8. Ok, I've got a cue. How do I take care of it?
Description
This article is from the Pool & Billiards FAQ, by Bob Jewett with numerous contributions by others.
8. Ok, I've got a cue. How do I take care of it?
If you don't have one, get a case that will protect your cue from
humidity. Moisture is one of the main causes of cue warping. Hard
cases give better protection than soft cases. Store your case upright,
not lying down. If it's a soft case, hang it on a nail in your closet.
Remember, wood will warp, especially if its a long, thin piece (like a
cue). A slight warp is nothing to be too upset about. Just make sure
you shoot with the cue in the same position _every_ shot (i.e. turn the
cue so that any warp is on the vertical plane and not the horizontal).
Pick some distinctive mark on the cue that will make it easy to identify
this position, or hold the butt the same way if it's angled. If it's a
slight warp, you may be able to just bend the cue back into shape. If
it's more severe, you could consider buying a new shaft for it.
How do you measure the warp? Rolling it on a table is one way that
seems like a good measure but is, in fact, not. The best way to look
for straightness is by 'sighting.' Simply stated, just look down your
cue from the butt-end like a rifle. Rotate the cue as you do this and
any warp should be immediately apparent. More often than not,
rolling a cue will show defects in the joint rather than the shaft,
which is not a serious problem, as long as it's a tight fit.
If you have a multi-piece cue, you might consider joint protectors.
They screw onto both the shaft and butt of your cue and help prevent
moisture from entering the wood at these points. The joint ends of the
cue are very susceptible to moisture since they are cross-cut though the
grain of the wood.
How should I maintain my tip?
The spin/speed ratio on the cue ball depends primarily on the actual
tip-ball contact point. With a rounded tip there is a smooth relation
between the shaft displacement and the resulting spin/speed ratio.
But with a flat tip, you can displace the shaft up to 1/2 of the tip
diameter before the actual contact point on the cue ball changes.
Then with a little more shaft displacement there is some sidespin
imparted, and then the tip starts to miscue because you are hitting
right on the square edge of the tip. Here is some ascii art to show
the difference in the spin as a function of shaft displacement for a
rounded tip and for a flat tip.
| * |
| . |
| . |
| . | * <-- miscue
Spin | . | .
| . | .
-------|------- ----.......----- [view with a
.| . | fixed-width font]
. | . |
. | * |
. | |
. | |
* | |
shaft displacement shaft displacement
rounded tip flat tip
You seldom want to hit the ball right in the middle, you don't want to
miscue, and you want to have precise control of the spin. Therefore,
a rounded tip is better than a flat tip. You shape the tip with a tip
scuffer, a file, a piece of sandpaper, and other similar abrasive
tools. Most players like their tips rounded with the radius of either
a nickel or a dime; a coin can be held next to the tip for reference.
In the case of well-rounded tips, miscues occur when the tip slides on
the surface of the ball. Along with other reasons, this happens when
the tip doesn't hold chalk. The tip doesn't hold chalk when it is
packed down from hitting the cue ball and the surface is slick. If
you tap the tip to give the surface some texture, it will hold the
chalk better. You can buy special tools to tap the tip, or you can
use a rasp, or a coarse file, or coarse sandpaper glued to a wood
backing can be rolled over the tip surface. Scuffing with sandpaper
also works, but it wears the tip away too fast. For maximal tip life,
tap more, scuff less.
Tips can also mushroom, meaning that the leather bulges at the sides
so that the tip is wider than the ferrule. Most pool players prefer
to remove this bulge. The best way is to use a lathe, but there are
other methods too. Fine sandpaper (600 grit or finer) can be used,
but some care should be taken not to scratch the ferrule. Cutting
tools designed especially for this purpose are available, and pocket
knives and razor blades can also be used, but utmost care should be
taken to avoid ferrule damamge. A homemade jig can be devised with a
wood block, sandpaper, and slick magazine paper to help avoid ferrule
damage; the process is described below. After the mushroom bulge has
been removed, the edge of the tip can be polished by wetting the sides
and rubbing the leather edge firmly against the cloth on the top of a
cushion or against a leather pad.
How can I "demushroom" the edge of the tip?
Get a piece of sandpaper, #120 to #600 depending on the state of the tip,
a block of wood or a large sharpening stone, a piece of paper, perhaps
thicker than notebook paper, and a magazine. Place the components like
this as seen from the side on a very flat surface:
BBBBBBBBBBBBB BBBBBBBBBBBBB BBBBBBBBBBBBB MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM BBBBBBBBBBBBB ppppppppppppppppppppppppppp MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM sssssssssssssSSSSssssssssssssssssss MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
Tape the near and far sides of the paper down. Now place the stick so
the tip is butted against the block BBB, while the joint end is on the
magazine MMM. Adjust the separation between the paper pppp and the
block so that it is just the thickness of the tip. Only the side of
the tip will touch the exposed sandpaper at SSSS. The ferrule will be
resting on the paper. Now holding the shaft near the ferrule, rub the
stick back and forth on the narrow exposed strip of sandpaper. If the
paper is taped to the table, but the sandpaper is not, the latter can
be easily slid to expose a new strip as necessary. The magazine may or
may not be necessary to give the tip a little bevel -- you may want to
make the first cuts without the magazine if the tip has a lot of
mushrooming. The main trick here is to keep turning the shaft as you
slide it back and forth on the sandpaper. To finish the tip, wet it
and rub it in the same way but on the paper rather than the sandpaper.
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