Shafts and tips: the front end of the cue.

Maple shafts

For a first cue, PoolDawg recommends North American Grade A hard rock maple and advises avoiding ramin wood, which it says is common in blister-pack cues. It also advises against titanium or aluminum shafts, which it says lack flexibility. Wikipedia describes pool shafts as hard rock maple with a steel joint collar.

Tapers

The taper is how the shaft's diameter changes from tip to joint. A pro taper holds one diameter for a stretch behind the tip before widening: 10 to 15 in per PoolDawg, 12 to 14 in per Wikipedia. A conical (European) taper widens steadily the whole way. The Pete's Billiards guide (mirror copy) says house cues often have a pro taper of only about 8 in, and that a longer taper flexes more while a shorter one plays stiffer.

Squirt and low-deflection shafts

Squirt is the cue ball veering off your aim line when you use side spin. Dr. Dave Alciatore attributes it almost entirely to the shaft's effective end mass, roughly the last 5 to 8 in, and not to its stiffness. In a test he cites, 5.3 g of end mass produced 3.3° of squirt and 6.3 g produced 3.9°, with the ratios matching. End mass comes down with a smaller tip-end diameter, a hollow core, a lighter tip, or a smaller or lighter ferrule. That is what low-deflection (LD) shafts do. As an example of the construction, Dr. Dave gives the Predator Z-2 tip end as 11.75 mm with a hollow core about 5 in long. For aiming with side spin, see english, squirt and throw.

Carbon fiber shafts

In Dr. Dave's measurements, carbon fiber shafts showed squirt similar to light wood LD shafts. He found the Predator REVO laterally stiffer than the Z-2 but deflecting the cue ball nearly the same, which fits his point that end mass, not stiffness, drives squirt. Pool Table Portfolio notes that graphite and fiberglass shafts are less affected by humidity and temperature than wood.

Product examples, using the makers' own descriptions:

• Predator's line includes REVO carbon fiber (11.8, 12.4 and 12.9 mm), Centro hybrid (maple with a carbon front core, 12.4 mm), 314-3 spliced maple (12.75 mm), Z-3 (11.85 mm) and Vantage spliced maple (12.9 mm). Predator says the Z-3 has the lowest deflection of its wood shafts and the Vantage the lowest front-end mass of its maple shafts.
• Predator REVO comes in a 29 in standard length, with a hybrid conical taper on the 11.8 mm and a low-rise pro taper on the 12.4 and 12.9 mm. Predator calls it ferrule-less and warp resistant.
• Meucci Carbon Pro has a foam core plugged with maple at both ends, a 15 in pro taper and a 3/8 in white ferrule, in 11.75, 12.25, 12.5 and 12.75 mm and 29 or 30 in lengths. Meucci says it is not hollow anywhere.

Predator says larger diameters are more forgiving, and smaller ones give more spin but demand more consistency.

Tip diameters

For comparison, Wikipedia gives carom tips as 11 to 12 mm. Snooker tips are smaller still; see cues.

Solid vs layered tips

Dr. Dave's tip article describes the two main constructions:

• Solid leather tips are punched from one piece of leather (Le Pro, Elk Master and Triangle are examples). They are inexpensive but can be inconsistent and tend to mushroom.
• Layered tips, developed in the 1990s (Tiger, Kamui and Moori are examples), stack 6 to 10 thin leather sheets and punch them into 14 mm cylinders. They are the most popular style today. Layered pigskin is tight-grained, so it holds chalk less well and glazes faster. Dr. Dave says premium layered tips depend on well-matched layers and strong adhesive.

Wikipedia adds that layered tips hold their shape better but can delaminate from poor installation or hard massé shots. A "milk dud" is a soft solid tip (usually an Elk Master) soaked in milk, often for about 24 hours, then compressed to harden it. Break and jump tips are often phenolic resin rather than leather.

Kamui tips

Kamui is a Japanese maker: founder Masato Hiraoka makes the tips in Hiroshima, and they debuted internationally at the October 2007 BCA Super Billiards Expo. The tips are mainly pig leather in many layers, then tempered. Kamui Black is a 14 mm, 8-layer pigskin tip with a moisture-proof tanning process, in Super Soft, Soft, Medium and Hard. Kamui Original is 14 mm, 10 layers of Japanese pigskin, in black or brown leather. Its grade names differ by source: Wikipedia lists soft, medium soft, medium and hard, while a retailer lists Super Soft, Soft, Medium and Hard.

Hardness

Tip hardness is measured on the Shore D scale. Dr. Dave's figures:

PoolDawg lists Kamui Black hardness scores of 67.5, 72.3, 78.7 and 84.8 for its four grades, but does not state the scale. Dr. Dave says tips drift toward about 76 Shore D with use, that the Shore number alone does not predict how a tip plays, and that he found no significant difference in miscue limit or maximum spin from tip hardness. The tradeoff Wikipedia and PoolDawg agree on: softer tips hold chalk better but wear faster, and harder tips keep their shape longer but hold chalk less well. Predator ships the REVO with its Victory layered medium tip and offers soft, hard and Kamui Black options.

Ferrules

The ferrule is the collar between the shaft and the tip. Wikipedia says modern ferrules are carbon fiber, melamine resin or phenolic resin, with brass mainly on snooker cues, and gives pool ferrules as 0.75 to 1 in long. It adds that titanium ferrules are lighter than brass and some players use them to reduce squirt. PoolDawg's materials list: Aegis (balanced and durable), Juma (smooth hit), Ivorine (hard, common on custom cues) and phenolic (hardest, common on break and jump cues). The WPA caps metal ferrules at 1 in. On McDermott's G-Core shafts, a 0.030 in fiber pad sits above the ferrule, and McDermott says trimming it below 0.015 in voids the warranty.

Tip shape and care

Wikipedia calls dime and nickel radii the de facto standard tip shapes, and says a rounder tip (smaller radius) puts spin on more easily. McDermott recommends keeping the tip convex and coarse enough to hold chalk, and replacing it once the side wall is thinner than a dime. Tips mushroom with long use or hard hits. For a glazed tip, Dr. Dave and Sawyer Twain both suggest light use of fine sandpaper or a scuffing tool so it takes chalk again. Dr. Dave also says premium chalk slows glazing.

Cleaning the shaft

Triangle Billiards says to wipe the shaft after each session with a barely damp cloth, burnish it with leather, and never use sandpaper on the cue. McDermott takes a different line on abrasives: it recommends its own McMagic abrasive films for smoothing the shaft. McDermott does warn against shaft products with waxes or oils such as silicone or lanolin, which it says soften the wood. Dr. Dave notes that a Magic Eraser is a micro-abrasive that can wear the finish if used often.

Humidity, storage and warp

• McDermott recommends about 70 °F and 40 to 50% humidity, with cues stored straight on a rack that is not on an outside wall. For long-term storage it says to keep the cue upright in its case with the case open.
• Dr. Dave says to keep maple shafts away from extremes such as a hot car trunk, and that hard cases protect better than soft ones.
• Joint protectors guard the pin and threads and seal the shaft end against moisture (McDermott and Dr. Dave).
• Triangle says to store cues upright or flat and not to lean them against walls for long periods.
• To check for warp, Dr. Dave says to sight down the cue from the butt while rotating it. Rolling it on a table can give a misleading result.