80 house cues to 3 tables.... That sure seems like a lot. Guess there will be a good selection. With that many of them I would imagine that You may run into some ferrule issues. If Not you will down the road, and somethings are more complicated or much more labor intensive to attempt By hand.. Other common things that happen are weights coming loose inside the handles, tenons breaking, and fixing rubber bumpers. Not all require a lathe to actually get the job done, there are hand tools available, that after much trial and error may give you results that You can live with on house cues, but a lathe is faster, and makes things much easier to do a somewhat professional job at in maintaining them. I've been on both sides of that fence, and don't think I could go back to hand tipping. I done them By hand though, so I know It can be done. The hand tools that I used were not cheap though, and I really wished I would have bought mini metal lathe that I could have added a rear bearing rest to with that money spent on the hand tools. That's ancient history now though, I have that, and other lathes that I do repair and build on now, but If I had It to do over I think I would have gone that way instead.
Back in the day when I started I used $100 wood lathe to clean and polish shafts ,a rapid top sander, and big shaver or something like it, among other little tip tools and gizmos for the tips. I did ferrules with a Taylor tenon machine. A Crude device that can do some damage if not used properly, but after some trial and error, I was able to get It tuned In well enough to do a decent job of putting a new ferrule on. Took a lot of labor, and attention to detail to get something acceptable enough that I could live with, and I'm sure I was a lot less picky at the time then I am now when It comes to quality. If I add everything I had together into money spent, I could have probably come close, if not had enough to just buy a mini lathe in the first place.
Anyhow just someones take that has been there.
Back in the day when I started I used $100 wood lathe to clean and polish shafts ,a rapid top sander, and big shaver or something like it, among other little tip tools and gizmos for the tips. I did ferrules with a Taylor tenon machine. A Crude device that can do some damage if not used properly, but after some trial and error, I was able to get It tuned In well enough to do a decent job of putting a new ferrule on. Took a lot of labor, and attention to detail to get something acceptable enough that I could live with, and I'm sure I was a lot less picky at the time then I am now when It comes to quality. If I add everything I had together into money spent, I could have probably come close, if not had enough to just buy a mini lathe in the first place.
Anyhow just someones take that has been there.
