Whats the deal with Micarta ferulles?

scdiveteam said:
Hi,

I have received many PMs concerning this Micarta thread and I just got one this morning from a gentlemen who forwarded me a PDF concern the history of Micarta an the revolution that occurred from plastics in manufacturing in the 20th century.

There was nothing about "asbestos" in the 3 page document as it did not go into the different formulations or chemistry concerning the product. Here is a paragraph I cut and pasted that is germaine to the subject that has been argued here.

In 1913, Daniel O’Conor, head of the research engineering, process section, and Herbert Faber, insulating materials sales manager, left Westinghouse to found The Formica Insulation Corporation because of disagreements on how to market this product. General Electric also became an early manufacturer of these thermosetting plastics. There were many patents and law suits in the 1918 – 1927 time frame involving Westinghouse, Formica, General Electric, Bakelite, and others. Westinghouse and General Electric had forced Bakelite not to sell phenolic resin to Formica. With the expiration of some patents, court rulings, licensing agreements, the combining of several resin companies into Bakelite Corporation (later became part of Union Carbide), and the increased demand for these products and in the end as a settlement, Westinghouse licensed Formica, GE, and others to make these materials. Several other companies including Panelyte, Taylor Fibre Company, and Continental Diamond Fibre Company entered the industrial high pressure thermosetting laminate market. Applications for these products are for insulating electrical equipment.

So Wikepedia's description failed to give vital details concern the marketing application, legal issues and general historical info regarding something that was revolutionary in products that changed the culture in manufacturing. Single sourcing information to validate a point of contention can often cause knee jerk reactions that can hide the real facts. The fact that Micarta was a trade name had nothing to due with it's proliferation in the market and the Micarta became an icon like Kleenex or Xerox did concerning a product association. This was my point of contention since my first post and it saddens me that stipulating a few points could cause such personal character attacks. I guess at a time like that we are all naked at the alter of the truth. Which I must say is sometimes flawed by urban legend. That's why you always have to do you homework and research and not be swayed by any venom that may come your way

Also, my very good friend and cue maker in my midwest area Todd Schaller has been following this thread and gave me a ferrule cut off of a shaft from the Omega DPK shop in Wacanda Il.. Todd has over 20 of these but more importantly is that he had the opportunity to pick up all of the stock materials left in that shop for making cues when the realtor was going to dumpster everything to clear the space.

Todd has pieces of the flat laminate sheets that have the Westinghouse lable still on them. Since DPK was the person who set up the Omega DPK Shop, I think it is a safe bet that this material is the same stuff the Jerry Franklin had been using. But don't quote me because it is only my deduction from the evidence. I could not swear to this on the stand.

The ferrule pics below are of the same material and if you inspect it closely it is the same stuff that has been shown here in another post. The other very yellow stuff is a different formula or is from a different manufacturer as well as the GE stuff I have posted.

There are many many formulas but I think the question is which ones have the secrete sauce in their formula called "asbestos". I don't know for sure but I would bet the asbestos is the reason those ferrules have such an impact concerning playability on a cue.

Thanks for all of the positive thoughts from people who contacted me about this thread. It is appreciated very much.

To everyone here, it's all good and enjoy the holiday weekend,

Rick

Westinghouse Micarta from the Omega DPK cue making material stores.
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I just ran across this post as I quit monitoring this thread after my last post as it is futile trying to get a point across with someone who believes he knows all. However these two pictures are real old yellow Micarta as near as I can tell without having them in my hand. One question. Why is it that there is no flat laminates visible in these two ferrules? Have they been Photo shopped out? Have they been erased? Or, could it be that they were cast into thick sheets from an emulsion and then reworked into what ever forms that were desired as I tried to convince all earlier and not formed in layered sheets like phenolic is. Inquiring minds want to know.

Dick
 
rhncue said:
I just ran across this post as I quit monitoring this thread after my last post as it is futile trying to get a point across with someone who believes he knows all. However these two pictures are real old yellow Micarta as near as I can tell without having them in my hand. One question. Why is it that there is no flat laminates visible in these two ferrules? Have they been Photo shopped out? Have they been erased? Or, could it be that they were cast into thick sheets from an emulsion and then reworked into what ever forms that were desired as I tried to convince all earlier and not formed in layered sheets like phenolic is. Inquiring minds want to know.

Dick
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Kelly_Guy said:
Glue lines from laminations in a ferrule would be running horizontally. Do you see laminates or do you see tooling/spiral winding markings?
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Hi Guys,

They answer is that there are many forms of asbestos micarta made by different companies over the years. Some flat lam & some rods where the sheet material was wound to form a spiral pattern. There are doubtless other processes also.

As for a bringing up the notion that someone would Photoshop a pic to present in a forum is quite ridiculous and revealing of the thought process of the one who would conceive such a notion to try to prejudice a point of view. A child can see right through that.

BTW, Know it alls do not change the topic or subject of a discussion they are involved in nor do they quote generic and non specific facts that are generalization form Wikipedia ect, and present it as end all fact when in reality it is not even germane to the subject at hand. They generally stay on task and do not go circular in their arguments changing the subject over and over. If you take most points made in this thread and subject them to Boolean and Aristotelian Logic evaluations you will find more Homer Simpsons than ones who are informed or as you say "know it alls". DOOO!!

Rick
 
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I see laminations.
Just the age alone and use that ferrule has seen would have long ago smoothed over tooling marks.
 
scdiveteam said:
Hi Guys,

They answer is that there are many forms of asbestos micarta made by different companies over the years. Some flat lam & some rods where the sheet material was wound to form a spiral pattern. There are doubtless other processes also.

As for a bringing up the notion that someone would Photoshop a pic to present in a forum is quite ridiculous and revealing of the thought process of the one who would conceive such a notion to try to prejudice a point of view. A child can see right through that.

BTW, Know it alls do not change the topic or subject of a discussion they are involved in nor do they quote generic and non specific facts that are generalization form Wikipedia ect, and present it as end all fact when in reality it is not even germane to the subject at hand. They generally stay on task and do not go circular in their arguments changing the subject over and over. If you take most points made in this thread and subject them to Boolean and Aristotelian Logic evaluations you will find more Homer Simpsons than ones who are informed or as you say "know it alls". DOOO!!

Rick
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Rick, I know that you are not a stupid man yet you are trying to state that I am saying that these pictures are photo shopped? I can't believe any person could possibly come to this conclusion except to purposely cloud or deflect the issue as you have no real answer for the pictures, that you presented by the way. You are correct that only a child would use that argument and only a child would attempt to believe others would believe that that is what I was attempting to say. I believe that most everyone, other than Mr. Wilson, can see that these are substantially different than all of the other pictures, except maybe, the one on the Scruggs cue. I just blew the pictures up much larger and I can see what Mr. Wilson believes are circular laminations but I am sure that these are not laminations but polishing marks that occur anytime something is polished on a lathe. There is no reason that they would go away just because the ferrule ages.

You are correct that there are numerous ways that companies make phenolics, but, we are not discussing other phenolics. We have been discussing just one type of Micarta, which happens to be old yellow Micarta, which is not a phenolic and which by the way you have furnished pictures of. Now who is it that is throwing up diversions to mislead the truth. It matters not how others make material that is not old yellow Micarta - just how the yellow Micarta is made.

Dick
 
rhncue said:
Rick, I know that you are not a stupid man yet you are trying to state that I am saying that these pictures are photo shopped? I can't believe any person could possibly come to this conclusion except to purposely cloud or deflect the issue as you have no real answer for the pictures, that you presented by the way. You are correct that only a child would use that argument and only a child would attempt to believe others would believe that that is what I was attempting to say. I believe that most everyone, other than Mr. Wilson, can see that these are substantially different than all of the other pictures, except maybe, the one on the Scruggs cue. I just blew the pictures up much larger and I can see what Mr. Wilson believes are circular laminations but I am sure that these are not laminations but polishing marks that occur anytime something is polished on a lathe. There is no reason that they would go away just because the ferrule ages.

You are correct that there are numerous ways that companies make phenolics, but, we are not discussing other phenolics. We have been discussing just one type of Micarta, which happens to be old yellow Micarta, which is not a phenolic and which by the way you have furnished pictures of. Now who is it that is throwing up diversions to mislead the truth. It matters not how others make material that is not old yellow Micarta - just how the yellow Micarta is made.

Dick
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For what it is worth, I understood your post. You were stating what it would have (ludicrously) taken for such a blown up pic to not show any laminations if it was assumed or demanded that they would be present in the ferrule.
 
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Rotated and zoomed.

Well burnished tip and blued wood and apparently pretty old.
Why would tooling still be visible?

I think these are laminations.

MHO.
 

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Mr. Wilson said:
Pray tell, what sort of horizontal tooling marks would be on a ferrule?
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None that I know of, except the owner using some course sand paper to sand his shaft lengthways and he buggers up his ferrule in the process. But, that is a different subject.

A simple question:

Are the radial marks in the pic what you are calling laminations?

If the answer is yes, they are not laminations.

If the answer is no, if you see horizontal lines in the ferrule, then you see something I don't see, which was what my previous post was saying.
 
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Mr. Wilson said:
Rotated and zoomed.

Well burnished tip and blued wood and apparently pretty old.
Why would tooling still be visible?

I think these are laminations.

MHO.
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I don't believe a cuesmith would EVER cut a blank from a laminated flat bar so that the laminations run crosscut and not lengthwise to the ferrule blank. I think that would be an exceedingly poor idea.

Also, try and count the marks. There might easily be around 100 of them. Assuming that is a 1 inch ferrule, that would mean each layer would be 10 thousandths of an inch thick. In reality, each layer would be even less than that because the glue would be taken up a thousandth or two. That is a huge stretch.
 
Mr. Wilson said:
Kelly, what is your proposal for what we see?
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The same thing I have been saying? A yellow ferrule that shows no signs of laminations, but does show some sort of tooling marks. This is the same thing that Dickie pointed out.

Those marks could have been put on there by the last bloke who worked on it. There is no way to tell how old they are. Someone could have cut the diameter of the ferrule too small in relation to the shaft diameter and then built the diameter up with CA leaving the tooling marks. If that happened, polishing out the tooling marks would have just undercut the ferrule more and so was skipped. Someone could have simply not cared to polish out their tooling marks. Based on how extreme the ring is between the shaft and the ferrule, somewhere along the line attention to that kind of detail of workmanship wasn't the highest priority. Given that, and given they look exactly like tooling marks, leaving tooling marks behind is WAY more plausible than a crosscut laminated ferrule made from < .01" thick layers.
 
settle down, people

In the interests of offering another explanation:

If a translucent material is cut with a dull tool, the excessive tool pressure - rather than cutting cleanly - can compress or stress the material such that the "ghost" of a tooling mark remains visible, even after sanding & polishing the material.

An oft seen example of this is when someone is trimming a ferrule flush with a shaft. If carbide tooling is used, it will usually leave a mark on the shaftwood if the repairman tries too hard to get a perfect blend & runs beyond the ferrule onto the wood. Even though the wood is not cut & the blend feels perfect, visible proof of the "over-run" remains in the wood. It might require an additional .005" or more sanding to remove all traces of the compressed wood.

Also, I, too, have never seen a ferrule in which the laminations run parallel to the tip.
 
scdiveteam said:
Hi,

So you convinced the seller to change his title. How enterprising of you. I bet if you read that book it will spell out GEs role in the industry and methods. They were a huge participant in the market.

I posted a link that seem to be not working. Here is some other histrionics:

In 1913, Daniel O’Conor, head of the research engineering, process section, and Herbert Faber, insulating materials sales manager, left Westinghouse to [...]

[...]
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"histrionics"? OMG...lol.

TW
 
My most prolific local customer had me change an Ivor-X ferrule to ivory,and from ivory to a Micarta on one of his shafts. This Micarta has been floating around the Memphis pool scene since the 70's from what I'm told. This source is where my customer got it from Billiard Pro Shop.

It looks a lot closer to some of the versions posted earlier in this thread when still in blank form than it is when fitted and polished out to completion.

The end result I handed back to him looked like Juma color-wise,as well as overall "presentation",but polished out like the Ivor-X. Nice stuff,but won't get in into what version.

There was almost no discernable grain or pattern to the surface,but sanded and polished much nicer than Juma,and stayed cleaner. Once I had it and the rest of the shaft sealed and detailed,you could see a little detail in the material,but only if you have incredible vision and therefore don't need a 3x magnifier or even a 10x loupe. I'm not even sure my phone could take good enough pics for it to show up. There is also only ONE little strip of that,and it just shows up as a streak a split-hair darker,nothing even close to noticable,but the full length of the finished product under magnification.

It would be pretty sporty to have some more,but the ONLY reason I've ever worked on it was because he brought it to me. Otherwise,no one locally would pay what I'd have to charge for a ferrule that cost over 20 bucks for the blank. I've only worked on one Schon shaft I have,or a customer's shafts that has the SW really yellow material,and all I did to that was put a tip on,and clean/polish,no machining other than the tip.

My only other repeat customer that has asked for ivory ferrules and is willing to pay what I charge for ivory is a little over an hour away. I can't envision even pricing a ferrule replacement to a customer unless THEY pay for the version that some pay 100 for the blank,or show up with it.

So at this point I won't chase the stuff down.

What Joe has in 2-3 different versions is good stuff,at least from the pics. Tommy D.
 
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