Cue building...let's talk about tools!

J

john coloccia

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
At least, I hope someone wants to talk about tools. I'm experienced building things like guitars from rough boards, and I'd like to have some fun building cues. In a previous life, I was an engineer and actually got pretty competent at machining, so I know my way around a lathe, though I'm a bit rusty. No plans to become a professional cue builder as I already have one crazy business already, but I want reasonably serious equipment that can put out professional results, even if it's just a hobby. I do want to be able to use live tooling, do precision work, and work metal too as the need arises.

I'm guessing I can probably make any decent metal lathe work, but I'm sure there must be some preferred brands/models that will make it much easier since I'll be able to get attachments that are designed to work with them...is that true? Do I need to pick up some sort of small mill/drill to machine various adapter plates and things like that? Maybe it makes sense to have regular lathe, and then possibly some sort of dedicated cue building something or other as well? Used/New? Sources? :)

I have a pretty complete wood shop as it is, so I'm basically asking about things that are specifically geared to cue building.

I'd also be looking for a couple of good references to get started.

Anyhow, I know this is kind of an open ended question, and it's probably been talked about many times, but new things pop up all the time so I thought I'd ask and see where I get.

I sincerely appreciate any help.
 
John, Buy Chris Hightower's book.

You can always sell it on AZB if you decide not to get involved in cuemaking.
 
You don't need a 2000 lb lathe to build a 19 oz cue. Cue lathes are commonly called "toy lathes" by the owners of big lathes.

I have built 140 cues on my "toy lathe"................ it will do everything just fine.

Call Chris Hightower..

Kim
 
Live tooling and work metal too?
I'm thinking you need a metal lathe.
If you don't get a dedicated taper machine, you will need a 13 by 40.
 
rhinobywilhite said:
John, Buy Chris Hightower's book.

You can always sell it on AZB if you decide not to get involved in cuemaking.
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I'll definitely buy his book.

re: toy lathes
Ha ha...I don't think they're toy lathes. They just seem kind of pricey considering what's available used for older metal lathes, and if I'm going to have another tool taking up space in my shop, I'd like it to be useful for other things as well, not just cues. I also have to think to my experience building/repairing guitars. Everything becomes much easier when you can work with precision down to .001" reliably, even if it is just wood and it squirms around as you work it. One of the things I hate doing is constantly having to measure and double check everything because I can't rely on precision tooling and readouts, even if you end up with equally good results in the end. Maybe as I learn more about the better cue lathes, like Hightower's, I'll change my mind! :)

Wow...I really need 40". I would have guessed less, but I'll take your word for it. :)
 
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In my opinion....

You only need that length for tapering.
Get a dedicated taper outfit of some sort if you can. BUT....
Hightower seems to have the hot setup for multi-purpose machines.
Just one thread pitch will work fine.

Robin Snyder
 
You can use a 12 x 36. The 13 x 40 simply allows some extra room for one to start or end a pass on tapering. I have both and started out with a 12 x 36. I am now up to 4 lathes. Be careful because equipment is a sick addiction.
 
Learn how to use the SEARCH function on this site. Most if not all questions have been asked before and answered in length. :) Start with cue lathes and see what comes up.

Mario
 
Mcues said:
Learn how to use the SEARCH function on this site. Most if not all questions have been asked before and answered in length. :) Start with cue lathes and see what comes up.

Mario
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I realize that, but I come to a forum to chat with people and get current information. I'm always appreciative if you have some threads in particular you think I might find helpful. Pouring through years and years of posts trying to make sense of things myself just sort of puts me back at square one.

But I'm definitely going to check out Hightower's lathes. Maybe it's more reasonable to consider something like that to start, along with all the available support, and consider a much smaller metal lathe later on to tackle higher precision/metal work as it comes up. There's actually some guitar related metal work that I'd like to experiment with.
 
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john coloccia said:
I realize that, but I come to a forum to chat with people and get current information. I'm always appreciative if you have some threads in particular you think I might find helpful. Pouring through years and years of posts trying to make sense of things myself just sort of puts me back at square one.
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By all means stay out of the library. That's only for newbies, rookies and nerds.
Certainly not a place to be for someone that is looking for personal friendly guidance.
Except.............we don't do that unless there is money involved.
Education generally comes at a price.
You either put in the effort or you pay someone to do your homework for you.
You pretend to want to learn but shun the effort involved.
I hope you're ready to spend some money, your hobby is about to get expensive.
Had you taken a few to view, you could have avoided the mine-field you've just entered.
See, most of us will help those who are making the effort to help themselves.
You don't want to put in the effort then we don't either. Don't give up hope.
Eventually someone will give you the keys to the Buick and the deed to the farm.
You like apples ?
 
KJ Cues said:
By all means stay out of the library. That's only for newbies, rookies and nerds.
Certainly not a place to be for someone that is looking for personal friendly guidance.
Except.............we don't do that unless there is money involved.
Education generally comes at a price.
You either put in the effort or you pay someone to do your homework for you.
You pretend to want to learn but shun the effort involved.
I hope you're ready to spend some money, your hobby is about to get expensive.
Had you taken a few to view, you could have avoided the mine-field you've just entered.
See, most of us will help those who are making the effort to help themselves.
You don't want to put in the effort then we don't either. Don't give up hope.
Eventually someone will give you the keys to the Buick and the deed to the farm.
You like apples ?
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I have been looking through the forum and searching, long before I started this thread. From my first post:

Anyhow, I know this is kind of an open ended question, and it's probably been talked about many times, but new things pop up all the time so I thought I'd ask and see where I get.

I sincerely appreciate any help.
Click to expand...

And I do sincerely appreciate the help...from those who have actually taken a minute to help. :thumbup:
 
Without a doubt, buy a Hightower. It will allow you many options while your in the process of deciding if or what real equipment you want. If you decide to sell Hightower you will get decent return.

For the record, I would never buy another 36-40" lathe. If I had it to do all over I'd start with an HLVH and retro with 16c spindle and I'd have a dedicated turning lathe and a bullshit sanding/finishing lathe. Instead I have enough lathes I could probably donate a few and not even notice they were gone.

Point is, knowledge will save your ass an absolute fortune
 
LGSM3 said:
Without a doubt, buy a Hightower. It will allow you many options while your in the process of deciding if or what real equipment you want. If you decide to sell Hightower you will get decent return.

For the record, I would never buy another 36-40" lathe. If I had it to do all over I'd start with an HLVH and retro with 16c spindle and I'd have a dedicated turning lathe and a bullshit sanding/finishing lathe. Instead I have enough lathes I could probably donate a few and not even notice they were gone.

Point is, knowledge will save your ass an absolute fortune
Click to expand...

Could I ask what HLVH stands for?

Anyhow, I'm very familiar with the rabbit hole. I think it happens with any trade. Guitar builders tend to collect bandsaws and rasps. I can just hear my wife now, and the answer is YES, I use every damn one of them. :)
 
Choosing a dedicated cue lathe is a compromise, I don`t think anyone disagrees with that statement. A 12x36 or 13x40 lathe weights 1000lbs or more, a Deluxe cue lathe or similar weights about 100lbs.
The cue lathes are initially easier to master, but their lack of weight and simplicity is also a limitation.
If you already have a workshop area, some knowledge about lathes and would like to turn metal parts too, You will have more luck with a big metal lathe.
You will get lots of opinions about what lathe to choose and that everything made in China is s**t. I doubt you will find more lathe for the money than the 12x36 or 13x40 sold by grizzly.
It`s a great place to start looking, and as you say, the price is about the same as a Deluxe og Cuemaster lathe.
 
63Kcode said:
Welcome to the addiction!

Larry
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I actually had a Jet mini lathe, and got pretty good at that kind of turning. For a while, I was making pens and bowls....boy oh boy do I have a lot of little bowls now that I use for all sorts of things. And then I started taking commissions....finials, things like that. Before I knew it, I was turning everything in sight, had more tools than I knew what to do with, had a shelf full of blanks (should have been full of guitar parts), etc.

I sold it all off. I actually gave the lathe to a friend, who can use it with his daughter (he has a huge Robust American Beauty so could use a smaller one anyway). It had turned into a big time waster, and there wasn't nearly enough money in it to even pay for itself.

So it makes me wonder if it's a good idea after all, but here's what I tell people when they pop into the guitar forums and ask "Should I get this?": If you're an alcoholic, you don't ask your drinking buddies if you should have another drink. I have a feeling I've opened Pandora's box. :)
 
If you have the spare finances, give cue-making a try. Your background indicates knowledge of woodworking so I think you will enjoy the process.

Advice, good or bad, is available for almost every aspect of building. I still appreciate the thought that there are many ways to skin a cat.

You will not get rich building cues, probably will not even earn a living. But, as we said at the outset, if you have the funds, go for it.

Most everyone today builds cues with cnc. Some combine full prongs with cnc inlays. A few still build without cnc. Most of us in that category are rather ancient in age and wonder if it is too late to learn new tricks. I still make my own pantograph patterns and enjoy the process. Much slower, though, than drawing a pattern and using cnc to cut it out and cut the pocket.

Twenty-five years ago, I had your same thoughts. Info was very difficult to obtain then and paying for instruction was the norm. Today, thanks to books, dvds, and you tube, one can gain a lot of knowledge about cuemaking. Little things like tool grinding to get a smooth face on joints and boring a straight hole seem minor but are major to a good build.

If you have a cuemaker in your area ask him his fee to help you get started. If he is knowledgeable you won't regret it provided he doesn't charge an arm and a le.
 
If you want the machines to pull double duty with cues AND metal work, then obviously you want metalworking equipment. If you want cue equipment, there's very little if anything you can do with metalworking equipment that you can't do as easy or easier with the "toy machines". My shop is full of them & nobody says I'm not a real cue maker, or that my cues lack precision.
 
rhinobywilhite said:
If you have the spare finances, give cue-making a try. Your background indicates knowledge of woodworking so I think you will enjoy the process.

Advice, good or bad, is available for almost every aspect of building. I still appreciate the thought that there are many ways to skin a cat.

You will not get rich building cues, probably will not even earn a living. But, as we said at the outset, if you have the funds, go for it.

Most everyone today builds cues with cnc. Some combine full prongs with cnc inlays. A few still build without cnc. Most of us in that category are rather ancient in age and wonder if it is too late to learn new tricks. I still make my own pantograph patterns and enjoy the process. Much slower, though, than drawing a pattern and using cnc to cut it out and cut the pocket.

Twenty-five years ago, I had your same thoughts. Info was very difficult to obtain then and paying for instruction was the norm. Today, thanks to books, dvds, and you tube, one can gain a lot of knowledge about cuemaking. Little things like tool grinding to get a smooth face on joints and boring a straight hole seem minor but are major to a good build.

If you have a cuemaker in your area ask him his fee to help you get started. If he is knowledgeable you won't regret it provided he doesn't charge an arm and a le.
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I actually had a CNC machine for my guitar building for a while. A 3X4 XZero w/linear rails in fact (I know he's popular here). NICE machine. I was running it with a KFlop controller I built up (NICE controller board, BTW...none of the strange quirkiness you get with MACH3). My background is electro-optics and robotics, so getting it running was a piece of cake.

Incidentally, if anyone has that combination, I can help you with a home routine....a REAL home routine, that's fast and very repeatable to .001" using hall effect sensors. To make it even better, I glued some pieces of steel to the rails carriages lined up with the sensors. Good heavens, that XZero guy is a kook, but his machines are built incredibly well for the money. Very stout and precise! I actually drove to Toronto to pick it up. That's another funny story for another day. :)

Anyhow, I sold it when the twins came. Here's the thing: wood moves when you're working it. We all know this. It's a much bigger problem when you're trying to do precision guitar work. You can't just stick something in a chuck and essentially work off the centerline. You need to figure out an awful lot of tooling, and you're constantly flipping things over as you go because you can't just take a ton of wood off one side and expect it to stay flat. There are also no straight/square lines. It's really not an easy problem to solve, unless you're happy cranking out slipshod work that's just sorta right.

It's far easier on a big Haas, for example, where you have a monstrous spindle that can drive huge tools and do profiles from the side in one pass. Anyhow, it's very possible to do great guitar work on these small, gantry style machines, but it really requires a lot of experience or you just spin your wheels forever figuring and experimenting. It also required babysitting, and with these small machines you kind of really need to finish once you start a process. Babysitting twin girls was enough...didn't need a 3HP spindle in the mix too. In the end, I simply didn't have the CNC expertise to pull it off, it turned into a boat anchor and it was actually quicker to just go back to building by hand. If I ever ventured to do it again, it would only ever be with a real milling center.

But it does look like a really great fit for cue work. Now I wish I hadn't sold the XZero...it would have been nothing to add another axis. If I ever truly go insane and venture to make a little money at this, I'd surely bring one back into the shop. For now, I just want to learn and have a little bit of fun. :)
 
qbilder said:
If you want the machines to pull double duty with cues AND metal work, then obviously you want metalworking equipment. If you want cue equipment, there's very little if anything you can do with metalworking equipment that you can't do as easy or easier with the "toy machines". My shop is full of them & nobody says I'm not a real cue maker, or that my cues lack precision.
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Thanks! Yes, I'll be calling Hightower today to talk about it. My thought was there are other things I'd like to do with it other than simply cue work, and those really would require a great deal of precision in metal, but I think it makes more sense to have a dedicated machine with all the support and knowledge that goes with it, and to bring in a much smaller metal lathe for the other stuff (if I ever get around to it). I thought a double duty machine made sense, but when I see what I'd really need to do it, it doesn't make much sense to me anymore. When I quite my job to start my own company, I lost my access to mills and lathes, and I guess I just miss having them around.
 
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