I offer a shaft that has a
carbon
fiber tube in the front of the shaft. The original plan was to
explore its Low Deflection (LD) characteristics. Unfortunately,
the results vary. I suspect that each individual shaft blank has
its own deflection characteristics & the addition of the tube does
little to change it. The weight of the tube is almost exactly the
same weight as the wood it replaces. This means that the "end
mass" is not appreciably reduced.
As such, I make no claims that this shaft is an LD shaft.
However, it
does stiffen the shaft quite a bit. More on
this later...
Some custom cues are highly renowned for having a stiff hit. Many
are labeled as 13 mm shafts and, indeed, the ferrule itself might
measure 13 mm. However, they often have a taper that grows as much
as 1 to 2 mm in the first 10". Most people accept this while
adjusting to their new cue but, over time, some find this shaft growth
too extreme. They have the shaft thinned but find that reducing
the diameter also reduced the stiffness. Now what?
Enter the G-shaft: you can have a shaft with a comfortable taper while
maintaining your stiffness.
Sounds dirty, doesn't it :-) But it's all good.
I offer two tapers - my standard taper in which the shaft grows about
1/4 mm in the first 10" and a stiffer taper that grows no more than 1/2
mm over the first 10".
There are some limitations. I don't like making the G-shaft any
smaller than 12.75 mm. Some people like to bend their shafts like
Mike Sigel & this is a test for ANY shaft. I also consider it
abuse.
I like to keep the ferrule at 3/4" long. I've had no failures
there so why mess with success?
Pay no attention to
this
picture. I
have experimented a bit.
I've made these shafts in 30" lengths but you sacrifice stiffness with
the longer shaft. Fair warning.
Some have expressed concern that the tube MUST be perfectly concentric
with the shaft for best results. The video shown
HERE should
relieve any concerns. I've been making these since 1998 and have
solved the obvious pitfalls.
Each shaft is custom built so the time to build one can be as long as 8
weeks.
Price is $300 plus shipping.