The BIG low deflection Hype Campaign.

Let's make it easier.
Make a contraption with a fixed weight in the back that would send the cueball 3 rails.
One tip of inside english ( parallel ) , spot shot.
Ball goes in=low deflection.
Ball is overcut, not low deflection.

But you're assigning an assumed value as to what deflection is. What if every shaft tested overcuts the ball? You theory for testing is flawed.
 
I think so. I began using it(LD) a couple of years into playing, I think. It took me a little bit to get used to it, but then I really did enjoy it. Spinning the CB on a straight line was pretty easy, but, yes, I think the problem that I had was that between the Kamui tip and the LD shaft, I was getting too much throw too easily. There is more give in the variance of using a standard shaft, imo. When I started playing more often with the Valley, it became more and more difficult to go back to the Z2 - things just seemed off. The hit/feel of the Valley is much better to me than that of the other, too.

That's the same problem I had when a friend brought a real low squirt shaft.
Object ball frozen on the rail, inside english, MISS.
Also on straight in shots, high inside english, SCRATCH.

On some shots, it's a lot easier to compensate for squirt than throw.
 
But you're assigning an assumed value as to what deflection is. What if every shaft tested overcuts the ball? You theory for testing is flawed.

Well, you have to establish a base line .
You can take away the object ball and use a hard stick instead.

I disagree that it is flawed. The object is still to pocket the ball and that the cueball goes where it's supposed to. But, set that aside and just establish a base line without object ball then.
 
That's the same problem I had when a friend brought a real low squirt shaft.
Object ball frozen on the rail, inside english, MISS.
Also on straight in shots, high inside english, SCRATCH.

On some shots, it's a lot easier to compensate for squirt than throw.

Ok, so it's not just me!

Previously, I'd stay much more center with a house cue when I had my LD. Now, I think it would be the other way around - I'd stay center with the LD. Still, as much bite as that LD-Kamui combo had, any tiny error was magnified.

I wonder if I should ask Dr. Dave what affects a flat tip may have. :o
 
Well, you have to establish a base line .
You can take away the object ball and use a hard stick instead.

I disagree that it is flawed. The object is still to pocket the ball and that the cueball goes where it's supposed to. But, set that aside and just establish a base line without object ball then.

The baseline/object is to pocket the object ball and get the cue ball where it needs to go? No wonder you're not seeing the bigger picture. As others have pointed out, deflection is a must have part of the game. You'll never eliminate it. Yes we know the baseline of deflection is to get to 0 deflection. The issue is how do you get numbers for a shaft and show that a shaft is indeed Low Deflection. As was also said earlier, low end mass may be overtaking Low Deflection as the marketing terms. To say something is low, don't we have to be able to define high and normal deflection?

What good do the numbers do anyways? Unless you stroke the cue ball the exact same as the test undertaken, your results are different. I know the last time I shot with a LD shaft, I was still able to have it deflect just as much as my stand maple shafts. You think you can define a baseline so easy, go for it. But everyone will be looking for flaws. So do you want to spend a week devoted to one shaft, ferrule, and tip only to find out that someone else noticed a huge flaw with your tests? No you don't. That's why in order to do these tests to get numbers that mean anything, you need to do massive testing. More testing than people are willing to afford. More money than people are will to put towards a marketing gimmick.
 
I wonder if I should ask Dr. Dave what affects a flat tip may have. :o
That would be a silly question. If a tip were literally flat, pretty much every hit (regardless of tip position) would be either center-ball (no squirt) or a miscue (lots of squirt). :p

Catch you later,
Dave
 
The baseline/object is to pocket the object ball and get the cue ball where it needs to go? No wonder you're not seeing the bigger picture. As others have pointed out, deflection is a must have part of the game. You'll never eliminate it. Yes we know the baseline of deflection is to get to 0 deflection. The issue is how do you get numbers for a shaft and show that a shaft is indeed Low Deflection. As was also said earlier, low end mass may be overtaking Low Deflection as the marketing terms. To say something is low, don't we have to be able to define high and normal deflection?

What good do the numbers do anyways? Unless you stroke the cue ball the exact same as the test undertaken, your results are different. I know the last time I shot with a LD shaft, I was still able to have it deflect just as much as my stand maple shafts. You think you can define a baseline so easy, go for it. But everyone will be looking for flaws. So do you want to spend a week devoted to one shaft, ferrule, and tip only to find out that someone else noticed a huge flaw with your tests? No you don't. That's why in order to do these tests to get numbers that mean anything, you need to do massive testing. More testing than people are willing to afford. More money than people are will to put towards a marketing gimmick.

Who said it is not and who said it's not must have part of the game ?

This is not about HOW TO PLAY THE GAME. Or your opinion of low end-mass shafts are legit or not .
There is no such thing as zero deflection. Not even a straw can do that .
I know the last time I shot with a LD shaft, I was still able to have it deflect just as much as my stand maple shafts
What LD shaft was that ?
 
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The baseline/object is to pocket the object ball and get the cue ball where it needs to go? No wonder you're not seeing the bigger picture. As others have pointed out, deflection is a must have part of the game. You'll never eliminate it. Yes we know the baseline of deflection is to get to 0 deflection. The issue is how do you get numbers for a shaft and show that a shaft is indeed Low Deflection. As was also said earlier, low end mass may be overtaking Low Deflection as the marketing terms. To say something is low, don't we have to be able to define high and normal deflection?

What good do the numbers do anyways? Unless you stroke the cue ball the exact same as the test undertaken, your results are different. I know the last time I shot with a LD shaft, I was still able to have it deflect just as much as my stand maple shafts. You think you can define a baseline so easy, go for it. But everyone will be looking for flaws. So do you want to spend a week devoted to one shaft, ferrule, and tip only to find out that someone else noticed a huge flaw with your tests? No you don't. That's why in order to do these tests to get numbers that mean anything, you need to do massive testing. More testing than people are willing to afford. More money than people are will to put towards a marketing gimmick.

Agreed except with the LEM/LD. Just modified my website to change the wording to 'High Deflection' as LEM certainly accounts for a substantial portion of the properties we are talking about but they are no way the only thing that influences deflection of the shaft.
In testing our new shafts I enlisted Stan Tourangeau, a pretty sporty player. It took him 3 tries to hit the base line squarely while using center ball. During testing using the same speed of stroke and not trying to influence the results of the shot was very difficult. As shown in the video by Dr. Dave humans are very fallible and inconsistent. For all cuemakers to have to send a new shaft to someone to do testing unless that person had a robot the testing is not accurate enough to have repeatable data and the cost/time value questionable. We work to hold/decrease costs not to find ways to have to increase costs.
 
Who said it is not and who said it's not must have part of the game ?

This is not about HOW TO PLAY THE GAME. Or your opinion of low end-mass shafts are legit or not .
There is no such thing as zero deflection. Not even a straw can do that .

I'm just quoting the words you're using to try and justify that your test isn't flawed. You want to define a baseline for deflection, go ahead. You and Kel_82 think it's easy, go ahead and try to define it. I'll even help if possible. The reason I know it's not feasble is because of the amount of testing need to get a baseline to define that XXXXX is low deflection or not. You know statistics and how they can be used, you know what a percentile is right? Right now we have no statistics, and no real way to gather enough data to make sense to allow for a statistic interpretation. Yes, you can go out and define for one shot, a shafts deflection. I encourage you to gather that data, and publish it. You assume it's so easy to do, then do it. Don't tell me what is easy to do when you aren't thinking of a long term goal.

Any company/person that makes a shaft can build themselves a deflection testing robot. We have seen that from many places before, Meucci, Barioni. But they all do such limited testing that the numbers they produce are the numbers sought after, and no one questions the testing done. Well, until too late and the shafts have sold thousands.

I might as well call it quits for this thread since people live in a dream world where everything they think of is possible without regard to the process to get it done. You want OB Cues, Pradator, Tiger and the other companies to produces numbers for their low deflection claims? I bet that within a day someone else could test those shafts and get different numbers. Whose numbers would be correct? You guys can live in a world where you don't look past lunch for tomorrow, but I won't live in your fantasy world. I'll stay with reality.

Agreed except with the LEM/LD. Just modified my website to change the wording to 'High Deflection' as LEM certainly accounts for a substantial portion of the properties we are talking about but they are no way the only thing that influences deflection of the shaft.

If would of read my prior posts, I also mentioned the taper, and to a lesser extent the joint. Because really no one has done enough testing in this area yet to say what does affect and what doesn't affect. End mass is certainly the most pronounced at creating deflection, but the mass of the cue and where it sits has to have some effect. I just don't know and neither does anyone else because of the amount of testing needing to get the conclusions we want.
 
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Like I tried to point out to him already, in order to establish a baseline for what is low deflection, you have to define deflection, and high deflection. The only way to do that is to test every single possible set-up of allowed shafts/ferrules/tips during regulation play. We're looking at a minimum 1 million shots done to get a base to define deflection and what is low->high. Add in all the other factors that could affect deflection, bridge length, cue elevation, and you're left with an absurd amount of testing to be done, over 500 million tests. ....

... in order to do these tests to get numbers that mean anything, you need to do massive testing. ...

I think you're overstating this. It's possible to develop useful information without developing complete information.

If a large number of shafts were tested under some fairly rigorous procedure by an unbiased entity, it could produce information that would be of interest even though it wouldn't cover "every single possible set-up." If some cue makers or manufacturers then wanted to dispute or debate the results, that would be OK, too. Maybe a subsequent testing would be modified somewhat.

The U.S.G.A. and manufacturers of golf clubs and balls find it useful to use an "Iron Byron" machine to tell them something about their equipment. It's useful information without covering every possible swing and every possible environmental condition.
 
I think you're overstating this. It's possible to develop useful information without developing complete information.

If a large number of shafts were tested under some fairly rigorous procedure by an unbiased entity, it could produce information that would be of interest even though it wouldn't cover "every single possible set-up." If some cue makers or manufacturers then wanted to dispute or debate the results, that would be OK, too. Maybe a subsequent testing would be modified somewhat.

The U.S.G.A. and manufacturers of golf clubs and balls find it useful to use an "Iron Byron" machine to tell them something about their equipment. It's useful information without covering every possible swing and every possible environmental condition.

The Iron Byron machine is basically a robot human that swings a club with changable speeds, swing planes and basically everything we need in a pool testing robot, but don't have. And since you think that we can skip a few tests to shorten our process up, you can't. Unless you can determine the leather tips pose less of an impact on the shot between different tip hardness's/manufacturers. You still need to test a wide enough range of options that you'll basically be doing the whole gamut.

How many pool players does it take to change a light bulb ?
:rolleyes:

Zero, the server will take care of that for you.
 
That would be a silly question. If a tip were literally flat, pretty much every hit (regardless of tip position) would be either center-ball (no squirt) or a miscue (lots of squirt). :p

Catch you later,
Dave

As silly as it may sound, I actually play with a virtually flat tip and it was a somewhat serious question. Some of my hits do sound a little like miscues, but I seem to play okay with it. I'm a bit lazy, so maintenance isn't something I care to do. In the past, I would start miscuing after shaping(lazy stroke, maybe?), so I stopped trying to have a shaped tip. I do have a pretty weak draw most of the time, but I get by with other spin just fine. One of the things I did wonder about was whether or not having a flat tip really did allow me a little more stroke error in keeping relatively center.
 
If would of read my prior posts, I also mentioned the taper, and to a lesser extent the joint. Because really no one has done enough testing in this area yet to say what does affect and what doesn't affect. End mass is certainly the most pronounced at creating deflection, but the mass of the cue and where it sits has to have some effect. I just don't know and neither does anyone else because of the amount of testing needing to get the conclusions we want.

Was not arguing with you just pointing out that current high (LD) deflection shafts are not simply Low End Mass so calling them such is 'almost' as misleading as calling them LD. What 'almost' means will vary as much as testing results for shafts.
 
As silly as it may sound, I actually play with a virtually flat tip and it was a somewhat serious question.
Sorry. I thought you were joking.

One of the things I did wonder about was whether or not having a flat tip really did allow me a little more stroke error in keeping relatively center.
A flat tip definitely helps with this. A totally flat tip would basically eliminate all unintentional english (although, the CB direction would still be off with a non-straight stroke). However, a flat tip also limits what you can do with spin (side, top, and bottom).

FYI, more info concerning tip size and shape effects can be found here:

cue tip size and shape resource page

Regards,
Dave
 
Was not arguing with you just pointing out that current high (LD) deflection shafts are not simply Low End Mass so calling them such is 'almost' as misleading as calling them LD. What 'almost' means will vary as much as testing results for shafts.
I have not seen any direct evidence yet that something other than reduced effective endmass can reduce squirt (AKA "cue ball deflection") significantly.

Tip hardness can have a small effect, but the following video shows that the effect is not significant:

NV D.15 - Cue and Tip Testing for Cue Ball Deflection (Squirt)

What other effects do you think are important? And do you have some evidence or theory to support the claims?

Thanks,
Dave
 
Sorry. I thought you were joking.


A flat tip definitely helps with this. A totally flat tip would basically eliminate all unintentional english (although, the CB direction would still be off with a non-straight stroke). However, a flat tip also limits what you can do with spin (side, top, and bottom).

FYI, more info concerning tip size and shape effects can be found here:

cue tip size and shape resource page

Regards,
Dave

I make sure the tip is chalked all the way to the edge, because I know that's where the hit will be when applying english. I can get decent side action, but for some reason I have a problem with draw. It may be that I steer the cue at the end, resulting in a miscue swipe downwards. My sidespin hits are much more deliberate and there's a lot of speed/power in modifying CB control.

Edit: No need to be sorry, lots of people think my cue is a joke. :o
 
What other effects do you think are important? And do you have some evidence or theory to support the claims?

Thanks,
Dave

Have you tested the difference between a 13mm 18" pro-taper and a 13mm 10" modified pro-taper shaft with the same joint/ferrule/tip? The 'end-mass' is the same for 10", about to where a bridge hand would be. But the mass behind the mass, along with the stiffness of the shaft itself changes. Or are you attempting to imply that the only mass that matters is from the bridge hand forward for deflection concerns? If that's the case, then a change of taper will change the end mass. Which leads this discussion off course.
 
Have you tested the difference between a 13mm 18" pro-taper and a 13mm 10" modified pro-taper shaft with the same joint/ferrule/tip? The 'end-mass' is the same for 10", about to where a bridge hand would be.
I have not, but if they were made from solid wood with the same density, I would expect them to produce the same squirt (assuming everything else is the same in the comparison). Do you have evidence supporting a different conclusion?

Or are you attempting to imply that the only mass that matters is from the bridge hand forward for deflection concerns?
Actually, with a maple shaft, usually only the 6-8 inches closest to the tip has an effect on squirt (AKA "cue ball deflection"). Lots of proof can be found here:

bridge length effects on squirt
shaft "effective endmass" and stiffness effects

If you haven't looked at all of the videos and articles on these resource pages yet, check them out.

Regards,
Dave
 
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