Cracking sound

[blues_91 0]

When I flex my 1100 tapered shaft it cracks as it whips back, is it a sign that the shaft is ready to snap?

Edit:sorry I just realised I could have posted this in the other thread about the dual fits.

[Eazy_b97 1]

stupid question. Have you checked the blade and shaft for cracks? It could be a number of things, but it could be a sign of failure. You shouldn't be flexing it off ice anyways.

[chippa13 1844]

Could be that the blade is a little loose.

[hitz14 0]

there are a number of different things it could be

[blues_91 0]

I'm just worried because the sound seems to come from the middle of the shaft, and I've never snapped a shaft before so I was just wondering. The blade has only been used 3 ice times and there are no cracks. There is no visible crack on the shaft.

[chippa13 1844]

Try re-inserting the blade and see if the cracking goes away. It could be that after a couple of uses the glue split between the blade and shaft and that would make the clicking noise.

[CardinalHcky19 0]

mine was like that too but it turned out it was just dried glue that was cracking and breaking off

[jimmy 194]

stupid question. Have you checked the blade and shaft for cracks? It could be a number of things, but it could be a sign of failure. You shouldn't be flexing it off ice anyways.

yea, what's with the fetish of flexing sticks off ice??? It proves nothing.

[Vapor#42 0]

Is the cracking fairly notacible or just fine, if its a fine cracking noise it could just be the fibers in your shaft or blade stretching...

[flyerman 0]

I'm going to ask a potentially rhetorical "crack shaft" question here instead of creating a whole new topic. Sorry if this is "thread-jacking."

I was flexing a friend of mine's relatively new (a couple months) old Dolomite II shaft (with Dolo II blade) in the locker room (yes, I know.....I couldn't resist though), and we heard a loud "pop!". He jumped over and inspected the shaft, and it appeared that their was a little line crack at the bottom of the shaft right above the blade hosel. FYI, I was flexing it as a lefty, and he's got a righty blade on there.

Anyway, he flexed it gently as a righty to see if it was in fact cracked, and it seemed fine, bouncing right back -- no popping or cracking sound. Still I felt terrible, so I said if it broke in his next game, I'd set him up with one of my old Easton shafts. He was very cool about it and was like, "don't worry about it, man."

Next game, he takes a face off and the shaft splits in two -- not at the bottom, but right in the middle of the shaft. Needless to say I felt pretty crappy.

I have seen guys break shafts while flexing them off ice, and they seem to snap right around middle of the shaft. So the question is: do you guys think I cracked the shaft in the middle (not towards the bottom) of the shaft, and then in the game it just snapped off.

Like I say, this may be obvious and rhetorical, but I guess I am looking for a possible explanation that will absolve me of guilt, and that pop was just a coincidence, a natural "bouncing back" on the shaft flex. (sounds like bs as I write it)

What do your hockey crystal balls say?

[Rustpot 1]

Flyerman- If you had done that to my stick, I would ask for half the price of the shaft since you really can't tell whose fault it was, and $50 if it was your fault is getting off light.

I was selling a stick and when the buyer came by to take a look at it he planted it firmly into the carpet and proceeded to try and see how far it would flex a few times. I told him after the first -you break it you buy it pal, no warranty on that.

What did you do to his stick? Did you get the shaft to bend a bit to see the kickpoint and general flex, or were you an ass and try to make yourself look like a pro?

I can bend a 120 flex stick in half where I stand, but I can't get a 90 to properly flex through a wristshot, off ice flex is STUPID to do.

[flyerman 0]

Flyerman- If you had done that to my stick, I would ask for half the price of the shaft since you really can't tell whose fault it was, and $50 if it was your fault is getting off light.

I was selling a stick and when the buyer came by to take a look at it he planted it firmly into the carpet and proceeded to try and see how far it would flex a few times. I told him after the first -you break it you buy it pal, no warranty on that.

What did you do to his stick? Did you get the shaft to bend a bit to see the kickpoint and general flex, or were you an ass and try to make yourself look like a pro?

I can bend a 120 flex stick in half where I stand, but I can't get a 90 to properly flex through a wristshot, off ice flex is STUPID to do.

Yes, I know it was kind of stupid. In my defense (?), we had a midnight skate for two hours and then drank a multitude of Sierra Nevadas, so I wasn't exactly as careful as I might have normally been. Still, it was an 85 flex and I didn't flex it "that" hard, not like I was putting all of my weight into it and bending it like rubber. It was a little harder then when I gently flex a stick to check out the general whippiness of a flex and how it feels in my hands. But I was slightly impaired, so.....

Of course, I'll buy him another one if he decides he wants me too -- which he insisted he didn't after the game. I am hoping he'll take either my old Synthesis or new Synergy II pro stock as compensation. The Dolo is a bit lighter, whippier, and skinnier though, so we'll see.

The moral: Don't drink and flex.

[tsanga 0]

If you were a true American, you would file a lawsuit against Sierra Nevada for failing to warn you of the dangers of drinking-and-flexing, win enough money in court to buy a hundred sticks, which would result in a federally mandated warning label on beer bottles that flexing while drinking could result in equipment damage, consider yourself warned, yada yada yada.

[flyerman 0]

If you were a true American, you would file a lawsuit against Sierra Nevada for failing to warn you of the dangers of drinking-and-flexing, win enough money in court to buy a hundred sticks, which would result in a federally mandated warning label on beer bottles that flexing while drinking could result in equipment damage, consider yourself warned, yada yada yada.

Good one.

Maybe there should also be a warning label on the shafts under the warranty disclaimer: "Do not flex after six Sierra Nevada Pale Ales, or twelve Labatt Blues." :lol:

[daca 0]

If you were a true American, you would file a lawsuit against Sierra Nevada for failing to warn you of the dangers of drinking-and-flexing, win enough money in court to buy a hundred sticks, which would result in a federally mandated warning label on beer bottles that flexing while drinking could result in equipment damage, consider yourself warned, yada yada yada.

Haha, nice.

[flyerman 0]

All jokes aside, do others of you think I cracked it initially based on what I described, or was that "pop" something else -- and it was merely a coincidence that my buddy's shaft snapped in half on that faceoff?

[tsanga 0]

Hard to say without knowing exactly how hard you leaned into it.

Then again, as a mechanical engineer, I've always had a tough time with the theory that flexing a stick off-ice would damage it, unless you were actually trying to push it as far as it'll go with your whole body weight.

The tensile strength plot for any material (in this case a carbon fiber matrix) shows a yield point based on displacement, not based on how quickly that displacement occurs. Before the yield point all deformation is elastic (minus some hysteresis); beyond the yield point the material either deforms plastically, or cracks if it's brittle enough. Think about those photos of sticks loading up like a bow during a shot - you really have to use your whole body weight to bend a stick that far statically.

Of course, there's the issue of fatigue (e.g. bending a paper clip back and forth repeatedly). But how many times do you take a shot and load up the stick, versus pushing on it slightly while off-ice.

The only time I can believe flexing a stick off-ice could be bad is if there were a pre-existing defect or microfracture that propogates with additional stress. But if that crack were there to begin with, then you're hosed sooner or later anyway.

Personally, I've pushed on my own 85-flex sticks off the ice plenty of times without breaking any. But I've always leaned toward the more durable sticks, e.g. Ultralite, Redlite, etc.

I don't want to open up that can-of-worms debate about flexing sticks off-ice; there's already a thread archived about it. This is just my personal and semi-professional opinion.

[flyerman 0]

Hard to say without knowing exactly how hard you leaned into it.

Then again, as a mechanical engineer, I've always had a tough time with the theory that flexing a stick off-ice would damage it, unless you were actually trying to push it as far as it'll go with your whole body weight.

The tensile strength plot for any material (in this case a carbon fiber matrix) shows a yield point based on displacement, not based on how quickly that displacement occurs. Before the yield point all deformation is elastic (minus some hysteresis); beyond the yield point the material either deforms plastically, or cracks if it's brittle enough. Think about those photos of sticks loading up like a bow during a shot - you really have to use your whole body weight to bend a stick that far statically.

Of course, there's the issue of fatigue (e.g. bending a paper clip back and forth repeatedly). But how many times do you take a shot and load up the stick, versus pushing on it slightly while off-ice.

The only time I can believe flexing a stick off-ice could be bad is if there were a pre-existing defect or microfracture that propogates with additional stress. But if that crack were there to begin with, then you're hosed sooner or later anyway.

Personally, I've pushed on my own 85-flex sticks off the ice plenty of times without breaking any. But I've always leaned toward the more durable sticks, e.g. Ultralite, Redlite, etc.

I don't want to open up that can-of-worms debate about flexing sticks off-ice; there's already a thread archived about it. This is just my personal and semi-professional opinion.

I really didn't lean into that hard, just a little more than I normally would have, as those Dolo 2 85's are pretty whippy -- BUT I was going the opposite way, mind you, flexing his righty set-up as a lefty.

Your explanation is terrific, though I had to read it a few times to translate into my own layman's terms.

Would flexing it against the shaft's normal right-hand flex "grain" have anything to do with increasing the likelihood of a crack? I am beginning to think that the "pop" sound might actually have been the tenon adjusting itself inside of the shaft since the force was coming from the opposite side (backhand of the shaft), and not the shaft itself. So maybe it was a big coincidence that he snapped it in two......?

Let me know your stick anatomy/physics/mech. engineering theory and I can plead the case to my buddy!

[tsanga 0]

If you didn't lean into it too hard, then my marginally educated guess would be that it was just the glue cracking either in the plug if there's one (this happens to me quite a bit), or in the blade tenon as you suspect.

Faceoffs could be tough on sticks, because you basically have two people wacking at each other's shafts while leaning into the stick to gain leverage. But usually you shorten your grip, so the mechanical leverage on the shaft is smaller. I've seen a lot of NHL plays where players break sticks right at the faceoff circle.