Have any of you ever replaced those padded wraps? I guess those are becoming more popular now and I had one come in from Switzerland this week for me to change to a Gator print wrap. So I thought I would share my experience.
First off those wraps feel pretty good, so in the future I will definitely try to talk them into keeping it. It was a real pain to get off. I cut it down the middle like I was cutting a seam and pulled on it. The top skin came off easy enough, but that left blue foam stuck to the wrap area. I tried scraping it off with a blade. That did not work. I try spinning it and using wood chisles to remove it. It just gummed up. Then I kept soaking it with adheasive remove and took one of those really course grill cleaing pads and scrubbed it off. That all took at least a half hour.
Then the wrap groove was .075" deep. In other words .150" smaller in diameter than than the cue. So instead of building up a few thousandths with epoxy like I would normally do I wrapped it with a thicker piece of normal black leather and then wrapped the gator over that.
It was impossible to get the cue to spinning true as they are nor perfectly round. I think they put that thick black plastic coating on the cues after they are made and the thickness must vary. Then I had to cut a new groove in a Predator that he sent along side the Big Beullah break cue. It had the same turning issues. The hole in the end on both cues was several thousandths out to the rest of the cue and even shimming that over would not get it perfectly true as the roundness issues were there. So I put the cue through the headstock and cut a little of the groove at a time until I got a wrap groove that was very close to perfect.
Bottom line is these imported cues are a real pain to work on. What should have been a couple hours of work to remove one wrap, cut a groove in another and put two gator wraps on took the better part of two afternoons. :frown:
Anyone else have any suggestions for making life easier working on those plastic coated cues or replacing those wraps????
First off those wraps feel pretty good, so in the future I will definitely try to talk them into keeping it. It was a real pain to get off. I cut it down the middle like I was cutting a seam and pulled on it. The top skin came off easy enough, but that left blue foam stuck to the wrap area. I tried scraping it off with a blade. That did not work. I try spinning it and using wood chisles to remove it. It just gummed up. Then I kept soaking it with adheasive remove and took one of those really course grill cleaing pads and scrubbed it off. That all took at least a half hour.
Then the wrap groove was .075" deep. In other words .150" smaller in diameter than than the cue. So instead of building up a few thousandths with epoxy like I would normally do I wrapped it with a thicker piece of normal black leather and then wrapped the gator over that.
It was impossible to get the cue to spinning true as they are nor perfectly round. I think they put that thick black plastic coating on the cues after they are made and the thickness must vary. Then I had to cut a new groove in a Predator that he sent along side the Big Beullah break cue. It had the same turning issues. The hole in the end on both cues was several thousandths out to the rest of the cue and even shimming that over would not get it perfectly true as the roundness issues were there. So I put the cue through the headstock and cut a little of the groove at a time until I got a wrap groove that was very close to perfect.
Bottom line is these imported cues are a real pain to work on. What should have been a couple hours of work to remove one wrap, cut a groove in another and put two gator wraps on took the better part of two afternoons. :frown:
Anyone else have any suggestions for making life easier working on those plastic coated cues or replacing those wraps????
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