Recent content by Canadian cue

As a side note, cutting out your own rings on the cnc is how I do real silver rings. Quite a bit of savings from buying them. You can repurpose the left over for inlay or sell it as scrap silver.

Does anyone know if there was a patent on this design, or if the patent has expired? It wouldn't be difficult to reverse engineer one. I have two and could easily build a replica. There is nothing about the design that is inherently difficult to machine. If there was enough demand, I would...

Does anyone know anything about these ? Good , bad etc..?

With the use of coring just about any wood can be used to build a cue. If you use a decent sized core the parent wood becomes more like a veneer. I bore out the inside of my piece with a taper that matches the cue. So the veneer is not very thick. Having said that the wood you choose should...

That is a tricky question. It is more of a judgment call depending on wood species, where the blank was made and where it its going to live it's life. Going from a moist environment to dry one or the opposite, the wood will likely move. So you need to give the wood time to acclimate. Once the...

The Devil is in the detail. The hardest part in finishing a nice blank is knowing when its seasoned well enough that it wont move after its turned. Centering the blank so the points end up even as well as having it balance and weigh what you like is also a consideration. Finishing the blank and...

Depends on the house cue. I have converted quite a few over the years and sometimes you find one with nice tight straight grain. Those ones I save both. I cut it so I get a full length shaft and then find a way to add to the length of the butt. If you do it right you can even out the points and...

Find a big fat house cue with points that are fairly even. You can also try and pick out one with as tight and straight maple as possible. I have converted Duffs, Falcons and McDermott house cues. If you are real lucky you can find an ebony one.

A lot can be learned through house cue conversions. You can learn how to even out points, retaper a shaft, install a joint pin, time a joint so that the grain matches from butt to shaft. You can also use it as an opportunity to learn how to balance out and finish a cue. The nicest thing about...

You have to get the part running in the same axis as the spindle. So the way I do it is I support my part with the tailstock then carefully adjust the jaws of my steady until they touch the bearing. You have to be careful not to pull the part off axis. Your dial indicator won't tell you that. I...

Some times simple is better. This is a setup I use for taper boring forearms after I core a cue. Just a simple delrin collet inside a bearing.

One note of caution when using a 4 jaw for cue work. You have to be quite careful with how much torque you put on the individual jaws. Even with plastic collets it's easy to dent a cue. So when dialing in your part loosen the opposing jaw before tightening the other. These things may seem...

If you put your test bar between centers and the bar runs true, then clamp your chuck to it unsupported by the steady. Now put your dial on the bearings that the chuck is rotating on, do you have any run out? If sp I would try and narrow down where the run out is coming from. I would suspect it...

If you are getting runout it has to be coming from the 3 jaw. I would be looking at my jaws or how the chuck is mounted to its arbor.

Nothing wrong with that, can certainly be useful in a cue shop.