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Cue care - oiling

Postby rekoons

Has anybody ever oiled his cue? If so with what? I mostly read raw linseed oil is the way to go. I have my cue for like 15 years now and have never oiled the shaft before.

The original coating or finished is long since worn off through 15 years of play and regular cleaning through wiping with a slightly damp cloth and then buffing with a dry cloth, when the cue feels sticky

I do notice the cue shaft is on it’s bare wood and dried out quite badly in places because of this, and the grain filler is even missing here and there, so I think it’s necessary to re-oil the shaft…

Re: Cue care - oiling

Postby SnookerEd25

rekoons wrote:Has anybody ever oiled his cue?


Is that a euphemism? :chin:

How about ladies?

Can they 'oil their cues'? :chin:

Re: Cue care - oiling

Postby rekoons

I knew posting something along the lines of rubbing my shaft with a wet and dry piece of cloth would be hilarious to some.

Re: Cue care - oiling

Postby Badsnookerplayer

Never oiled my cue but linseed is the most often I have heard. Don't know if it would cause any problems or need long to dry out. I would be tempted to leave it unless it is causing you problems.

Re: Cue care - oiling

Postby SnookerEd25

rekoons wrote:I knew posting something along the lines of rubbing my shaft with a wet and dry piece of cloth would be hilarious to some.


Sorry, isolation is getting to me :dizzy:

Re: Cue care - oiling

Postby rekoons

Badsnookerplayer wrote:Never oiled my cue but linseed is the most often I have heard. Don't know if it would cause any problems or need long to dry out. I would be tempted to leave it unless it is causing you problems.


Well, it's not really causing any major problems, apart from the exposed grains occasionally snagging my chin hairs.

How's your shaft looking (sounds terrible wrong), no bare wood and grain filler coming out?

My cue is an inexpensive Cuecraft btw.

Re: Cue care - oiling

Postby Badsnookerplayer

rekoons wrote:
Badsnookerplayer wrote:Never oiled my cue but linseed is the most often I have heard. Don't know if it would cause any problems or need long to dry out. I would be tempted to leave it unless it is causing you problems.


Well, it's not really causing any major problems, apart from the exposed grains occasionally snagging my chin hairs.

How's your shaft looking (sounds terrible wrong), no bare wood and grain filler coming out?

My cue is an inexpensive Cuecraft btw.

Mine is in an awful condition but because I know of all of its snags and dings I cope with it. Like it can only go in the rest one way up because of a ding I inflicted on it years ago.

Re: Cue care - oiling

Postby vodkadiet1

Oiling your cue is one of life's greatest pleasures.....

Re: Cue care - oiling

Postby acesinc

rekoons wrote:Has anybody ever oiled his cue? If so with what? I mostly read raw linseed oil is the way to go. I have my cue for like 15 years now and have never oiled the shaft before.

The original coating or finished is long since worn off through 15 years of play and regular cleaning through wiping with a slightly damp cloth and then buffing with a dry cloth, when the cue feels sticky

I do notice the cue shaft is on it’s bare wood and dried out quite badly in places because of this, and the grain filler is even missing here and there, so I think it’s necessary to re-oil the shaft…


Hi Rekoons, been a while since we spoke. I hope your table set up is working out well for you. And that you have at least a few mates with whom to enjoy matches and maybe even tournaments.

About oiling the cue, yes, in fact this is something that I have been doing for about the last 5 years or so. Done properly, it should actually be done from the moment a brand new cue is put into service or you would not receive full benefit of the practice. So if you were to begin oiling your cue now, you may see some benefit from it, but time for full benefit is long since passed.

So what does oiling the shaft do? I don't have access to a cue maker who presumably would be able to answer this question best so all I can do is give my own analysis based on my mechanical engineering experience with materials properties and such. So what I write here is my own opinion, nothing else, certainly not "expert" by any means.

Wood of course is a very porous material. Think of it like a sponge. Especially where moisture and humidity is concerned, it will absorb water in a humid environment and it will evaporate water in a dry environment. For a snooker cue, it will absorb/evaporate/absorb/evaporate unrestrained over the service life of the cue. And over time, that will lead to deformation of the original machined shape of the cue. In short, before long, your snooker cue is going to warp. It is only natural. Of course, we can minimize how bad this warp may be and maximize how long it may take by good practices and maintenance of our equipment. For instance, don't leave your cue leaning up against a wall for weeks or months on end. Don't leave it in your car where it will get hot and cold and hot and cold constantly.

On the proactive side, we can attempt to seal the surface of the wood to prevent moisture from getting in and/or escaping in the first place. And THAT is where oiling the cue comes in.

If you have a wood product, any wood product, say your kitchen cabinet doors, they will always be subject to warp over time for the reasons above. In your kitchen, sun shines through the window right on your wood cabinets. Then it doesn't. Then it does again the next day. So what can we do to "protect" the wood? Seal it with a coat of varnish/polyurethane/paint/whatever. This forms a physical barrier on the surface of the wood so the humidity is not constantly absorbed/released from the wood grain. Simple idea.

And of course, you can do that to a snooker cue as well, and most cues are lacquered at least on the butt portion for this purpose. The shaft may also be lacquered on a low end cue, but this is not usually done on higher quality cues. I believe this practice of leaving the shaft as bare wood is probably because any sort of "finish" on the shaft (varnish/polyurethane/whatever) is going to result in an inconsistent feel to the shaft as it slides on the skin of your fingers. Remember the purpose of this finish....it is a barrier to block moisture, so in different environments, humid/dry/anything-in-between, the surface will simply feel different as it slides across your skin. As any good snooker player knows, the Holy Grail of your stroke is consistency. You want everything to feel the same. Always. That is how you will improve.

So for simple aesthetics, like kitchen cabinets, a finish coat is great. But for functionality, like the surface of a snooker cue sliding across your skin, it is not ideal. So the next best thing is to leave the surface of the wood unfinished so it feels consistent in the stroke, but we can treat the unfinished wood so it is less likely to absorb and evaporate the humidity. Oil. Essentially, by allowing the oil to absorb into the pores of the wood, there is no place for moisture to absorb into. Over time, the oil will dissipate, absorb in deeper, or rub away through your cueing action, and so the oil will need to be re-applied occasionally.

For me then, I oil my cue every time that I re-tip. With the boy home from Uni with the lockdown, that is quite often these days. About every six weeks or so. After the new tip, I slather the oil from the joint up to the ferrule and let it sit overnight for the oil to absorb as much as possible. In the morning, give it a normal wipe down. Between oilings, I have another odd habit that I have never heard of anyone doing before. But it works for me. About once a week, I give the shaft a rub down with beeswax (which is commonly used to fill the joints between the slates of the table). This is a pretty hard wax so it does not go on smoothly. After applying, I rub furiously with a clean rag to "melt" and soften the wax to spread it out to fill in the grain. When it is time to oil the shaft again, I will clean it and rub it down with a Scotch-Brite scouring pad to try to remove any remaining wax to allow the oil to seep into the wood again.

As for the oil I use, I did try linseed oil the first time I did this. I didn't like it. If I recall, I think it was a little thin, dripped a lot, didn't stay in place, had to re-coat several times. But mostly, it seemed to darken the wood. I just didn't like it. I still have a nearly full can that I don't know what to do with. Instead, I stumbled across something at a home improvement store that works perfectly for me. Its "normal" use is in the kitchen on wood items like cutting boards or the handles of cutlery. I am sure there are many similar products but here is a link of exactly what I use:

https://www.howardproducts.com/product/ ... board-oil/

It is clear, clean, thick enough to stay in place overnight, and never goes bad. Four or five years on, I am still on my first bottle. And it is food grade in case you want to use a couple cues for novelty oversize chopsticks. :-)

Probably way more than you ever wanted to know, Rekoons. As I recall, we had a discussion about tipping and chalking a while back. So I am curious now that you have a home table and you are presumably getting much more table time these days.....have you incorporated some change in that regard? How often do you need to tip now?

Cheers!

Re: Cue care - oiling

Postby rekoons

Hi Ace, thanks for sharing your thoughts on this subject, you must be having a good time playing matches with your boy at home!

The table is set up nicely and plays like a charm. Currently our weekly b.o. 9’s with mates is postponed due to Covid-19, meaning only solo practice is an option right now. I’m quite determined, so that’s allright, but hopefully we can get to play matches again soon when restrictions get softened…

It's funny you ask about retipping, I just retipped about a month or two ago, and the previous time was before the table was installed in November. I’m guesstimating I will need to retip about 3 times a year. I do chalk more diligently too :-D

Looking back to the thread you refer to (here), I see Dancat mentioned you won’t get as much action/spin on a worn out tip, replying to my question on how to determine if a tip is worn out/hard and needs to be replaced. I never noticed that (because apparently I’ve played mostly with worn out tips I guess) Increased table time means I can, and do, pay a lot more attention to cleaning up my technique and noticing details I never noticed before, like the impact a new tip makes on the action/spin on the white just like Dan mentioned. For instance, my mid range straight screwshots require approx. 30% less effort to get the white back the same distance as before.

This is probably not only due to the tip, but a combination of new tip, smoother cue action (timing) and cueing straighter thru the white than I ever did. I have a feeling cueing straight adds most to the action on the white, which is only logical when you think about it; I always cued terribly across the white, dissipating the forward force and contact time on the white, now the same (or less) effort is channeled much more in a central line thru the white, and the white spins back effortlessly and I usually overscrew by a foot or more <doh>

My technique is still not where I want it to be, but I’ve been committed to practicing straight cueing for months now, trying to undo the bad habits from the past 15 years, which is not easy. I do feel I’m taking baby steps on the way to this holy grail.

90% of success is just keep showing up, commit and not linger on frustrations or dissapointments. Easier said than done though. <laugh>

Re: Cue care - oiling

Postby acesinc

rekoons wrote:Hi Ace, thanks for sharing your thoughts on this subject, you must be having a good time playing matches with your boy at home!...


You are certainly welcome. As always, technical aspects of the Game and the Rules are my strong points.

Truth is, as sad as the current situation is for the world, it has worked out very well for me personally. I sorta feel like Nero, fiddling away on my snooker table as Rome (the world) burns with Covid-19. My industry is rather sheltered from the economic side of this thing so I have plenty of work for the time being, and with my son home from University, I am getting a wealth of table time. My little club is closed of course with the handful of members staying at home, but Sam and I are on table two or three evenings a week, four or five hours each. He is striking the ball very well these days which has me also running at my peak. Earlier this week, I put in the best performance of my life for a full session. Three breaks in the 30's plus a new lifetime high break of 67, perfect clearance of all Blacks from five Reds. All colours taken from spots except Pink was nudged over a trifle. Seriously, it was a break you could have watched on telly. The camera is broke for the time being so I can only cherish the memory, not re-live it through video. Sam's high on the night was a 29, to go along with a 25 and a 22, so we both had a mutual excellent session.


rekoons wrote:...My technique is still not where I want it to be, but I’ve been committed to practicing straight cueing for months now, trying to undo the bad habits from the past 15 years, which is not easy. I do feel I’m taking baby steps on the way to this holy grail.

90% of success is just keep showing up, commit and not linger on frustrations or disappointments. Easier said than done though. <laugh>


Glad to hear that you are committing to it this way. It will probably take a long time, but definitely worth it. If I can make a suggestion for your practice routine......

Don't be like most of the members of my club when I watch them "practice". That is to say, I watch so many players solo practice by racking the balls, breaking off, and having a "pretend" frame by themselves. THAT is awful practice. The thought process I suppose is that if you treat it just as if you are playing in a real match, it has to help you improve. Right?

Could not be more WRONG! Practice, to be useful, should be PRACTICE. Not a simulated frame. When you are in a real frame, your opponent's job (one of them at least) is to NOT allow you to pot a ball. That said, you have no idea what your opponent would do in any circumstance, so how can you simulate "his" shot? In a real match, fully 75 or 80 percent of the time, I absolutely disagree with the stroke my opponent chooses to play. When my opponent is at table, most of the time, I will see a good and valid pot on, but instead, my opponent will so often play a lock up, negative, defensive safety stroke. The table gets ugly real quick and it makes for bad frames. THIS is not something that you want to simulate. It will not help you become a better player.

So when you practice, I strongly suggest you make a priority of POTTING BALLS. You want to watch as many balls fall into little holes as possible during your practice session. Straight Line Up is great for this, very much a confidence builder. If I run straight Line Up for practice, I will be pretty angry with myself if I don't run at least a forty break inside ten minutes of starting the line up. What this brings you in a match is the self-confidence to run at least six or eight balls when your opponent fails with his negative safety play and you pot a long cracker to get started. And he will be deflated. He won't string together more than two or three balls over the entire session when he is always worried that you will run six or eight balls on him when you get the chance.

So make a priority of potting a lot of balls in practice and also be quick about it. Line up allows you to develop your routine and it should have a nice pace to it. Running 40 some points in line up will be perhaps 12 balls (assuming the odd Pink or Blue) and this should take no more than 3 minutes, say, about 15 seconds for each stroke. When you start running regular 40's and 50's in straight Line Up, you should move on to the Cross and/or the Christmas Tree. This is where I am at now. These exercises more closely simulate real frame situations because a lot of angles are cut off so you need to pot certain balls first to clear paths for other balls. But first get very proficient at straight Line Up and you will start knocking in great breaks regularly in real frames and there won't be anything your opponent can do but spot your colours. When your mates show up again after lockdown, you ought to need to spot them 20 points on the frame if you practice well now. Let me know when you get your first Line Up Half Century. That will be a major milestone.

Re: Cue care - oiling

Postby rekoons

Congratulations on your new high break of 67! <ok>

That's 8 to 15 hours of playing time per week you two get! I'm more around 8 hours a week.

For practice exercices I mainly get my inspiration from the youtube channels of 'break fom life guy', 'Barton snooker' and 'Barry Stark'.

I hope to report back soon when I hit that 50 break... eventually.