Sanding a fiberglass cue?
3/22/2013 7:51:50 AM
Sanding a fiberglass cue?
Hi! A have a Scorpion JA3 cue and it's fiberglass coated. I have problem with cue, it's not smooth as it should be. I bought Cuetec Hi Tech cleaner, and it works great but only for a 30min, maybe an hour. After that I have same problem. So I was thinking, can I use a sandpaper and take all fiberglass off? Not by hand, of course, but by a lathe machine. Maybe start with 180-240 sandpaper, then with 360-500, and then polish it with 800-1000? Any opinions? Local cueman said that inside wood (maple in my case) is not treated to stand without fiberglass, so it's not such a good idea, but I'm looking for other answers. Tnx, Emil
P.S. I know for glove and powder, but I want to play without them, if it's possible.
Sanding a fiberglass cue?
Replies & Comments
Mitch Alsup on 3/22/2013 9:15:18 AM
This is one of the reasons I so dislike fiberglass (or CF) cues. And your cue guy is likely correct.
My worry would be that you raise the fiber glass and make the shaft impell slivers of glass into your fingers without making the cue any easier throug the bridge. If you do try it, start with 1200 to 2000 grit papers. And jusst stroke the shaft lightly with them. 180 grit will take off 1mm in not much more than an instant.
Zeke on 3/23/2013 6:49:32 AM
Many players find that when the shaft starts feeling tacky it's not the stick at all, it's your hands! Everything we touch has some "foreign" substance on it. The rails, the bridge, the balls, the rack, your soda/beer bottle, the fridge handle, the light switch, the rack, the felt, your forehead, the doorknob(s), the chalk, table tops...
I have a slop sink in the nearby basement. When things get tacky, a drop of dish detergent on the hands and warm water - can and does - eliminate that tacky feeling about half the time.
The other half, we find wiping your stick down with a dry-damp terry cloth rag with a few drops of just plain water, is also a once in a while good thing. You'd be amazed at what that terry cloth rag looks like after a few passes with the damp rag down the shaft. Soil and oils are the enemy.
0000 steel wool is also a proper shaft cleaner - when 400-1,000 isn't handy. I prefer it, even when I have 600 laying around.
tasha_silvester on 3/23/2013 12:10:26 PM
That is strange. I think you ask the dealer about the issue. Maybe there is some polishing problem. You can try sandpaper, but that too can be a temporary issue.
emil_losinj on 3/24/2013 4:30:38 AM
Thanks for the responses. I know that the problem is also in my hands, but a don't have that problem with a wooden cue. So I think that the biggest problem is in fiberglass. I want to completely remove it from my cue! I can gently remove it with the sandpaper, that is not a problem, but I'm worry about the wood. If I remove the fiberglass coat, do I need to make special treatment to the wood, or is just enough to treat it with Cue Silk, Ultra Glide or something like that? Will my cue bend from the air effect?
Emil,
If you suspect you may be able to remove the fiberglass, it probably isn't fiberglass.
Fiberglass is a cloth. The cloth is "glued" to itself and the base it is applied to - with "resin." One form of resin is called "gel-coat."
One does not necessarily need fiberglass to apply gel-coat. Gel-coat is usually a two part epoxy and resin mixture that cures to a glossy, durable, hard as glass finish.
If you see the actual criss-cross strands of fiberglass "mesh" deep within the gel-coat "shine" it could also be carbon fiber - not FG !
Although they have different "feel," the FG feels cool while wood feels warmer - that's because of thermo-dynamics, not the softness, or hardness, of the shaft.
In fact, the FG shaft will be harder and potentially smoother, than any wood around.
I urge you to find another way around the problem than attempting to strip out the resin or FG if that is the base.
A small tube of 3M marine compound and wax would remove any and all oxidation and make the shaft as slick as a bag of ice.
I urge you to examine the shaft with a good lighting and a jeweler's loop for the true cause of the bad feel.
Amazingly however, what you see is usually not as sensitive as what you can feel. Our finger tips are more accurate in defining "smooth" than even a jeweler's loop in good light. But just in case...
Zeke, thanks for answer! On every store that sell Scorpion cue you will find same specifications, like: https://www.cuestixint.com/catalogcontroller.php?action=list_individual_product&category_id=15&product_name=Scorpion%20%20JA03%20-%20Signature%20Burgundy%20with%20White%2FBlack&category_name= As you can see if you click the link above, they wrote "Shaft: 29" wood core shaft with fiberglass coating." I know what is fiberglass (lots of boats are made from it), but in this case I can't se the cloth, so it is probably just a resin, or maybe some other epoxy or acril 2 component resin. About compound and wax, I already have Cutec cleaner and it works great, but problem is that it last only for a short time... Maybe the best solution is to buy a new wooden shaft... tnx
DsmithBFL on 3/25/2013 2:46:56 AM
I don't think that using sandpaper every time to clean your pool cues is a right option. Instead, you can use moist cloth or dry cloth coated with lot of powder.
Emil, I did see the "made of wood with FG over it" from the link you attached.
I do know that there's a huge difference between a rough surface and a tacky surface. The former is corrected by "smoothing" - the latter by "cleaning."
An odd thing happens when we sand/smooth/steel-wool FG. Like wood, but at a much lower temperature, FG is very susceptible to micro-abrasion from heat. Just as white "stains" can be imparted to the playing surface (felt) at the placement of balls in the rack area because of the heat created by friction of balls trapped in the rack that are NOT allowed to roll into position, but rather are "pinned" to the triangle/rack when slid into alignment, so too, it happens with FG that is heated, even minimally, when we sand or compound the gel-coat.
Make sure whatever you apply to clean or polish or wax the shaft is not on a rag that is tightly gripped, which creates heat (as does freezing the balls so they can't roll in the rack, when setting up the break rack on the felt - as opposed to ).
Use softer (slower and with less grip tension) strokes when applying cleaner/polish/wax and see if heat has caused FG "tailing"?
guest on 2/18/2016 10:19:05 AM
Yeah! Non wood, all graphite or fiberglass composite pool cues are almost unbreakable.
Sanding a fiberglass cue?
- Title: Sanding a fiberglass cue?
- Author: emil_losinj
- Published: 3/22/2013 7:51:50 AM
