Stacked leather wrap ?’s

Landlover said:

I really like the feel of stacked leather wraps and decided to do some of my house cues with linen wraps for practice. I bought some lace, watched some videos on YouTube and attempted 3 of them. I think i have the taper and getting started figured out but I’m struggling with getting the bottom to look perfect. I know Tiger has a dvd on installation but is there any other videos out there that are better? Also, what is the trick to getting the bottom part to look clean and flush? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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Are we speaking about actually cutting in a wrap groove? If so, you have to have a .025 wrap groove running the 12.5" for your wrap. Stacked leather may require a deeper groove. I haven't tried it. Chris Hightowers book goes into the process in quite a bit of detail. Some of the best advice I've gotten over the years to have the wrap groove edge stay as clean and crisp as possible is to use a parting tool.

Landlover said:

Thank you for the reply. I’m not having issues with the wrap groove. I’m wanting to know how to cut the leather at the bottom of the wrap so it fits in the bottom of the channel between the stacked leather above it and the bottom of the wrap channel. The video on YouTube of Tiger’s shows how to get the taper started but is really vague and doesn’t touch on how to trim the bottom, which seems like the toughest part to me. I also wondered if most installers cut the channel to the depth of the wrap or just trimmed the top and bottom of the leather and sanded the wrap flat, like they do on the video by Tiger. I have guys that I do tip work for that measure their ferrule and shaft and weigh their cue right before they give it to me and expect the same specs back. I would think that taking wood out of the wrap channel would take a little weight off?

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Very little weight actually.....pretty much unnoticeable. In 20+ years I've never had someone weigh a cue before and after a wrap job. Wraps weigh what the weigh. You're a better man than me as I would just blink at them.

Again, I haven't done stacked leather...only linen, nylon, silk, cork and seamed leather. I would imagine since you can't run strips over a belt sander or slim it by block sanding, you would probably cut the channel a little deeper to match the thickness. You can always go back and resurface the channel with epoxy should the customer want to go to a thinner material like linen. Based on just watching the video, I'm honestly thinking they are just eyeballing the angled cut. You're going to be sanding, pressing, sanding, dressing, sanding, sealing (sheesh that's a lot of work) so the leather should move a little to fill in any gaps anyways. But again...I've never done one.

Landlover said:

I have guys that I do tip work for that measure their ferrule and shaft and weigh their cue right before they give it to me and expect the same specs back. I would think that taking wood out of the wrap channel would take a little weight off?

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And this would be why I could never do what you guys do.

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Chopdoc said:

And this would be why I could never do what you guys do.

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LOL. But you're making a damn fine case now Doc...maybe not the same boat..but you're on the same river at least.

I always measure shafts obviously and if I am replacing a joint, butt sleeve, butt cap...something of that nature...of course I weigh them. But if someone came to me and said "Hey, this cue weighed 19.6 ounces with linen and now it weighs 19.4 with leather...what's up with that?!" I would probably just blink at them and make something up about humidity and gravitational pull and tell them it will correct itself in time. The dumb is strong with customers in ANY facet of business.

Landlover said:

I really like the feel of stacked leather wraps and decided to do some of my house cues with linen wraps for practice. I bought some lace, watched some videos on YouTube and attempted 3 of them. I think i have the taper and getting started figured out but I’m struggling with getting the bottom to look perfect. I know Tiger has a dvd on installation but is there any other videos out there that are better? Also, what is the trick to getting the bottom part to look clean and flush? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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Tiger has a video that you can watch on youtube for free....but it's very vague....if you buy their 'kit', you get the complete video, which I have not watched, but am led to believe will have all the details to do it right. I myself am looking to get more familiar with stacked wraps and will be investing very soon.
Dave