Joint is 22mm (

billiards_watch said:

Thanks.

I have the opportunity to purchase one from a friend who has long retired that cue and went on to more fancier cues. He recommended me taking it off his hands and I will be test driving one soon.

My friend gave me a warning that I may not like the cue because the butt is a big bigger than modern cues. So I'm assuming Ray built this. It has his signature. He met Ray in a Vegas show and bought 6 shafts from Ray. So look out for different tapers?

He also made the mention that the ferrules are a bit smaller than the cues of that era. So I'm assuming Shuler was ahead of his time.

I'm just curious in how it shoots but the story of the guy is pretty fascinating. Seems like was well known.

Anything I should be aware of?

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Joint is 22mm diameter (~ .865) so aftermarket shafts become a challenge. I’ve had to turn down a couple of pilots from cuemakers who built an aftermarket shafts for my Schuler.

Schuler Cues have many standard tapers. They marked them on the joint with letters like PP, SQ, SP, etc.

Even in the “big butt” years, Ray often had other people working in the shop building his cues. That really shouldn’t matter to you. Jerry Powers for example and Ivan Lee built Ray’s cues.

Here’s Kaci, the wax accuser:

Mike Rys said:

If you add a taper bar, you will need a new cross slide with an extra deck that has a spring loaded deck to engage the bar with a built in bearing. You will also need risers for the head stock, tail stock, and all steady rests.

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When I ordered the lathe If the bar wasn’t added when built it was very expensive to add later.

cueball2010 said:

Did you check your other balls. If it is pocket metal they should be much worse scratches on the other 15 balls

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Protruding Pocket nails rarely, if ever affect every ball in a set during one or a few sessions on the suspected table. Usually a suspect table has only one or a few pocket nails protruding enough to scratch the balls to a significant visible effect. This effect would build over time to more and more balls in a set if there is repetitious play on the suspect table. The balls need to come in at a certain angle and hit that nail just so to cause the damage.

After the first session on a suspect table, you would normally see only one or a few balls affected, depending on how many nails are protruding - which is usually only one or a few nails; it usually builds to include more balls in the set as sessions increase on the table before realizing the issue.

If the cue ball is the first one affected, which is the ball most often cleaned after a session- consider oneself lucky to catch the issue before ruining an entire set - more reason to inspect tables on initial sessions when bringing your own $300 to $400 ball sets.

Usually the CB is not the first ball affected bc it goes into the pockets the least ( hopefully) and it does not go into the pockets at the speeds of most object ball strikes.

Duramith technology claims have nothing to do with protruding nails- 40 year Duramith claims are based on properly maintained playing conditions.

JABSolstice said:

You did it! At the beginning of Gorst/Atencio today, he actually noted the thread on AZB and apologized for getting it wrong and vowed to work to never say it wrong again.

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i'm glad he didn't find this thread:

Gio Sr. said:

Nice tables but the balls are old and beat. I just wanted a decent cue ball.
I was back at it today for a few hours. I did find two nail heads out a bit. Tomorrow I will bring a small hammer and a punch to tap them in. It’s just a senior community club house.

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Hell man thats not unusual. A lot of the older dudes that took straight pool real seriously would bring their own set and I’ve been to plenty of league nights where someone would bring a good set of balls because the bars were terrible.