Why does my cue play so well?

M

maxeypad2007

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Why does my cue play so well?

This is not me just tooting my own horn here but I have wondered why does my cue play so well.

I play with a six point cocobolo southwest with triple veneers into a maple forearm at 18.9oz. There are two shafts and the shaft I play with is 12.8mm using a moori medium and the standard southwest taper.

I've played with lots of other cues with 3/8 x 11 pins and one with a taper designed to match my playing cue however I've not been able to find anything that plays similar to my cue. The hit is very stiff, which I believe to be because southwest takes so much time cutting down the shafts and curing the wood.

So what is it about my cue that makes it such a unique snowflake? Is it the wood, the taper etc. I know its probably a combination of all of them but what specifically about my cue is it that plays the biggest part in the hit. Previously I thought this was the 3/8 x 11 joint but I was proven wrong after owning about ten other cues with the same joint pin but very very different hits. Any insight here would be helpful because I am looking for a secondary player cue to travel with.
 
Is the butt protector pure rubber? That will reduce knocking in the joint and thus keeping deflection to a minimum. :)
 
I'd chalk it up to luck of the draw. Happens with cars...two supposedly identical cars, yet one will consistently beat the other in the 1/4 mile by better than a car length. Happens with rifles, one grouping better than the other using identical ammo, the list goes on... luck of the draw.
 
maxeypad2007 said:
Why does my cue play so well?

This is not me just tooting my own horn here but I have wondered why does my cue play so well.

I play with a six point cocobolo southwest with triple veneers into a maple forearm at 18.9oz. There are two shafts and the shaft I play with is 12.8mm using a moori medium and the standard southwest taper.

I've played with lots of other cues with 3/8 x 11 pins and one with a taper designed to match my playing cue however I've not been able to find anything that plays similar to my cue. The hit is very stiff, which I believe to be because southwest takes so much time cutting down the shafts and curing the wood.

So what is it about my cue that makes it such a unique snowflake? Is it the wood, the taper etc. I know its probably a combination of all of them but what specifically about my cue is it that plays the biggest part in the hit. Previously I thought this was the 3/8 x 11 joint but I was proven wrong after owning about ten other cues with the same joint pin but very very different hits. Any insight here would be helpful because I am looking for a secondary player cue to travel with.
Click to expand...

It's a combination of all the things that make up your Southwest. The taper of the shaft, the very small cuts on the shafts over long periods of time and the tip and wood that it's made out of.
Construction methods make a big difference as well. There is a reason why SW cues sell for so much money even though most of them are just 6 points with a few veneers and ringwork.
I have played with several and they have all hit great.

Another example is Ed Prewitt cues. I saw my first one last week. I spent some time speaking with the owner and when I ran into him again this week he let me play a rack with it.
The second I picked it up I knew it was special. It was effortless and needless to say I ran the rack with ease.
 
No doubt ALL southwests play well. My comment was that with two identical looking southwests, an experienced player would say that one plays better than the other. Of couse, another experienced player may find just the opposite. How a cue "plays" is such a subjective thing...
 
it is the one that suits you and you are tuned to

Your cue is one that suits you well to begin with but equally importantly it is the one that you have tuned your game to. As a general statement it is no better or no worse than hundreds of other cues but once you get tuned to one cue the odds of another playing equally well for you might be one in thousands.

When I played with house cues I could play with anything. When I started using one cue only it took me months to get my game back to the best level after major changes. The old billiard and snooker players often never regained their form if something happened to the cue that they had played with for many years.

Hu


maxeypad2007 said:
Why does my cue play so well?

This is not me just tooting my own horn here but I have wondered why does my cue play so well.

I play with a six point cocobolo southwest with triple veneers into a maple forearm at 18.9oz. There are two shafts and the shaft I play with is 12.8mm using a moori medium and the standard southwest taper.

I've played with lots of other cues with 3/8 x 11 pins and one with a taper designed to match my playing cue however I've not been able to find anything that plays similar to my cue. The hit is very stiff, which I believe to be because southwest takes so much time cutting down the shafts and curing the wood.

So what is it about my cue that makes it such a unique snowflake? Is it the wood, the taper etc. I know its probably a combination of all of them but what specifically about my cue is it that plays the biggest part in the hit. Previously I thought this was the 3/8 x 11 joint but I was proven wrong after owning about ten other cues with the same joint pin but very very different hits. Any insight here would be helpful because I am looking for a secondary player cue to travel with.
Click to expand...
 
I put the "fu#$ing play great spell" on your cue. Please send a donation to my paypal account. After I open one up.
 
maxeypad2007 said:
Why does my cue play so well?

This is not me just tooting my own horn here but I have wondered why does my cue play so well.

I play with a six point cocobolo southwest with triple veneers into a maple forearm at 18.9oz. There are two shafts and the shaft I play with is 12.8mm using a moori medium and the standard southwest taper.

I've played with lots of other cues with 3/8 x 11 pins and one with a taper designed to match my playing cue however I've not been able to find anything that plays similar to my cue. The hit is very stiff, which I believe to be because southwest takes so much time cutting down the shafts and curing the wood.

So what is it about my cue that makes it such a unique snowflake? Is it the wood, the taper etc. I know its probably a combination of all of them but what specifically about my cue is it that plays the biggest part in the hit. Previously I thought this was the 3/8 x 11 joint but I was proven wrong after owning about ten other cues with the same joint pin but very very different hits. Any insight here would be helpful because I am looking for a secondary player cue to travel with.
Click to expand...

It's the triple veneers.
 
I dunno..I have a 6 point SouthWest cue and it plays like hammered donkey crap :frown:...and it is a JF era cue....I also have another JF era cue that plays really good though :D......go figure...
 
Some cute responses here.

Regardless I'm just trying to figure out what elements make this cue hit the way it does and what I need to do to ensure the next cue I have built for travel meets those requirements.

Veneers...although somewhat sarcasticly could slightly effect the play of the cue as it is another cut in the wood.
 
maxeypad2007 said:
Some cute responses here.

Regardless I'm just trying to figure out what elements make this cue hit the way it does and what I need to do to ensure the next cue I have built for travel meets those requirements.

Veneers...although somewhat sarcasticly could slightly effect the play of the cue as it is another cut in the wood.
Click to expand...

Pray to God and ask him to guide you to the forest from which the wood for your cue came. Otherwise, GOOD LUCK with your quest to find the perfect match to your cue. I may hit with your cue and think it's a turd. Hit is totally subjective. Maybe you're in love with who made it, and that's why it plays soooooooooo good. It's called "cuephoria".
 
It could be the cruise control.

Mine has cruise control too.

Google tells me that there is a test to diagnose problems with cruise control, should you ever have any. They say: "Use a volt meter to check voltage to the wire with someone pushing the on button. There should be 12v. This tells the cruise to "wake up" (it always has power). Now switch to the ohm setting on the meter while having someone push the buttons, look for these resistance values..."

So if we ever have problems, I guess we'll have to just figure all of that mumbo jumbo out. Until then, I'm not going to question it. : )
 
maxeypad2007 said:
Regardless I'm just trying to figure out what elements make this cue hit the way it does and what I need to do to ensure the next cue I have built for travel meets those requirements.
Click to expand...

You'll want to try to replicate the cue as close as possible in a travel cue.
Moori med. tip, southwest taper, 12.7 -13mm , close as possible in shaft weight,didn't specify ferrule material, didn't specify collar material, didn't specify rings (material/style), 3/8" pin flat joint, same forearm woods (cored), similar wrap, same overall weight and balance.
 
I have been in your shoes, although not with a SW cue, but I wanted to duplicate the playability of a cue that I had. I can only recommend this approach. It may not work for you.

First, try to identify a cuemaker who makes a SW style of cue who's work you like and respect. Many come to mind like Pete Ohman of Omen cues and Jeff Olney, just to name two.

Next visit that cuemaker with your SW cue. Let the cuemaker throughly check out your cue. Ask the maker if he can build you a cue with similar characteristics, right down to the balance point and the number of growth rings in the shaft. It could be a simple sneaky, but the results could surprise you. I seriously doubt that you could duplicate your cue's action and characteristics, but I would be willing to bet that either Mr. Ohman or Olney would turn out a cue that you would really like.

No matter what you do, good luck in your quest...Tom
 
This story might shed some light on why your SW cue plays so well...

Let me start with some background information for you. About seven years ago, one of my older brothers named Jon, married Desiree Kersenbrock. You might recognize the name because as you might have guessed she is indeed David Kersenbrock's niece.

I didn't play pool yet back then and so I wasn't aware of anything about David or his cues until I started getting into pool seriously about three years ago. I started researching pool cues and my sister-in-law mentioned to me that her uncle had made cues while she was growing up in their garage. I was fascinated by this and did some research on who he was, only to find out he is a legend basically. I haven't had the pleasure of meeting David in person, but I do get to spend some time with his older brother (my uncle by marriage) each year when I go out to Vegas to visit our family. You might ask why I haven't been able to meet him yet, and I will get back to that shortly.

Last summer during a weekend family reunion I sat down with my uncle and asked him about David and his cues. It turns out David used to build cues in their garage for many many years and became a good friend/mentor of Jerry Franklin of Southwest cues, as you all probably know already. He received an M.S. degree in applied physics and his studies of choice for his career were quantum mechanics and mathematical physics. He was also a very skilled carpenter in his spare time and became fascinated with pool at an atomic level to say the least.

From the first day he started constructing pool cues he treated it as a science rather than simply an art form. He was both a brilliant physicist and carpenter, so this combination of knowledge of wood and construction techniques were extraordinary for making pool cues. He spent many many hours performing tests on endless wood samples, all the way to the chemical level. He apparently figured out how to manipulate the atoms in the wood to deliver the most perfect natural hit possible at the point of impact. I don't know many specific details, but this is all information I was told by his brother (my uncle) last summer. Once he found the perfect formula, he followed that pattern with all of his cues and shared all of his findings, technical patterns, techniques, and diagrams with Jerry Franklin who went on to start Southwest a few years later.

Here is the interesting part though. About four years ago he basically just disappeared without warning and no one knew where he was or if something had happened to him including his family. He sent them a message that said he was going away and didn't know when he would return. Their father passed away a year later and to this day my uncle still hasn't been able to get ahold of David to let him know this fact... The last conversation they ever had was a brief phone call that David made to my uncle one night, stating that he was in hiding and it had something to do with the government. My uncle didn't believe a word he was saying and he needed proof of this. David told him to call a very long digit phone number if he didn't believe him. The reason my uncle didn't believe him was because David had suffered from symptoms of schizophrenia in the past and had gone to the mental hospital several times for it... That was many years ago though. Apparently he had crazy spells and spoke as if he was God at times and went into great detail explaining his theories on the universe and human existence, aliens, etc... Anyway, this phone number was not any ordinary number so my brother called it and immediately reached a representative for the oval office at The White House. Believe it if you want or call it impossible, this is what happened according to my uncle (who is not crazy by any means).

This is also the reason why I have never met David... He basically disappeared off of the face of the earth 4 1/2 years ago before I was about to meet him. I was able to hold a pair of unchalked, unhit original cues he made specifically for my uncle and my aunt in pristine condition though, and you could almost feel the energy emitting from them. I have hit with a SW cue once and loved it, but I have never owned one. I would very much love to own one of my uncles pieces of work one day but there are only 4 or 5 left in the family unfortunately. He is truly a legend and it is quite an honor to be related to the man, crazy or not. I haven't shared this story with many people before but I thought it might be worth sharing for this post.

The easiest way to explain why your cue plays so well is that the atoms were engineered to generate the most pure hit possible that two pieces of wood screwed together can create.

I cannot give you any advice on how to duplicate it though. You are probably out of luck on that one... Enjoy the one you do have :)
 
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maxeypad2007 said:
Some cute responses here.

Regardless I'm just trying to figure out what elements make this cue hit the way it does and what I need to do to ensure the next cue I have built for travel meets those requirements.

Veneers...although somewhat sarcasticly could slightly effect the play of the cue as it is another cut in the wood.
Click to expand...

I was joking about the veneers and to be honest I can't tell you exactly what the formula is for a great hitting cue. Weight, shaft taper, balance point, tip, joint type, pin size, they all probably play a role.
 
ShootingArts said:
Your cue is one that suits you well to begin with but equally importantly it is the one that you have tuned your game to. As a general statement it is no better or no worse than hundreds of other cues but once you get tuned to one cue the odds of another playing equally well for you might be one in thousands.

When I played with house cues I could play with anything. When I started using one cue only it took me months to get my game back to the best level after major changes. The old billiard and snooker players often never regained their form if something happened to the cue that they had played with for many years.

Hu
Click to expand...

Hu,

We've touched on this before. Like you, I spent the first half (or more) of my life playing "off the wall".

Sure some cues played better or "hit", better than others, and in my regular home room, when I found one I liked, I'd hide it. It usually vanished within a few days, and it was back to the woodpile again.

In those days, you DID NOT carry a custom jointed cue, (and case) into a strange pool room. You missed 95% of the available action.

To this day, I have about 10 cues, and I can adjust, and play equally well (or bad) with any one of them. And they are valued at anywhere from $25 to $2500.

The younger players may look on this as "blasphemy". Nowadays they all have to have "low deflection, high deflection, shafts and also, it must have a 12.433 1/3 mm tip, be 56 7/8" long, and weigh 19.3732 ounces. Tips alone cost as much as a cue stick used to cost.

Thats all great if thats what you think it takes to play better, but a cue stick, in its essence, only a lathe-turned piece of wood, with a piece of leather glued to one end of it.
It does not know if it is Cocoolo, or knotty pine, it also does not know, if it cost $30, 0r $3000.

To use a musical analogy, I play a little guitar. (very little) Chet Atkins can make a $20 Harmony, sound like a $10,000 dollar Les Paul Custom. Wheras I, can make the Les Paul, sound like a Harmony.

It's great to have a good hitting, well made cue. but do not expect it to make you a champion.
Only dedication, practice, lots of action, and your love for the game can do that.
 
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