Any one else go back to cheaper cues ?

Never had an expensive cue; ever. Cues these days are just plain gaudy no matter how well they play. back in the 70s plain stained maple Tads were coming out the shop at 75 bucks! I passed. I have since "amassed" 9 or ten cues totaling maybe the far side of 500 bucks. They all play better than I can.

lorider said:

Guess i need to start from the begining. When i got into playing league after a 30 year break from playing pool i bought a few mid to low level production cues.... Players....vikings ...and meuccis to be exact. Oh yea...traded one of those meuccis even for a predator blak 4.

After joining this forum i decided to see what a custom cue was all about and bought one for 2500 and after playing with it a few years sold it for the same 2500 and bought a used meucci gambler for 200.

One other note....in 2013 i qualified for vegas and was not taking that 2500 cue and bought a cheap import sneaky pete brand new for 20.00 to take out there. I played pretty dang sporty out there with it.

So i just had to get a revo shaft for that blak 4 .....mainly cause that combo looked good. Played with thst set up a while and then just had to get a meucci carbon pro to go with that 200 dollar gambler i bought when i sold that custom .

Played with that set up a while and recently went back to the black dot shaft on the gambler.

Tonight i took that old 20 dollar cue to league and played pretty darn good with it. Made a couole errors but i think its that 7 year old factory tip thats the culprit.

I played good enough i think i am going to stick with it this weekend at our regional qualifier and leave those high priced shafts in the closet. Only problem with the sneaky pete is some think its a house cue and have grabbed it a few times. One time it came up missing and i found it on the wall rack. Consequently i have to keep a sharper eye out on it than i have to with those carbon fiber cues.

Like the title says...any one else went back to a cheap cue ?

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Well, in my opinion, the way a cue feels and hits is much more important then the price, or quality of it.

If a cue feels and hits amazing to you, then it very well could be a $20 import sneaky pete, and that is not surprising.

I once played a few games with a friends import Philippine made cue, which only cost him around $50, from what he told me, and I played so well with that cue, because to me, it had an amazing hit and feel to it.

So, I do not know, but it might be just really great luck that that particular cue felt and hit so good for you.

I used to think that a high priced cue would hit the best, but I was so wrong about that. Have had Schon cues that I did not care for. Have had most of the well known production cues that were not right for me.

Anyways, I think it is really cool that you found a cheap cue that you really enjoy shooting with.

I wish the same could happen to me.

The moochie was the fancy cue!

lorider said:

Guess i need to start from the begining. When i got into playing league after a 30 year break from playing pool i bought a few mid to low level production cues.... Players....vikings ...and meuccis to be exact. Oh yea...traded one of those meuccis even for a predator blak 4.

After joining this forum i decided to see what a custom cue was all about and bought one for 2500 and after playing with it a few years sold it for the same 2500 and bought a used meucci gambler for 200.

One other note....in 2013 i qualified for vegas and was not taking that 2500 cue and bought a cheap import sneaky pete brand new for 20.00 to take out there. I played pretty dang sporty out there with it.

So i just had to get a revo shaft for that blak 4 .....mainly cause that combo looked good. Played with thst set up a while and then just had to get a meucci carbon pro to go with that 200 dollar gambler i bought when i sold that custom .

Played with that set up a while and recently went back to the black dot shaft on the gambler.

Tonight i took that old 20 dollar cue to league and played pretty darn good with it. Made a couole errors but i think its that 7 year old factory tip thats the culprit.

I played good enough i think i am going to stick with it this weekend at our regional qualifier and leave those high priced shafts in the closet. Only problem with the sneaky pete is some think its a house cue and have grabbed it a few times. One time it came up missing and i found it on the wall rack. Consequently i have to keep a sharper eye out on it than i have to with those carbon fiber cues.

Like the title says...any one else went back to a cheap cue ?

Click to expand...

Back in the early eighties I had gambled playing with wood off the wall for about ten years, rarely missing a night. A friend got me a ridiculous deal on a Meucci, brand new for fifty bucks! He was the manager of a game room and when the owner bought a new four to seven thousand dollar video game, the supplier tossed them a new plain jane moochie as lagniappe.

The nicest thing about a jointed cue is playing with the same cue all the time instead of having to adapt to different cues. Still that noodle shaft was hard to adjust to. The story was that Meucci used soft maple for shafts in those days. I'd be in the middle of a money or tournament match and fling that moochie into a corner to grab up a house cue. Everyone watching would burst out laughing but my opponent rarely laughed long!

There is inexpensive and there is junk. I needed a shaft for that same moochie in a hurry years later. I went to a store that had a big stock of Dufferins with the same pin. Selected the best shaft out of about forty on the wall racks and I was in business. Just fo curiosity I tried the plain four prong Dufferin butt too. Either one played just fine!

Hu

Yup. I've owned and played with several expensive cues. My current playing cue is a 99 dollar Players sneaky 2-piece. I put a new Triangle tip on it and it plays just fine.

My cheap cue is my custom cue is my player.

Stole it right here off the AZB For Sale section.

ShootingArts said:

Selected the best shaft out of about forty on the wall racks and I was in business.

Hu

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I like it, can you describe what criteria you used in selecting the best shaft wood? I am always interested in this subject and I would enjoy your opinion. I don't want to pry nor lead you by asking pointed questions, I only want to know what you looked for that day.

Thanks very much, Dave.

I own $2000 cues and I own $30 cues- I would not use the $30 cue as an excuse if I played with it and lost a match. A few under $50 cues that I own play well enough ( they are solid, reasonably straight, 19 0z. , good tips and ferrules) that I should be able to pocket a ball and move the cue ball to my next desired position at my skill level- that is all a cue is supposed to do. I own some $2000 cues because i enjoy finer cues and I can afford it as a hobby- it is all that simple.

TX Poolnut said:

Yup. I've owned and played with several expensive cues. My current playing cue is a 99 dollar Players sneaky 2-piece. I put a new Triangle tip on it and it plays just fine.

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Yes! Thats the setup i used all last yr
The i relapsed on my cue addiction
Im weak

I've got a couple sub-$200 cues that play great. I also like nicer stuff so my daily cue is a $500 Mezz. See no reason to spend more than $12-1,500 personally.

me too!

TX Poolnut said:

Yup. I've owned and played with several expensive cues. My current playing cue is a 99 dollar Players sneaky 2-piece. I put a new Triangle tip on it and it plays just fine.

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I have had $1,000 plus cues but my most recent purchase was a Players sneaky pete with a Kamui SS tip. It plays as good as any cue I've owned. Total cost was about $110 and it came with a 1X1 case and $5 off my next purchase!

my players sp was 75 new and shipped from an azbilliards member, best cue buy ever
had a great lepro on it

I have been looking for 50 years for that magic cue that would be my primary player and cost less than $100. I have found some surprisingly good players that sold as low as $25. But I still haven’t found one that would push me to sell off my current favorites.

Sealegs50 said:

I have been looking for 50 years for that magic cue that would be my primary player and cost less than $100. I have found some surprisingly good players that sold as low as $25. But I still haven’t found one that would push me to sell off my current favorites.

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Some smart Cuemaker like Viking or McDermott needs a new line of Cues, MAGIC CUES with that name they should sell well.

Infomercials on Golf Channel sell all sorts of gizmos, accessories, putters, drivers that are the Loads gift to Golf. Commercial cost big bucks, but Gods Gift must sell well.

Here is a photo of a $20 1980s Excalibur cue with a perfect shaft- all I did was remove the heavy brass but joint and add Juma joint- now it weighs a perfectly balanced 19oz. - also here is a photo of my partial custom collection- all great cues_ between $1200 and $2500 - The $20 cue plays just as well for what anyone needs to do with a cueball!

I would say that a low end cue is probably fine for lower skilled players. Higher level players and pros that rely on low deflection cues would not be able to play at the same level if you gave them a $99 players cue. The way the cue ball reacts to high amounts of spin and a hard stroke is night and day difference

I’m in no way putting anyone down who enjoys expensive cases and cue’s . If that’s your thing it’s great but I got a way from it. At some point I just didn’t care anymore. I had a beautiful high end scruggs that was unlike anything anyone had seen before. I was always getting people begging to buy it. I was going to Vegas for a tournament and didn’t want to risk it getting lost or damaged so I bought a cheap predator road line from a friend and never put it down. I sold my jack Justice case and went to an inexpensive predator butterfly case and never looked back. That was more then 5 years a go.

consistency more than a high ring count

CuesDirectly said:

I like it, can you describe what criteria you used in selecting the best shaft wood? I am always interested in this subject and I would enjoy your opinion. I don't want to pry nor lead you by asking pointed questions, I only want to know what you looked for that day.

Thanks very much, Dave.

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Dave,

I couldn't hit with these of course. First thing I did was unscrew and check for end grain damage, missing wood, or wood, collars and insert not lined up like they should be.

Can't see much grain on a complete shaft with insert and collar but looking at the joint end and looking at the shaft from joint end to ferrule I was looking at how evenly the spacing was on the growth rings and if they ran off to one side or the other or seemed to get cut away pretty evenly on both sides. I glanced at all of the shafts and probably looked more closely at roughly two-dozen before I decided I wasn't likely to find a better shaft.

Some of the growth ring counts seemed pretty high but I have found consistent growth rings from side to side more important than getting the highest number of rings possible and ignoring that they are tight on one side of a shaft or blank and more open on the other.

The nature of a tree's growth and the way they are cut up pretty much guarantees a little run-off. I wanted to get my own log sometime and split it then cut it but never got the chance. I'm a long ways from rock maple. Even if we had it in Louisiana everything tends to grow so fast here it would be unlikely to be quality wood.

I looked for defects in the other materials or extra wide glue lines too.

I am aware that you know much of this already however when I write for public consumption I try to cover the bases for everybody. Almost left out the first thing I did, eyeball the shaft to see if it appeared straight looking down the shaft from close behind the buttcap and rolling the tip on the display base that was a hard linoleum maybe two feet high. I was still doing machine work back then and had 20-10 vision or close to it so I trusted my eyes a lot more than I do now!

It sounds like a pretty involved check of each shaft but I spent more time unscrewing joints and putting them back together than anything else. After the first few it didn't take long to rule out most of the culls, about 75%. This doesn't mean there was this high of a ratio of bad shafts, just with about forty to choose from I could afford to be picky. I kept a couple of the best cues on the side and as soon as I decided a shaft was inferior to those I quit looking at it. I did "ping test" the cue I was buying, dropping the complete cue from about a foot straight down tip first onto the floor. This depends on the floor and the employees nearby, I would expect them to object if I did it to a bunch of cues. I remember the floor people watching me pretty closely while I was going over their cues like Tuco putting together a six-shooter! I looked a lot like my avatar at the time.

My opinion, after checking for true and handling damage which would cover manufacturing issues too, the main thing was runout. A few shafts had truly ridiculous growth ring runout, I was looking for one ring or less. This doesn't mean cut away by tapering the shaft of course, a bit of eyeballing to visualize if it would run out if the shaft was still a straight dowel.

A repeat, how choosy you can be depends a lot on how many shafts or blanks you have to choose from and how many times they have already been picked over. There were a few twenty dollar shaft blanks last I bought some used to build those forty dollar cues.

I tried to write what I looked at back then, in truth some I remember, some I am not positive. I bought this shaft to replace the one on my Meucci in the late eighties, early nineties at the latest. A friend at work had started playing and I rarely was so I gave him the cue maybe five years later, still with a straight shaft.

Hu