Purple Rain in a Pool room
- Thread starter Luxury
- Start date
Cool. My wife and I are/were fans of Prince's music too. Best superbowl halftime show EVER, was Prince in Miami, performing live on stage during a massive storm.
Anyway, I'm gonna tell this story because it really fits with the title of your thread... And you may be one of the only people on this forum to whom this will be of interest.
So... Two days before he died I happened to come across a very beat up, purple McDermott D-1. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but purple happens to be my wife's favorite color so the initial thought was simply to refinish the cue for her to have as "her" cue for our home pool room. (It helps that I absolutely LOVE the way the older McDermotts hit)
While all the media attention for Prince was going on in the days following his death, I was sanding the lacquer off of this purple cue in small increments of time. And when I got down to actual wood, some of the stain was sanded as well. As such, I was trying to figure out where I could source purple wood stain to re-stain the cue. I ended up using multiple applications of purple fabric dye Michael's ($4 per bottle).
Anyway, the whole sanding / re-staining process took a few days and somewhere along the way I also had the bright idea to go on ebay to see if I could find a little Prince sticker that would look cool on the cue to turn it into mild "Prince tribute" cue as well. My wife loved the idea, but all of the stickers for sale were way too big and gaudy looking. I finally approached a sticker seller who was selling a big version of what I was looking for and asked if he could make me one that was only 1" tall. That worked out great, and total cost for 4 little golden Prince symbol stickers was around $3.
Sticker guy thought the project was very cool when I told him why I wanted such a small sticker.
I had already put a few coats of lacquer on the cue, then added the sticker after it arrived and put on a few more coats. The cue really looked great, but it still had the crappy low-end McCheapo nylon wrap which I absolutely can't stand. It was time for the old black and purple nylon McD wrap to go, so the last finishing touch was to take it to the local house pro at the pool hall I frequent to have new purple/white spec Irish linen wrap installed.
A couple of days later, my family and I are driving home from dinner and happen to be going right by the pool hall. When I see the pool hall in my peripheral vision, I decide to make a quick stop at the last moment to see if my wife's Prince tribute project cue is ready. We park the car and all three of us go in...
Sure enough, the cue was ready, and the final result turned out fantastic. We were only there for maybe 2 or 3 minutes, but it just so happened that Purple Rain was playing on the juke box the whole time we were there. And I also realized at that that moment, my wife was a wearing solid light purple top and a darker purple summer skirt with paisley print.
Purple Perfection.
Keep rockin' the Prince tunes! IMHO, he was to music what Mosconi was to pool. An unequaled master of his craft.
Anyway, I'm gonna tell this story because it really fits with the title of your thread... And you may be one of the only people on this forum to whom this will be of interest.
So... Two days before he died I happened to come across a very beat up, purple McDermott D-1. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but purple happens to be my wife's favorite color so the initial thought was simply to refinish the cue for her to have as "her" cue for our home pool room. (It helps that I absolutely LOVE the way the older McDermotts hit)
While all the media attention for Prince was going on in the days following his death, I was sanding the lacquer off of this purple cue in small increments of time. And when I got down to actual wood, some of the stain was sanded as well. As such, I was trying to figure out where I could source purple wood stain to re-stain the cue. I ended up using multiple applications of purple fabric dye Michael's ($4 per bottle).
Anyway, the whole sanding / re-staining process took a few days and somewhere along the way I also had the bright idea to go on ebay to see if I could find a little Prince sticker that would look cool on the cue to turn it into mild "Prince tribute" cue as well. My wife loved the idea, but all of the stickers for sale were way too big and gaudy looking. I finally approached a sticker seller who was selling a big version of what I was looking for and asked if he could make me one that was only 1" tall. That worked out great, and total cost for 4 little golden Prince symbol stickers was around $3.
Sticker guy thought the project was very cool when I told him why I wanted such a small sticker. I had already put a few coats of lacquer on the cue, then added the sticker after it arrived and put on a few more coats. The cue really looked great, but it still had the crappy low-end McCheapo nylon wrap which I absolutely can't stand. It was time for the old black and purple nylon McD wrap to go, so the last finishing touch was to take it to the local house pro at the pool hall I frequent to have new purple/white spec Irish linen wrap installed.
A couple of days later, my family and I are driving home from dinner and happen to be going right by the pool hall. When I see the pool hall in my peripheral vision, I decide to make a quick stop at the last moment to see if my wife's Prince tribute project cue is ready. We park the car and all three of us go in...
Sure enough, the cue was ready, and the final result turned out fantastic. We were only there for maybe 2 or 3 minutes, but it just so happened that Purple Rain was playing on the juke box the whole time we were there. And I also realized at that that moment, my wife was a wearing solid light purple top and a darker purple summer skirt with paisley print.
Purple Perfection.
Keep rockin' the Prince tunes! IMHO, he was to music what Mosconi was to pool. An unequaled master of his craft.
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Cool. My wife and I are/were fans of Prince's music too. Best superbowl halftime show EVER, was Prince in Miami, performing live on stage during a massive storm.
Anyway, I'm gonna tell this story because it really fits with the title of your thread... And you may be one of the only people on this forum to whom this will be of interest.
So... Two days before he died I happened to come across a very beat up, purple McDermott D-1. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but purple happens to be my wife's favorite color so the initial thought was simply to refinish the cue for her to have as "her" cue for our home pool room. (It helps that I absolutely LOVE the way the older McDermotts hit)
While all the media attention for Prince was going on in the days following his death, I was sanding the lacquer off of this purple cue in small increments of time. And when I got down to actual wood, some of the stain was sanded as well. As such, I was trying to figure out where I could source purple wood stain to re-stain the cue. I ended up using multiple applications of purple fabric dye Michael's ($4 per bottle).
Anyway, the whole sanding / re-staining process took a few days and somewhere along the way I also had the bright idea to go on ebay to see if I could find a little Prince sticker that would look cool on the cue to turn it into mild "Prince tribute" cue as well. My wife loved the idea, but all of the stickers for sale were way too big and gaudy looking. I finally approached a sticker seller who was selling a big version of what I was looking for and asked if he could make me one that was only 1" tall. That worked out great, and total cost for 4 little golden Prince symbol stickers was around $3.
I had already put a few coats of lacquer on the cue, then added the sticker after it arrived and put on a few more coats. The cue really looked great, but it still had the crappy low-end McCheapo nylon wrap which I absolutely can't stand. It was time for the old black and purple nylon McD wrap to go, so the last finishing touch was to take it to the local house pro at the pool hall I frequent to have new purple/white spec Irish linen wrap installed.
A couple of days later, my family and I are driving home from dinner and happen to be going right by the pool hall. When I see the pool hall in my peripheral vision, I decide to make a quick stop at the last moment to see if my wife's Prince tribute project cue is ready. We park the car and all three of us go in...
Sure enough, the cue was ready, and the final result turned out fantastic. We were only there for maybe 2 or 3 minutes, but it just so happened that Purple Rain was playing on the juke box the whole time we were there. And I also realized at that that moment, my wife was a wearing solid light purple top and a darker purple summer skirt with paisley print.
Purple Perfection.
Keep rockin' the Prince tunes! IMHO, he was to music what Mosconi was to pool. An unequaled master of his craft.
Amazing story. Love the cue!