Why aren't people more picky about LD shaft weights?

BillPorter

BillPorter

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I was playing with a custom cue I own the other day and was hitting the shots real well and enjoying my session alone at the table. After half an hour of hitting balls with the original maple shaft that came with the cue, I put an OB-1 shaft on the butt and hit some more balls. Of course I noticed a difference in the sound of the hit with the OB-1, but I also noticed that the cue felt really light, actually lighter than I liked. When I got home I pulled out a digital scale and weighed the original shaft and the OB-1 shaft. The original shaft weighed 3.9 oz. while the OB-1 weighed in a bit below 3.3 oz. So of course I would notice what amounted to over half an ounce of weight difference when I switched shafts.

Now maybe the example detailed above is extreme, but I have found that, in general, the Predator and OB-1 shafts I have had are lighter than the original shafts they were replacing. I have a Joss cue with an original shaft that weighs 4.3 oz., so if I put on a LD shaft that weighed 3.3 oz., the cue would lose an ounce of weight and would have a different balance point.

Consider this scenario - You buy a custom cue from a good cue maker and ask for two shafts. He sends you the cue and you find that one shaft weighs almost an ounce more than the other one. Would this be acceptable? Of course not! In fact, when I have bought custom cues with two shafts, the shafts are usually within a tenth of an ounce of each other.

So is it true that pool players are generally much more accepting of significant differences in weight when it comes to LD shafts? And if so, why? Is it the case that a player would be very demanding that his custom cue weighs a certain amount, maybe to the tenth of an ounce, and then blithely slap on a LD shaft that lowers the cue weight by half an ounce?

I am currently shopping for two Predator shafts to use on two of my cues. Since I like the feel, weight, and balance of the cues with the original shafts, I am looking for Predator shafts that are close (don't have to be exact) in weight to the original shafts. And it isn't easy to find a 314 that weighs over 4 ounces, so I may end up trying one of the Predator FAT shafts to get one that's close to the 4.3 ounce Joss shaft.
 
BillPorter said:
I was playing with a custom cue I own the other day and was hitting the shots real well and enjoying my session alone at the table. After half an hour of hitting balls with the original maple shaft that came with the cue, I put an OB-1 shaft on the butt and hit some more balls. Of course I noticed a difference in the sound of the hit with the OB-1, but I also noticed that the cue felt really light, actually lighter than I liked. When I got home I pulled out a digital scale and weighed the original shaft and the OB-1 shaft. The original shaft weighed 3.9 oz. while the OB-1 weighed in a bit below 3.3 oz. So of course I would notice what amounted to over half an ounce of weight difference when I switched shafts.

Now maybe the example detailed above is extreme, but I have found that, in general, the Predator and OB-1 shafts I have had are lighter than the original shafts they were replacing. I have a Joss cue with an original shaft that weighs 4.3 oz., so if I put on a LD shaft that weighed 3.3 oz., the cue would lose an ounce of weight and would have a different balance point.

Consider this scenario - You buy a custom cue from a good cue maker and ask for two shafts. He sends you the cue and you find that one shaft weighs almost an ounce more than the other one. Would this be acceptable? Of course not! In fact, when I have bought custom cues with two shafts, the shafts are usually within a tenth of an ounce of each other.

So is it true that pool players are generally much more accepting of significant differences in weight when it comes to LD shafts? And if so, why? Is it the case that a player would be very demanding that his custom cue weighs a certain amount, maybe to the tenth of an ounce, and then blithely slap on a LD shaft that lowers the cue weight by half an ounce?

I am currently shopping for two Predator shafts to use on two of my cues. Since I like the feel, weight, and balance of the cues with the original shafts, I am looking for Predator shafts that are close (don't have to be exact) in weight to the original shafts. And it isn't easy to find a 314 that weighs over 4 ounces, so I may end up trying one of the Predator FAT shafts to get one that's close to the 4.3 ounce Joss shaft.
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This is not meant to be some kind of slam but it seems obvious to me that most people playing LD stuff are willing to sacrifice proper weighting , balance ,sound AND feel for whatever amount of performance they feel they gain from LD.










<-----Not one of those people. :)
 
RRfireblade said:
This is not meant to be some kind of slam but it seems obvious to me that most people playing LD stuff are willing to sacrifice proper weighting , balance ,sound AND feel for whatever amount of performance they feel they gain from LD.
<-----Not one of those people. :)
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I think you're statement rings true for most of them. But don't forget some also want the "radial" consistency. LOL Like they would notice if the c/b squirts 1/128" more one way or another. Lets not forget though the cue maker could add weight to the threaded end of the shaft. I doubt most LD shaft owners ever ask but it is an option.

Rod -- not an LD owner
 
when i went looking for a butt to match with a LD shaft, I asked for specifications with a 3.5oz shaft (what I was told a OB-2 weighs). Most important to me was balance point, many sticks with LD shafts become very butt weighted.
 
Johnnyz86 said:
when i went looking for a butt to match with a LD shaft, I asked for specifications with a 3.5oz shaft (what I was told a OB-2 weighs). Most important to me was balance point, many sticks with LD shafts become very butt weighted.
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Exactly, and I can't help but wonder why this isn't more of an issue with more people. Now I'm wondering why LD shaft makers don't offer the option of different weights. It seems to me that adding about half an ounce of weight near the joint end of an LD shaft would not hurt the performance of the shaft. I say this because we have all been told repeatedly that it is the mass/weight of the shaft in the 5-6 inches down from the tip that is critical in determining the amount of deflection of the shaft.
 
I Shafts

I have had several discussions with McDermott over the years since they hit the market with their I Shafts. They were in the 3ozs range at first and I was concerned about it changing the balance point of my cues. Their new I shaft design seems to go right to the point of weight. They now have basically got a full wood shaft with a carbon core. They have cored the shaft added the carbon insert and inserted a wood dowel into the carbon insert. I do not have all the full info on their process but am sure the weight must now be more similar to a solid wood shaft. I also did some experimenting by adding weight to my I shafts to bring them up to 4ozs.
Great Thread BTW!!
Dan
 
BillPorter said:
Exactly, and I can't help but wonder why this isn't more of an issue with more people. Now I'm wondering why LD shaft makers don't offer the option of different weights. It seems to me that adding about half an ounce of weight near the joint end of an LD shaft would not hurt the performance of the shaft. I say this because we have all been told repeatedly that it is the mass/weight of the shaft in the 5-6 inches down from the tip that is critical in determining the amount of deflection of the shaft.
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There isn't any practical fix. LD shafts are extremely light weight in the last 6"-10" or so. You can add weight to the joint area for either overall weight or balance but it would be a compromise between the 2 . . . not to mention how drastically that much weight in the joint would change the feel and playability of the cue.
 
quedup said:
I have had several discussions with McDermott over the years since they hit the market with their I Shafts. They were in the 3ozs range at first and I was concerned about it changing the balance point of my cues. Their new I shaft design seems to go right to the point of weight. They now have basically got a full wood shaft with a carbon core. They have cored the shaft added the carbon insert and inserted a wood dowel into the carbon insert. I do not have all the full info on their process but am sure the weight must now be more similar to a solid wood shaft. I also did some experimenting by adding weight to my I shafts to bring them up to 4ozs.
Great Thread BTW!!
Dan
Click to expand...

Dan, it seems to me that if McD is producing LD shafts near 4 oz. they are ahead of the curve on this. I seem to recall bringing up the idea on AZ of finding a way to add weight, maybe in tenth of an ounce increments, to shafts. And, IIRC, no one was much interested in the idea. I think I even sent the idea to a cue maker or two (Danny Janes? Royce Bunnell?) and got no real interest.

It seems to me that there is a great niche market here and if I had the knowledge to develop something, I'd give it a try. Just find an easy and reversible way to add weight to the joint end of LD shafts, probably in tenth of an ounce increments. If it were priced right, it's an item that would have sales in the thousands I would think.
 
RRfireblade said:
There isn't any practical fix. LD shafts are extremely light weight in the last 6"-10" or so. You can add weight to the joint area for either overall weight or balance but it would be a compromise between the 2 . . . not to mention how drastically that much weight in the joint would change the feel and playability of the cue.
Click to expand...

You may be correct about it changing the "feel and playability of the cue," but I'm not sure it would have that much effect. Especially if it were half an ounce or less.
 
BillPorter said:
I was playing with a custom cue I own the other day and was hitting the shots real well and enjoying my session alone at the table. After half an hour of hitting balls with the original maple shaft that came with the cue, I put an OB-1 shaft on the butt and hit some more balls. Of course I noticed a difference in the sound of the hit with the OB-1, but I also noticed that the cue felt really light, actually lighter than I liked. When I got home I pulled out a digital scale and weighed the original shaft and the OB-1 shaft. The original shaft weighed 3.9 oz. while the OB-1 weighed in a bit below 3.3 oz. So of course I would notice what amounted to over half an ounce of weight difference when I switched shafts.

Now maybe the example detailed above is extreme, but I have found that, in general, the Predator and OB-1 shafts I have had are lighter than the original shafts they were replacing. I have a Joss cue with an original shaft that weighs 4.3 oz., so if I put on a LD shaft that weighed 3.3 oz., the cue would lose an ounce of weight and would have a different balance point.

Consider this scenario - You buy a custom cue from a good cue maker and ask for two shafts. He sends you the cue and you find that one shaft weighs almost an ounce more than the other one. Would this be acceptable? Of course not! In fact, when I have bought custom cues with two shafts, the shafts are usually within a tenth of an ounce of each other.

So is it true that pool players are generally much more accepting of significant differences in weight when it comes to LD shafts? And if so, why? Is it the case that a player would be very demanding that his custom cue weighs a certain amount, maybe to the tenth of an ounce, and then blithely slap on a LD shaft that lowers the cue weight by half an ounce?

I am currently shopping for two Predator shafts to use on two of my cues. Since I like the feel, weight, and balance of the cues with the original shafts, I am looking for Predator shafts that are close (don't have to be exact) in weight to the original shafts. And it isn't easy to find a 314 that weighs over 4 ounces, so I may end up trying one of the Predator FAT shafts to get one that's close to the 4.3 ounce Joss shaft.
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Bill,

I play with a Predator shaft on my JW cue. When I put the original shafts back on, frankly, I hate the cue. It feels clumsy and front heavy. It feels downright weird.

It just goes to show that you adjust to what you play with, and any change feels odd for awhile.

No matter what kind of new shaft they choose, what weight, low deflection or standard, if a player notices that their game has declined over a given adjustment time period, say a few months, it's time to ditch the new shaft.

Your personal performance is what counts, and nobody can guage that except you.

Chris
 
TATE said:
Bill,

I play with a Predator shaft on my JW cue. When I put the original shafts back on, frankly, I hate the cue. It feels clumsy and front heavy. It feels downright weird.

It just goes to show that you adjust to what you play with, and any change feels odd for awhile.

No matter what kind of new shaft they choose, what weight, low deflection or standard, if a player notices that their game has declined over a given adjustment time period, say a few months, it's time to ditch the new shaft.

Your personal performance is what counts, and nobody can guage that except you.

Chris
Click to expand...
Hi Chris, thanks again for your help when I was selling that old Palmer recently. It did go for $500 on eBay.

I'll bet that Predator was at least half an ounce lighter than your original shaft. Seems like most of the high-end cue makers, using top shelf shaft wood, produce shafts around 4 ounces or heavier.

But as you say, players adjust fairly quickly to whatever they are playing with. What prompted me to make my original post was the thought that the same player who asks their cue maker for a precise balance point or overall cue weight may not hesitate to put on an after-market shaft that changes the weight significantly and the balance point a bit.
 
11/15/2007

Hi Bill, I found and copied my post about this from 11/15/2007:

Hi Shawn, I never noticed any pinging from mine. But you are right about the weight. All my I/2 shafts were under 3 ozs, and my I/3 was 2.7 ozs. So I drilled out the insert and added a little more than an ounce of weight to them. The weight is added in the back end of the shaft near the joint and does not seem to affect the performance at all. They are hollow all the way to the ferrule!!! I got a long oak dowel and measured them to be sure. My shafts are all the older ones and I am very curious about the isolator addition if you have any info...
Dan
 
Exactly!!

I bought a Predator Z shaft last year to see what all the hype was about. I played with it for 6 1/2 months, but it just never felt right. In January I switched back to my original shaft and couldn't be happier. The balance feels so much better now. It was just too light in the front with the LD shaft, which I suppose is the point. To me, if I get used to the way my cue plays, I do not need a low deflection shaft. I would think that you only need that consistency if you are changing cues constantly. My cue plays the same every time I pick it up, so I am used to the deflection it brings.

-Brandon
 
BillPorter said:
Hi Chris, thanks again for your help when I was selling that old Palmer recently. It did go for $500 on eBay.

I'll bet that Predator was at least half an ounce lighter than your original shaft. Seems like most of the high-end cue makers, using top shelf shaft wood, produce shafts around 4 ounces or heavier.

But as you say, players adjust fairly quickly to whatever they are playing with. What prompted me to make my original post was the thought that the same player who asks their cue maker for a precise balance point or overall cue weight may not hesitate to put on an after-market shaft that changes the weight significantly and the balance point a bit.
Click to expand...

You are correct, my Predators are 3.5 ounces and the originals are 4 ounces. The distribution of the weight and the difference in the taper changes the feel, as does the lack of weight at the tip end of the Predator shaft, especially on soft shots.

An original Predator shaft came with my cue. I thought it was all BS marketing hype myself, then I tried it and I liked it. What I've noticed is that some players benefit from the LD shafts and some don't, but it takes a while to find out. I tried the OB-1 and it was too soft for my liking. I use a 314-2 now and I think at some point I'm going to try Z shaft.

Chris
 
I prefer a slightly front heavy cue. I really like my Universal shafts as they're 3.8 oz and 4.1 oz.

I prefer a heavier "normal/ivory" shaft as over all of them though. My Bender's are 3.7 and 3.8 oz, and they are 12.5 and 12.75mm respectively. These weights would be good for a 13mm 5/16x14 shaft, but are awesome for a 3/8x14 smaller shafts.

Jim
 
I just emailed Royce Bunnell of OB-1 cues and mentioned this thread to him. Maybe he'll have time to chime in and give his views. I hope so!
 
BillPorter said:
So is it true that pool players are generally much more accepting of significant differences in weight when it comes to LD shafts?
Click to expand...

Whenever I order a LD shaft I always try to match the weight of the LD shaft to the weight of the original shafts for the cue as closely as possible.
 
Heavy Predator

Bill,

I agree with your views and I have 3 predator shafts and I do know that it is possible to find a heavier predator. I have two older 314 Cat logo predator shafts and one weighs 3.615 and the other weighs 4.195oz. I also have a new Predator 314-2 which is also a heavier shaft at 3.885oz. I guess I'm just trying to say that you can find some heavier predator shafts if you look.

If you are looking for 5/16x14, then the insert that they use will make a difference. The two that are heavier (one is built specifically to fit Schon) the other was built to fit Jacoby I believe, but they both have a larger full size pilot versus the little nub that is on a standard predator. So if you can find a cuemaker that you trust, then order a couple of heavier blanks from seyberts or where ever you chose and have them built for you. They can use a heavier brass insert of whatever is needed to add some weight.

On a side note, my favorite of the three, and the one that I use the most is 3.615 oz. The weight is only 1 part of the puzzle, this one just seems more lively and has a better feel (more feedback) than the other two.??!!

Happy hunting

dakota
 
Everybody has good points. Me personally, I am an OB-2 guy. I will buy blanks and have the ring work matched. But I always call Troy aka Koinnkid (great to deal with) and ask him to send me the heaviest blanks out of his stock. My current player is an Hoppe made by Joe Callaluca and both blanks weighed in at 3.7 which is not a bad weight for me personally.

The cue's balance feels great..............

Take care,
JimmyK
 
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