A Look Inside a Cracked Ferrule
I wish I'd take "Before" pictures but I didn't expect this to turn out this way.
A customer sent his cue in for refinishing & mentioned that one of the ivory ferrules might be cracked. It did appear to have a crack along the full length of the ferrule but it played great, hit solid - no matter how I rotated the shaft - and didn't appear to be likely to get worse. I have seen some cracked ivory ferrules play perfectly well for years.
However, once I removed the old tip and was able to see the face of the ferrule, it was obvious that a crack did, in fact, run completely through the ferrule. I could not let that go, no matter how well it played.
I heated the ferrule with a torch to weaken the glue and as I was unscrewing it, the crack completed its journey and the ferrule split almost exactly in half. It looked like this would be a good opportunity to take some pictures to show how everything looked internally prior to the break and what one can expect when a ferrule is replaced.
Here's a look at the old ferrule & its replacement. You can see how the crack runs through the center of the ferrule yet the glue bond was sufficient to hold everything together even under hard play. The charred outer surface is testament to the amount of heat applied to weaken the glue bond.
Here are the two halves side by side. I kept the torch focused on the top of the ferrule to avoid burning the shaftwood. The other half shows some of the heat-crystalized glue, along with some unaffected glue that was protected by the thicker wall around the small glue vent hole. As you can see, it came apart nicely.
This is an excellent view of how everything actually fits together. The depth of the tapped hole is not excessive and the tenon threads fill the tapped hole nicely. The only glue void is the vent hole, which has a thick wall around it.
The tenon itself is unhurt. Crystallized glue is visible at the deepest part of the threads & you can even see a spot where some glue filled in a chipped thread peak. The point is this: the old tenon is perfectly salvageable and can be used again with nothing more than a little clean-up. I did touch up the register diameter and the shoulder slightly so the new ferrule would be glued to a fresh surface.
A trial fit of the new ferrule proves it fits well.
Looks good after final trimming and tip/pad installation.
Nothing polishes up quite like ivory!