 'pro taper' is NOT a taper....
..good point, Sir

 

[LoVe4DaGaMe]

"Tapper Roll".... (Tootsie Roll)

Let me see that Tapper Roll... Tapper Roll... Let me see that Tapper Roll!

lol... I couldn't help it..

 

[OneIron]

I refer to the taper as the lessening of diameter from joint to tip. The exact wave is the type of taper. Theoretically the shaft could be perfectly cocentric on every slice along it's length. If that were the case then the gap between the shaft and the table should be exactly the same with any rotation.

Instead of thinking of the shaft as one piece how about making the 30" shaft out of rings that are .001" wide fitted to a perfectly cylindrical core that is 30" long then those rings could be made to any diameter and stacked in any order and the resulting rotation on the horizontal axis would or should be perfect. With the rings going from the largest to the smallest of course.

Now make a number of those rings into ovals instead of circles and as long as the largest diameter and the smallest are at each end you will still have a shaft that spins straight but will show some wobble at the rings which are not perfectly round.

I think.

For me as long as the tip and joint don't move then usually the shaft is straight. Rarely do I see a shaft which has been so badly sanded that the sighting test reveals a major problem when the tip and joint stay flat.

I haven't actually tried this test but here goes. Let's say you have a brand new shaft that is perfectly straight. Meaning that a line will run perfectly straight from the center of the insert through the center of the ferrule and will be in the center of the shaft at every point along the way. Also assume that the shaft is perfectly round at every point.

Let's assume this "perfect" shaft has a 15" pro taper. If you stretched a string from the joint ring to the tip of the ferrule, the string will not lay flat the length of the cue due to the fact that the shaft is not a perfect cone end to end due to the pro taper.

IMO, this is the definition of taper roll. You may also see light under the shaft due to the shaft being out of round from sanding but I think that's a different issue.

In any case, the mportant issue is whether the shaft spins true in a lathe.

 

[pt109]

A lot of people don't know that the tiniest shift in the slate can make a cue appear to be warped. Roll the cue across two pieces and it can look badly warped. Turn the cue around and use the other end of the table and it can be perfectly straight. That's why sighting is the best way outside being able to turn it on a lathe to see how straight it is.

I have seen some cue makers use purpose-built rollers that are true to put the cue on to check straightness.

The Pocket Lathe is a good tool to use for this purpose.

www.pocketlathe.com I have used them extensively at tournaments.

Thanx....I think I might get a pocket lathe...they look great.
But I will still look down a cue as my final test.
..'cause I figure that if it looks good to me then, it'll look good to me
when I'm shooting.

 

[Quesports]

I never roll shafts across a pool table, I will on rare occasions roll a butt across a table. I expect the butt of a cue to roll straight and flat on the table. The shafts are another issue altogether, many have a slight roll out to them from the taper and from being slightly warped. If I rolled a shaft on a table and saw it roll out it would probably get into those few undamaged brain cells I have left and ruin the rest of my life!