chris i do not match the shaft to the butt by hand i said i hand face the shaft to the butt by hand and there is a reason for that because no matter how well you face it on the machine the wood is hard and soft because your facing across the grain of the shaft are butt. Try this make one driver with a radial pin sticking out the end and face the driver to the pin tap 5 shafts and face each one after taping it so the face is dead zero to the hole you just taped, Zero your driver you made in the lathe with the pin running zero and the face of it running zero . now screw on each shaft one at a time and you will find that maybe 2 out of five will run with no woble either at the joint are out in the middle of the shaft . This is not do to how striaght you tapped the shaft,s are drilled them its because of the face not being perfecly flat because of facing across the grain. Wood does not face as true as metal because of the hardness in different areas of the grain. This also holds true on butts if you make one driver to run all butts to, And do your sanding are finishing then you,ll find that that 2 out of five will run striaght for the same reasons. We use a delrin driver on each butt we build we center the cue in the lathe after the finish cut and zero the pin now we screw on the delrin driver and true it to that butt with the tool post now all of the sanding and finishing is done only with that driver untill the cue is done that way you do away with the face and know that driver is dead inline with the pin and the cue. Then when were done we throw the delrin driver over in the bucket and reface it to the next cue were building untill it,s finished, so one driver will go thru 10 cues before its done with. this sounds like alot of work on here but it takes no time to do and your sure your cue runs perfect every time. you can not take a set of carbides and get every butt and every shaft to run true to that one driver. i know people do this but i know if they are they are running the chance on 2 out of 5 cues are being sanded to a false face. In other words after sanding 5 cues with your, are someone else carbides and your done take the driver off and center the butts in the lathe now see if the pin,s run striaght without having to push around on the cue,s in order to get them to. I would bet that my numbers are close, just try it .On shafts we do not use delrin drivers we sand them between centers, there for we do not need the drivers . I showed this to woody at woodworth custom cues and he freaked on it and did not believe it at first. But after showing him a second time he agreed and now hand faces every cue for striaghtness for the life of the cue because once the face is off it stays that way and gets worse inless it fixed right. as for any slopy shaft threads i agree with you if there that loose throw it away i was just trying to get you to understand how this could happen. chris these are my things i have found on my own and i know all people won,t agree. But i have proved it to my self try what i have told you and you will see what i mean. Please don,t be affended in any way as i said this is no attack on you are your ways just something i thought i would tell you about and have you try it and see if this holds true for you to.
MADISON BOB
PS. MAKE your drivers out of wood are delrin to give the test the same chances you would have if it was a true cue. but even with metal it would still be low numbers. Have you ever build 2 shafts for a cue and find one rolls off a little more than the other when you roll the hole cue together on the table? Even thou everything when the cue is apart rolls perfect. this is why the shafts both need to be hand faced to the butt because of the faces not being perfect because your facing across the grain .Also why you have these shafts screwed to the drivers take the center in the tailstock and pull it away from the shaft and watch the end of the shaft with no center attached to it see how true it really rolls. it should roll with no woble on the tip end if it don,t then you will see what i mean about drivers and faces. PLEASE LET US KNOW HOW THE TEST,S COMES OUT!!!!
