Made my first couple shafts in 80's when people gave me cues with missing, warped, or tiny shafts. In those days I could actually play a little on bar boxes.:smile:
Usual story -forgot about pool 25 yrs or so, raise family, etc. Started shooting again at wife's encouragement, & found what decent sticks cost
By that time half dozen yrs ago, have full machine shop, full commercial woodshop, lots of scrap in the loft so start making my own.
I never really considered making sticks as more than an experiment, though people buy some of them. So a screw up is just another chance to learn.
My biggest errors are around being overly stubborn about aligning points. Mostly only make FS butts, so get finicky about points. I've lost a couple undersize trying to make 4 or 6 points align "perfectly" when they were within 1/16th and could have been fudged (sanded) imperceptibly to get them closer. I also drill most shafts. A lot are lost when they warp at that point. (Drilling early could lead to fewer visibly warped shafts, but the shafts that would have warped, won't have uniform thickness walls)
Other errors are when early on i got tired of dialing both ends of a shaft or butt in & told myself "it's not machine shop, it's woodwork". Besides having the shops, we (my crew & I) installed, so there's a lot of construction driven
"git 'er done" in my background. This does not apply well to cue making.
Cue making actually is machine shop with the added complication of wood not being nearly as stable or forgiving as metal.
Any time you take a chance "that will be ok" it probably won't.
Then there's the whole finish thing. I know from finishing woodwork how wrong that can go on a bad day. But have chosen to eliminate those problems and health aspects by sticking with French polish, which is not a good marketing option these days for most people if they are trying to sell a lot, or sell "high end".
smt
