My local woodshop closed it's doors yesterday and my local woodcraft and rocklers don't carry much. Bellforest also has very little. I'm looking for a good source of dowels in maple or even better, hickory, in 1" x 36" size. If anyone has a good place to shop, I'd appreciate a PM. TIA.
Source for dowels to use as cores
- Thread starter tg_vegas
- Start date
Best advice is you have to start making your own dowels....best way to control the quality, and also the hit. Going to box stores and using crap will make you pull hair out....and have crappy hitting cues. If you core, THE core dowel is THE most important piece of your cue build, it's the foundation....just like a house. It will dictate straightness, tone, feedback, and feel when a customer shoots with it. Take the time to build that one piece correctly, and your cues will be better for it....I promise! When they make dowels for a wholesale store....they make EVERYTHING into a dowel, even the crappiest piece of wood. Go to a lumber yard and by real Quartersawn maple boards(or what ever your flavor for a core is) and make your own....takes more time....but you will be building your reputation in the process.
Dave
Dave
Why 36 inches when most cue butts are only 30 inches? If you plan on turning your shafts from one inch dowels and you can use 30 inches for your coring dowels my advice is as follows: Buy the top grade shaft dowels you can find. Even top grade will have a good bit of dowels that will not make the high end shaft grade. Look them over and turn those lower end ones into your internal cores for the butts. If you plan to maily go Carbon fiber or after market shafts then buy middle grade shaft dowels and turn them into cores.
I'm typically making 30" finished lengths on butts and prefer a little extra material to face off. Also, I can chuck up the overhang when gluing up my butt which gives me a little more room to work around the threaded butt cap and joint sleeve to get them tight. Also keeps epoxy away from my tail and headstock. I am only talking about core material here, I don't have any issues with my shaft materials.
what Chris was saying was to buy shaft wood of a high grade shaft dowels, then the ones that have grain runout, sugar marks, etc. use those for core dowels. As stated above....the quality of the core dowel dictates the quality of your final product. Doing bargain shopping for basement grade material will only result in basement grade final product. If your okay with that....well, everyone has their nitch
I've been buying AAA dowels locally with very little runout, no sugar marks, etc. I'm using those for cores. Don't care about the price ($15-$20 each) For shafts, I've bought mine from Chris. My only bad experience lately was an experiment using birch, which was very challenging and despite the decent outcome, I trashed it and started over with hard maple, which is ready for glue-up tomorrow.
You're wasting good shaft material imo.
Find the ones with run-outs and won't stay straight as a 30"+ pieces. Chop the best 15" portion and thread that to another good 30+" piece. You can use heavier woods for the bottom.
I'm not a fan of one-piece maple by their hit.
Hmm, interesting thought, I could do that easily, especially since i use stepped cores anyway, I could change diameters at the "joint". Another project! Thanks Joey, you consistently add to my to-do list!
Coos Cues
Coos Cues
I like to start with a core wood at 30.5 inches to give me leeway for a full core. This rules out using shaft dowels which usually don't come that length.
But they should to allow for the center to be cut away at the tip for use as a 30" shaft.
I select my own boards and start there. No way in hell I'm going to pay $20 for a core that I can make for $3. Besides maple is not my go to wood.
But they should to allow for the center to be cut away at the tip for use as a 30" shaft.
I select my own boards and start there. No way in hell I'm going to pay $20 for a core that I can make for $3. Besides maple is not my go to wood.