As long as we're talking shop PPE, I love these...

PracticeChampion said:

As just said separate compressor and dust collector from you. The noise they make is extremely loud and annoying in small spaces

Click to expand...

I couldn't afford to have my DC and compressor outside my shop, so I went with a 1/2 HP dust collector (It's pretty quiet, but underpowered. Only good for one port) and I went with the quietest compressor I could afford.

With the compressor running, you can hold a normal conversation without having to raise your voice. With the dust collector running, you can still hear people if they talk, but you'd want to raise your voice. With the router spinning Mach Jesus roughing out a piece of Ebony? I am putting ear plugs in because that shit flares my tinnitus. I wish there was a quieter router setup lol. At least the good thing is, with all of those machines running, I can walk up stairs into the bedroom directly above my shop and can't hear a single thing besides a faint hum of the router. I double stuffed rockwool insulation in the floor joists and that stuff is doing the lords work for sound absorbing, along with 5/8 drywall.

I am going to add some foam sound panels on the concrete wall so the "loudening" effect of noise hitting the non-absorbent concrete isn't as harsh.

fastgixx05 said:

Alton, are these coconut joint protectors yours that I have on my Dellera cue or did Rick make them?

Click to expand...

who is rick?

Sheldon said:

It's great to have your compressor and dust collection in a separate building. There's no way those things filter everything out.

Click to expand...

They absolutely don't. Which is why I make sure to wear a respirator appropriately anytime I am in the shop with machinery running cutting wood.

In my opinion, the dust collector just keeps 99% of the mess off the walls and floor. It doesn't keep anything out of my lungs, or not enough to matter. The respirator feels like wearing nothing after you get used to it, so just wear one and don't be that guy that says "I can't breath with it". You'll learn what not being able to breath really means eventually if you don't wear a respirator around fine dusts and fumes from stuff.

Even my buddies who weld in $1,000,000 shops with $20,000 fume extractor systems wear respirators. Too many old dudes walkin around coughing and wheezing for us to not wear a $20 resp.

Bump for a nice cue

DrCue'sProtege said:

Will the floor in your 2nd floor support a 1,000 pound pool table?

I've had my 9-foot Gold Crown IV and soon will have a 9-foot Diamond Professional in my upstairs garage apartment. Having said that, where the table is going has 6-7 extra floor joists installed. Never had a problem with the floor giving or the table not being level.

r/DCP

Click to expand...

You raise a REALLY good point....

By the time you get the table, balls, shit like chairs and then add 3-4 people standing around it, you've got quit a bit of weight where it was never designed to be.

Think of it like putting a hot tub on a deck not rated to hold a hot tub. Not good.

My main player is a Schon right now, but I've got ermmmmm let's round up to 10 McDermott's in cases scattered throughout my house, and my main breaking cue is a McDermott Mach 1, and my backup breaker is a Sledgehammer from McDermott.

In my opinion, McDermott is the Epiphone of the Pool Cue world. They're not the best at anything, but not the worst at anything either. They're the pinnacle production cue company. They figured out how to produce a good playing, quality looking and feeling cue for a price the average consumer can be happy about spending every time they hold their McDermott (Wow, I should be a marketing manager for them...).

Part of McDermott's success is their oldddddd and steady supply of wood blanks for their cues. It allows them to run production numbers and produce cues that won't warp, even in your average bar bangers hands. They also use a lot of "reclaimed" materials in-place of more expensive options other manufactures use. Like ivory, ebony, pearl, turquoise etc.

McDermott's offer a solid hit, but they kind of stop there. Nothing more, nothing less. Just a good solid hit. I've never been impressed with the way they weight their cues, and I'm not a big fan of how they match their shafts to their joints on each cue because they just don't bother to make every cue pin joint the same diameter. So this means when you go buy an aftermarket shaft like a jacoby v4 and stick it on your McDermott, it's guaranteed to be off by a few thousands in diameter or even off-set at worst. I've experienced this with tons of McDermott cues, and McDermott admits it themselves and request you send your cue in to get matched with one of their carbon fiber shafts. Which, to be honest is nothing more than them going to two bins of their defy shafts and choosing either the larger diameter or smaller diameter joint and giving you whichever one fits best. Does any of this change playability? Absolutely not, but it's where makers like McDermott start losing me to other makers like Schon.


I really only started caring about stuff like that after I begun making cues myself. Before I made cues, I shot with McDermott and figured they were the best cues in the world. Now I am nerdy and extra anal about some cue stuff.

All that said, I still love McDermott, and tell everyone that's new to the sport to start with a McDermott G-core if they can afford it, or a Lucky if they can't afford a G-core.

Also, if you're ever near McDermott, swing by their head quarters in Menomonee Falls. I live about 15 mins away from them and swing in frequently to chat with them and pick up tips or consumables. They're really good folk over there and happy to help, or give a tour.