What is the stiffest feeling carom cue?

ipitythefool

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Among the available cues, what is the stiffest feeling carom cue and/or shaft in your experience?

Please share your thoughts.
Thanks in advance.
 
In my experience I have played with only two carom cues, A Buffalo and a Hanbat. Both cues are the traditional wood screw joint. Out of the two cues I feel like the Hanbat is more stiff on the hit.

In the near future I would like to play with a double joint cue to feel how it differs from a wood screw jointed cue as I am sort of curious.

I always thought that to get a stiffer hit the shaft of the cue must be a wider and more strictly a conical shaft, but I talked to someone and they told me it also matters of the wood selection and the aging of the wood. I am a neophyte to Carom cues but I am slowly learning.
 
The cuemaking itself changed in the last decades in a positive way. They found and invented so many new things. I was really surprised after coming back without billiards after a long time. But the stiffness is just a subjective thing my friend :-).
Until the 90s usualy all carom-cues came up with a wood-to-wood joint and the taper was on 99 percent of the shafts a pure european taper (conical). IN the 90 s i was a bit bored of some *oldschool* carom players (i used to play all games-and also liked 3c! but coming from pool) bc they always refered about the wood-to-wood blablablah and that it is a must be....was funny. So at least i talked with a friend who was a cuemaker and we *discovered* the joint area on 4 cues. And then i let some *experts* test them-and told them to tell me with what kind of cues they played .....rofl. Not one could tell me the differences at least. And the action was the same they were able to produce with EACH cue. Schuler already made his great cues in this time-and i love his cues even as a pool-player.

The stiffness of a cue is really subjective- and my opinion is, that you have to test a complete cue- each shaft has to fit with the rest of the cue. Make yourself a goodie and test for example a nice 3/8 10 or radial pin, with a shaft of your choice. I could bet that you ll be very satisfied what you ll feel then.

lg
Ingo
 
Among the available cues, what is the stiffest feeling carom cue and/or shaft in your experience?

Please share your thoughts.
Thanks in advance.


Mine is, I built it about two years ago for myself, I used petrified wood for the shaft, nothing is stiffer than mine.:)
 
Mine is, I built it about two years ago for myself, I used petrified wood for the shaft, nothing is stiffer than mine.:)

Very nice. Could you elaborate on what "petrified wood" is, by any chance?

Also, I read in a thread that you are pretty knowledgable on Adam Helmstetter cues. Is this true? Are you familiar with a cue named Adam Super Professional 903, made by Helmstetter? As it has a cult following among 3 c players :)
 
The cuemaking itself changed in the last decades in a positive way. They found and invented so many new things. I was really surprised after coming back without billiards after a long time. But the stiffness is just a subjective thing my friend :-).
Until the 90s usualy all carom-cues came up with a wood-to-wood joint and the taper was on 99 percent of the shafts a pure european taper (conical). IN the 90 s i was a bit bored of some *oldschool* carom players (i used to play all games-and also liked 3c! but coming from pool) bc they always refered about the wood-to-wood blablablah and that it is a must be....was funny. So at least i talked with a friend who was a cuemaker and we *discovered* the joint area on 4 cues. And then i let some *experts* test them-and told them to tell me with what kind of cues they played .....rofl. Not one could tell me the differences at least. And the action was the same they were able to produce with EACH cue. Schuler already made his great cues in this time-and i love his cues even as a pool-player.

The stiffness of a cue is really subjective- and my opinion is, that you have to test a complete cue- each shaft has to fit with the rest of the cue. Make yourself a goodie and test for example a nice 3/8 10 or radial pin, with a shaft of your choice. I could bet that you ll be very satisfied what you ll feel then
lg
Ingo

Thanks for the opinion. I agree with you that wood-to-wood is not the only way to go and it is not a must-be for 3C. Though it is true that, it is the old-school way of playing, and lots of players prefer this since it provides the most feel/feedback. Speaking of which, I do not agree with you that a player would not be able to tell between the joints. I have wood-to-wood and metal (Adam double joint cue, used by Blomdahl) and I can clearly tell the difference between a metal and total wood joint. Close my eyes AND plug my ears, I still would be able to tell from the feedback in my hand. Let's compare testing cues to wine tasting. If the wine tester did not acquire the taste buds to be able to tell between nuances of flavors, every glass of wine will pretty much taste to the same :)

And I think, stiffness in a cue and or shaft is NOT subjective. That, a given cue's stiffness or lack thereof does not differ based on the player's opinion. It is morely Based on the wood, and the cuemaker's skilled hands.

I was actually looking for, if cues such as Layanis (or Schulers With Super Constant shafts) are any stiffer than most others. As they are known to be stiff per their websites.
 
Very nice. Could you elaborate on what "petrified wood" is, by any chance?

Also, I read in a thread that you are pretty knowledgable on Adam Helmstetter cues. Is this true? Are you familiar with a cue named Adam Super Professional 903, made by Helmstetter? As it has a cult following among 3 c players :)

I would recommend any 3-Cushion cue made by Adam / Helmstetter. I have never owned one that I did like, especially the older ones. I am not familiar with the exact model from your post above, I will have to see what I can find out about it.

As for my statement about the petrified wood, I was referring to some shaft used for that cue that was taken from a 1890's Brunswick one piece cue. The shaft wood has close to 55 GPI, and along with the age of wood makes a very stiff hitting cue.

Take care, and thanks for the kind words.

Take care
 
Hello my friend,

I also do believe that wooden joint gives more stiffer feeling than others. To me, the wood density, weight of the shaft correlate directly to its stiffness. I'd rank Alcade as stiffest with Kilby a very, very close second.
 
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