WTH is Hornbeam?

HawaiianEye

HawaiianEye

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I see some beautiful blanks being made out of hornbeam, but I have never seen anybody with a cue made of it.

I think it may be referred to is ironwood.

How does it play in cues?

What wood is it comparable to that is is commonly used in making cues?
 
Kim Bye

Kim Bye

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Hornbeam is white, almost as white as holly. European Hornbeam (Carpinus betulus) is similar to maple in many ways, although slighty harder.
American Hornbeam (Carpinus caroliniana) Is slightly harder at just over 1700lb/f on the Janka scale.
Ironwood is in a totally diferent family.
 
sac14214

sac14214

AzB Gold Member
Gold Member
Silver Member
Hornbeam example

Here is one I made with hornbeam. Definitely harder than maple. Plays stiff, not as stiff as ebony but close. Should have written the weight down but as I recall it seemed lighter in weight but was still very hard, if that makes sense.

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S

S.Vaskovskyi

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
HawaiianEye said:
I see some beautiful blanks being made out of hornbeam, but I have never seen anybody with a cue made of it.

I think it may be referred to is ironwood.

How does it play in cues?

What wood is it comparable to that is is commonly used in making cues?
Click to expand...

In the country I'm from hornbeam is one of the most common wood to use when it comes to building piramid cues (the game with much bigger and heavier balls). Such common like hard maple in pool cues. The shafts for piramid cues are almost always made out of hornbeam. The hornbeam which grows here is definitely harder and stiffer than maple from our region. Usually it will be also harder and stiffer than hard maple.
 
S

S.Vaskovskyi

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
AtLarge said:
Dmitry Komarov (DBK Cues, now deceased) used both white and black hornbeam quite a bit. Here are a couple of his cues:

https://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=432781

https://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=432780

Edit -- I see Willie-Blade also uses what he calls black hornbeam. I wonder whether it is actually closely related to the white hornbeam, or something entirely different.
Click to expand...

A certain process is used to get it in different colors. It is actually the same specie. It is available in black, yellow, blue, green and a few more colors.
 
S

S.Vaskovskyi

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
AtLarge said:
Vacuum infusion of dye?
Click to expand...

I did not look into the details of the process because I'm not going to try it. I've heard there was a man from Russia who was the one to use the process and offer particularly black hornbeam to all interested who are in piramid cue building business.
 
D

deanoc

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I bought a long cue,long with extension
from Willie Blade,it hit very good
Steve Smith hit it and talked me out of it
as he was on the road

Steve is known as THE LIZARD TO Many of you

at any rate it had a unique feel about it

I really liked it,but I gave it to Steve as I am not getting much high play and was in no real need

I would recomend buying one of their less expensive cues and trying it out
I wuld buy extra shafts if I had the opportunity as well
 
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