I need a little advise on shafts.... I have always thought that the shaft is very important part of the cue/ ( maybe the most important part) I am asking this question to find the best hitting shaft not to get any fights among the cuemakers.... thats why i listed it in here and not ask the cuemakers..... thank you all for any imput....
Who makes the best hitting shaft?
- Thread starter I'mdoingit
- Start date
I'mdoingit said:
Absoloutely, the shaft is a huge importance on how the cue hits. Any cuemaker can make the best shaft, it all depends on the quality of the wood. Look for wood that has a very fine grain, i.e. no rings, lines, and knots in the wood. A shaft that has only grain will hit very very good. I have a cue with a 11.5 mm tip, with a very long straight taper. Most people who first look at it would think that it must hit terrible because it looks so flimsy, but the wood quality is so good that the hit is great. I've seen $1500 cues with shafts that you're better off using for firewood. I don't know why they do that. Ask Tate about this, he knows more than most people.
drivermaker
Banned
I'mdoingit said:
Shouldn't you really be asking yourself, "What do I want in a shaft"? Do you know what you want and what you're looking for in flex, taper, weight, balance, tip size, ferrule material and tip type that will all affect feel and performance? When you can answer all of the above, the rest is a lot easier to determine.
The following link shows pictures and says how to determine how good the wood is in your shaft.
How good is your wood?...
http://www.waynesthisandthat.com/billiards.htm#wood
Besides good quality wood, I feel the tip and tip shape is *most* important. This is the business end of the cue after all.
Some ferrules like malamine will clean up easier.
And then you can get a "low deflection" shaft...
http://www.platinumbilliards.com/rating_deflect.php
FYI - Some players in my local area get all hot and bothered about "shaft vibration" and have tests where they can bang on the shaft to see where it vibrates, then hold their bridge at a certain distance to damper vibration, say some shafts which vibrate in a certain manner are better than others, etc.... I think this is a lot of nonsense. Look at the following high speed video and you will see that the cue ball is long gone by the time the shaft starts its vibrating thing...
http://www.engr.colostate.edu/~dga/pool/high_speed_videos/new/HSVA-5.htm
How good is your wood?...
http://www.waynesthisandthat.com/billiards.htm#wood
Besides good quality wood, I feel the tip and tip shape is *most* important. This is the business end of the cue after all.
Some ferrules like malamine will clean up easier.
And then you can get a "low deflection" shaft...
http://www.platinumbilliards.com/rating_deflect.php
FYI - Some players in my local area get all hot and bothered about "shaft vibration" and have tests where they can bang on the shaft to see where it vibrates, then hold their bridge at a certain distance to damper vibration, say some shafts which vibrate in a certain manner are better than others, etc.... I think this is a lot of nonsense. Look at the following high speed video and you will see that the cue ball is long gone by the time the shaft starts its vibrating thing...
http://www.engr.colostate.edu/~dga/pool/high_speed_videos/new/HSVA-5.htm
Also McDermott recently came out with a new line of 3 different shafts (called i series shafts) - each with a different hit. Note that the tip size and tip hardness varies with each different shaft.
http://www.mcdermottcue.com/PAGES/I Shafts/Home.htm
http://www.mcdermottcue.com/PAGES/I Shafts/Home.htm
while this is a legitimate question and there are a lot of good answers here, i would have to beg to differ in some of your logic. i totally agree that a majority of hit and technology is in the shaft, but the butt of the cue plays a bigger part then orginally lead to believe. i have a friend who is building cues so one day we had a little test. we took one of his shafts and 2 of his butts and so some racks and did some prop shots. to our suprise the cues hit differently with the different butts. one felt great and just perfect and the other felt powerless and limp. morale of the story is dont just think if you get a good shaft that your cue is gonna hit great, the butt of the cue plays a bigger part then believed....
If you want a really straight shooting shaft then the really tight grained maple is the way to go. If you put a softer high action ferrule on it, it will give you less deflection and more english. Down side is that you might move the cue ball too much on the faster Simonis cloth. If you want a little more control and can live with a little more deflection use a melamine ferrule. There is no "best shaft" because we all have different wants and feel when it comes to how a shaft plays.
pooljunkie0082 said:
I agree the butt does make a difference in the hit,I have a full spice palmer with a maple shaft and a meucci 97-27 with the black dot shaft , I swich around shafts and you could feel the difference in hit's my meucci has a softer hit while the palmer has crisper hit with the black dot shaft , I prefer the palmer with the black dot shaft over the maple but like zims rack said above (Everyone plays differently; therefore, each shaft is going to feel differently.