Whatever Happened to Cues with Exquisite Balance?

DJSTEVEZ

DJSTEVEZ

Professor of Human Moves
Silver Member
Maybe it's me, but it seems like so many of the cues out there today are thicker in the butt than I remember and no longer have that exquisite balance.

I picked up a cue over the weekend, a very expensive custom cue admittedly, and it felt like a feather. I was surprised to find out it was a 19 ounce cue. The butt seemed a lot thinner than so many of the production cues today.

Maybe it's a "you get what you pay for" type of thing? Did the preferred specs on cue production change while I was out of the game? Is this all in my head? Someone please help me out here ;)

Thanx! -Z-
 
No, it is not all in your head!

Weight and balance is "VERY" important to me!

How a cue is balanced is not under the cue makers control! The use of certain heavy woods like ebony and others limit what they can do! An ebony nose is hard to get to balance correctly and require coring or other advanced methods.

Some woods are too light, take balsa wood for example. The cue maker is not going to get it to the 20ounces requested with out weigh bolts and heavy pins.

Wood selection and working with a cue maker is very important. I can not understand buying sight unseen? People place looks over performance all the time and I can not understand why???

Uniformly balanced is my preference from pin to butt cap! Only other type cue I like is uniform weigh from butt cap to long 4 points or 8 points forearms. Just a tip from personal experience!

Hope this helped!

KD
 
!9 Ounces Doesn't Seem Too Heavy For My Way of Thinking

Please don't be offended but I am a little surprised to read that you bought an expensive custom cue without first ascertaining what the weight was
unless when you saw the cue in person & it just felt great. However, my reading of your post was that the cue seems lighter than you'd like and now
that you've confirmed it's 19 ounces, it sounds like you prefer a heavier cue.

I'm not criticizing how you approached buying the cue and am just saying that when I drop money on a cue, I make sure everything is dialed in
tight on the cue specs. Personally, I prefer lighter weight pool cues and I'm only playing with ivory joint cues which I've found is a good combination
for me. The heaviest cue in my case is 18.8 ounces and the lightest cue is 18.3 ounces and the other four cues are 18.5 ounces. All of the cue butts
weigh between 14.5 to 14.7 ounces and the shafts sizes are 12.75 & 13 mm. There's no brass in the cue shafts since the cue joints are flat faced
ivory. So when I look to acquire a pool cue, or order a new custom, the cue is made to fit within these specs.

Jerry Rauenzahn finished a gorgeous custom for me two weeks ago and it weighs 18.5 ounces. The cue Bob Owen just completed that arrived
Tuesday, May 24th, weighs 18.5 ounces and there's no weight bolt. He built an amazing design and was able to hit my target weight and didn't use any
weight bolt. So maybe it's just me and my approach to pool cues that causes me to pay so much attention to the anatomy and specifications of all my pool cues.

The one thing I can state with certainty is that when all the cues in your case are closely matched in specifications, changing pool cues even in the middle
of a match, not that I do that, is so easy to do with minimal perceptible difference in the feel of the pool cue since even the cue tips are basically the same.

I hope you do not become discouraged with your new pool cue and 19 ounces is a pretty popular weight just in case you do not decide to retain your cue.


Matt B.
 

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DJSTEVEZ said:
Maybe it's me, but it seems like so many of the cues out there today are thicker in the butt than I remember and no longer have that exquisite balance.

I picked up a cue over the weekend, a very expensive custom cue admittedly, and it felt like a feather. I was surprised to find out it was a 19 ounce cue. The butt seemed a lot thinner than so many of the production cues today.

Maybe it's a "you get what you pay for" type of thing? Did the preferred specs on cue production change while I was out of the game? Is this all in my head? Someone please help me out here ;)

Thanx! -Z-
Click to expand...

Believe it or not, balance points are purely subjective. What you consider perfectly balanced may not work for another player. Also, the materials used make a difference.
 
I prefer my cues balanced just a bit further back than most. IMHO, that "light as a feather" feeling is when the butt is a little heavier and you barely feel the shaft. It's probably why I always gravitate towards old McDermotts. My McDermotts are usually in the 20oz (or a touch more) range, and you can feel it when you pick it up, but it feels very light when I'm addressing the ball.
 
I had an early Gus....built for Joey Spaeth.
Most snooker players felt it was 18 oz....
...most pool players calculated it as under 19oz.

it was 20.25 oz....Gus Szamboti made Strads
 
deanoc said:
strange to say but most cues i see are smaller in the butt than they used to be
and I can not remember getting one that felt unbalanced

the Hoppe Brumswick were huge
most today seem small
Click to expand...

could you please give the size of the butt at the bumper and the weight
also the balance point from the end of the butt cap ( not bumper )
 
What in the world does "evenly" or "naturally" or "exquisitely" balanced even mean?

If you had a cue that was of a homogenous material, from the tip, to the bumper (a solid piece of maple for example), then the balance would be determined only by the taper of the cue. Is this the ideal that people strive for?

Is this scenario a "neutral balance"?

Cues are all subjective. We don't even have proper definitions for a consistent way to describe them:(
 
iusedtoberich said:
What in the world does "evenly" or "naturally" or "exquisitely" balanced even mean?

If you had a cue that was of a homogenous material, from the tip, to the bumper (a solid piece of maple for example), then the balance would be determined only by the taper of the cue. Is this the ideal that people strive for?

Is this scenario a "neutral balance"?

Cues are all subjective. We don't even have proper definitions for a consistent way to describe them:(
Click to expand...

for me the homogenous material definition works! a cored cocobolo or cored ebony can be homogenous from bumper to pin!

I like homogenous in the handle as well. Meaning prefer full splice vs. maple handle half splice.

But, yes your point is valid that a "proper definition for a a consistent way to describe them" is absent!

Kd
 
Kid Dynomite said:
for me the homogenous material definition works! a cored cocobolo or cored ebony can be homogenous from bumper to pin!

I like homogenous in the handle as well. Meaning prefer full splice vs. maple handle half splice.

But, yes your point is valid that a "proper definition for a a consistent way to describe them" is absent!

Kd
Click to expand...

What you described is not homogenous, however. Anywhere there are different species of woods, the density is different. Or are we counting all "wood" as the same, and saying there is no "metal" parts that are usually more dense? See, its all arbitrary. lol

I'd also like to ask, has anyone ever played with a cue that was solid maple? From the tip to the butt? That would be truly homogenous. How do we know that is even a good feeling in our hands?
 
iusedtoberich said:
What you described is not homogenous, however. Anywhere there are different species of woods, the density is different. Or are we counting all "wood" as the same, and saying there is no "metal" parts that are usually more dense? See, its all arbitrary. lol

I'd also like to ask, has anyone ever played with a cue that was solid maple? From the tip to the butt? That would be truly homogenous. How do we know that is even a good feeling in our hands?
Click to expand...

yes, tom worth the author plays with an all maple tad! The famous satin southwest cues! The list goes on and on of great playing all maple cues.

I played with Tom's cue and loved it. His game jumped greatly after getting that cue. 2 to 3 years later he won the one pocket tournament in Md!!!

kd
 
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its pretty safe to say that if the balance is between 18/19" from the butt....the cuemakers surely not doing it wrong....

myself, i prefer 18.25 to 18.5.....that gives a pretty "neutral" balance.

i am currently refinishing a sneaky pete i made in joels shop over 10 years ago...its 20.5 59" and the balance is 18.75 and it feels like its 19 when your down on the ball.

most of my cues ar 57.5-58" @ 18.25-18.5 balance from bumper and i like them weighted from 17-18ish+..........the center of the balance should most definately be under your head lol...hows that for general!

i have an old turn of century BBC butterfly in VF condition, just the butt though, only took 2k pass and it was true....point tips didn't even need touching.....shaft was cooked as a politician (house cue) butt is 1.425" at bumper. points go up 21" and are at 0.985

old cues are fat/er........older palmers, hueblers and adams rich were the first that i've seen go smaller than what brunswick was putting out (not talking complete custom shope like rambow/gina/etc....but even some of those are oversized compared to even 20 years ago

the 90's i think was the dawn of the real skinny cue.......cueteks were/are pretty skinny in the handle area.......

the taper and such lends to the type of wood. like how DPK talks about in his book albiet little strange sounding.....you could get similar actions with an harder wood or a full maple butt....but the maple will need more mass to be able to "duck" properly so the water in the cells can talk......

lol.....i'm not going to copy it verbatim but i'm sure you get the point....regardless of any quackery this makes lots of sense....i've directly seen it and put it into action myself as have many others.

if you made a solid maple cue and it was very skinny and pro tapered....DOG....but you could do the same thing with ebony and it would hit so hard you would call it gorilla paint a bannanna on the buttsleeve and put it in the closet at home.

-Greyghost
 
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