The problem is, could he have finished that cue in reasonable amount of time ?
No he couldn't have. That's why I said building an ordered cue you can't finish is like writing a check with no money in the bank. The guy seems genuine & stand up, and his mistake wasn't outsourcing the finish. His mistake was accepting an order before he knew how to make a cue. If he's too inexperienced & lacks knowledge to finish the cue, then what else does he not know? I'm not being an ass. These are legit concerns with solid merit. And to be fair, I wouldn't have said a word if he hadn't opened the topic for discussion and asked for opinions. All he got was a bunch of coddling with nobody explaining the reality of the situation. I seriously cannot be the only builder here who has dealt with pool players. It's not exactly an ideal target market.
And that he does not want to spray auto clear for now .
If the cue or cues do need refinishing later on, he can be up front and tell them he's not spraying auto clear.
I don't blame him. I don't, either. It's a wise choice by him, IMO. It comes with a degree of difficulty that requires a learning curve. Auto clear was by far the easiest & best looking finish I have ever done. If you can't get good results with auto clear, you're in trouble. That's not the case with any other finish I have used. Every other finish is a lot more hands on labor, and requires some hand skills. He will find one he likes, perfect it, and will be much happier with himself.
Finishing has made me cry than any step in cue building. It did the same to my late mentor too.
Finishing is a money pit and time vampire as he mentioned. Specially if you spray outside. I don't even want to think about how much money I have spent on finishing products and tools. It might be all the profit I have made on making cues .
Wait, profit? Pft!
Me, too. It's a growing pain of cue making, but a necessary evil. When you see a cue from across the room and immediately know it's quality, that's because of the finish. If a guy has his finish down, every cue looks like a million bucks. It's where the rubber meets the road, where the maker's skill is obvious. It's a PIA but it makes a huge difference in how the maker is perceived.
You & I both know a newer maker who went the route of having somebody else finish his cues.......until he didn't. The cues looked great, finish was fine & shiny & clean. People seen the cues & thought the guy had promise, so they began ordering. However, when he finally began finishing cues himself, it looked terrible. I know of three of those cues that should never have left the shop. He went from producing cues that had a mirror finish to sending out cues with blatant, in your face flaws. How should the buyers feel when they see a beautiful cue, order one for themselves, and when it arrives it's atrocious? The finishes the maker did himself revealed that he has very low attention to detail, which in turn brings to question what else did he screw up on that you cannot see? That's what a finish is. It's where the world sees the cue & judges the maker's skill level. For a $300 cue bought by an APA 3 weekend warrior, it's probably not a big deal because they won't care. But once you hit $1000+, the buying market is significantly smaller and infinitely better informed. If you want to fish in that pond, you can neither send out flawed finish nor outsource the finish. Those buyers want the work done by you, and done correctly.
So I guess it's all about objectives. If JC wants to fish for minnows, outsourcing is fine. If he wants to grow into a more substantial market, he's gonna have to take time to perfect his finish, without the stress of meeting customer obligations.
