My amazing full spliced player

I'm a rookie here so I hope it is a right division for such thread.
Just want to share my new playing cue I built recently. In fact I'm still working on the shaft but it's almost finished and meanwhile I've tested the butt with some different standard length shafts.
When I decided to build the cue myself I already knew what I want out of it.
I'm a beginner in cue building but I'm not in billiards. This sport became the main part of my life twenty years ago when I met Jorgen Sandman during my studying at the National university of physical education and sport of Ukraine where he came to prepare the professional coaches and promote pool in our country. He is a great teacher and personality and I was lucky to become one of his students. So now after twenty years of playing different billiard games, working with kids at our university's pool school, teaching people, organizing and running tournaments and so on I have some experience in the field.
First of all I started learning the cue building process because anything concerning billiards is interesting to me and I want my pupils and anybody who love this sport in my country could play with good sticks.
Now let's come back to the theme. When I decided to start building the cues I understood that I need good materials to work with, exotic woods and so on. Now I'm very happy to have the great collection of some unique woods to work with because I understand how important it is for making really great cues.
So when it comes to my new player cue the butt is 31" long. With 31" long shaft it will make 62" long cue. I'm just fairly tall (6,5 foots) and such length is just very comfortable now. It is made out of unique, very old African blackwood 1967 year from Mozambique (yeah 50 years old matured and extremely hard and heavy) and very beautiful and rare hardwood Pau Rosa matured more than 20 years. I already knew how great the cues out of them might be when I took the woods in hands and listen how they sound. In addition I just fall in love with this woods combo.
Another uncommon thing with my full spliced cue is unusual extremely long splices. The cut angle of the splices is only 4 degrees and that made such long spliced butt. The length of splices in a finished cue is 15". Of course the main task (not the easiest one with such heavy woods) was to make comfortable balance and weight. There is no weight bolt in it. The joint is light titanium unilock. Joint ring and butt cap are carbon fiber which I made myself too. For me the main factor when it comes to the cue it is how it plays. And now when I'm playing with this butt and a good shaft with the right tip it makes me feel happy and smile. It is not very easy to describe these feelings. It feels just so solid and makes such a sound that I love it. And I'm looking forward the shaft is finished finally and it should be also something with an old growth and vary hard maple at least 20 years matured wood in it ).
And finally to the pictures, sorry for not the best quility.
Thanks for watching.

Thanks a lot!

Thank you )

Snooker Theory said:

Nice sexy unique design, very cool

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Thank you )

gambler67 said:

looks like a great cue and since you made yourself understandable why your even more attached to this cue, I am not a big fan of uni-loc joints but I bet that cue will hit great when you finish the shaft, curious what type of tip do you play with?

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Thanks for your words. With regards to the joint... My first 60" Prather cue I started to learn the game with and played for 5 years cocobolo\BEM plaine jane had 5\16-14 joint. My next 60" Prather cue ebony with 8 points was fancy and had 3\8-11 ss joint. And now I choosed unilock first of all because of the weight it is titanium it means lighter. G 10 I didn't want to use. So as the ABW was so heavy and densed 1,340 kg\m3 plus Pau Rosa 1,070 kg/m3 the square blank with the sides 28mm and 31,5" in length after splicing had a weight 750 gramms or almost 26,5 oz! After all the lathe work was done and the butt is finished I managed to get the weight at 16,5 oz after some wood was drilled out from the bottom end.
After playing so many years with pointed joints I have now my first cue with unilock and when it comes to the hit, yeah it is a big difference but I quess it is different first of all because of the construction, woods, other materials used). One more and the biggest advantage of unilock here in my home town and in our pool school most of the best players play with cues having this joint type. So it is very easy just to screw in any shaft you want to try or the other way give your butt to try).
Concerning the tip for many years I play with Kamui brown (now original) medium. I used to play with old Mooris (M) earlier which was pretty similar.

cueman said:

Nice looking cue. Welcome to the cue making world.

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Thank you very much for your words. I enjoy the journey very much being at the very beginning).

claymont said:

Very nice looking cue!! You made the carbon fiber, how'd you do that?

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Thanks a lot. Just one more hobby but that is another story. Very soon I will show some break\jump cues made for my students using phenolic and carbon fiber for the joint like in bk3. I'm just curious and making experiments to see the result. So far when it comes to what I expect to see the results are positive.

ibuycues said:

Very nice first post in this thread. You have a great background, and I enjoyed how you represented yourself.
Well done!

You should rightly take great pride in your cue. It looks great, with good wood selection and splicing.
I look forward to your next comments after your shaft work is complete.
The shaft taper plays a key role in how the cue feels and hits.

Again, congratulations, and welcome to the forum. :thumbup:

Will Prout

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First of all thank you very much for your kind words.
When it comes to the shaft taper I understand how it affects the hit and so on but in my case it is also the weight to be important. The hard maple I used is very densed and fairly heavy 0,720kg\m3. Two shafts for break/jump cues which were already made out of this maple with some difference in the construction impressed me so much and convinced me what construction to use for my playing shaft. You'll see my next comments when it is ready).

Michael Webb said:

That's an incredible start to a great journey. Awesome.

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Thank you very much. I'm happy to hear the kind words from such a great artist in this field.
In fact I just love to learn something new concerning the game and such аn interesting craft as the cuebuilding and I'm very lucky to have two very good friends in the field from my home town who helped a lot in learning the process.

deanoc said:

nice looking cue
looks like a nice start,lets hope you continue to grow
and enjoy the cue building

i have never had a quick release joint,but I do know
that Paul Drexler used them until they were used on
some lesser quality cues and fell from favor

no reflection on the joint,Paul would not have used
them if they were not top quality


it would make me proud if I could make a cue this nice,
good luck

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Thanks a lot for your compliments. So far it's getting more and more interesting.
Best regards.